My involvement in the Community Pharmacy Clinical Clerkship rotations.

For several years I have worked with three pharmacist in the Gainesville area to provide structured clinical pharmacy experiences for pharmacy students in the community pharmacy setting. The significant barrier to providing this type of experience is the lack of time available to the community pharmacist to provide these clinical services much less participate in structured learning exercises with their students and supervise projects. My role has been to help the pharmacist by coordinating the structured learning and projects for the student who are on the clerkships at these sites. The following is a typical clerkship syllabus for PharmD student on one the these rotations.
 

Community Pharmacy Clinical Clerkship Syllabus

Target Pharmacy
Peggy Owen: Preceptor
Randell Doty: Co-preceptor

Course Philosophy

The importance of the clinical experience cannot be overemphasized in the profession of pharmacy today. Understanding the principles of proper patient care is essential if pharmacy is to grow as a profession and maintain the respect of patients and other health care providers. Pharmacy is in a state of change as a profession. If pharmacists remain content to exercise only their technical skills, then they may be left behind in the broader scope of health care. Since this is the case, this course stresses the interaction of pharmacist and patient and the pharmacist's responsibility to those patients.

Particular emphasis will be placed on the careful and systematic approach to the assessment of the patient's drug therapy to identify potential and existing drug related problems, evaluate these problems and work with other health care team members to minimize the risk to the patient.

Course Description

During the course of the month, the student will be exposed to the daily clinical activities of the community pharmacy setting, with the focus placed upon a patient care approach. The student will learn the goals of clinical intervention and the steps necessary to effectively execute those interventions. Evaluating and solving drug related problems, patient interaction, and acting as a primary health care source will be stressed.

Goals, Objectives & Activities

Upon completion of this clerkship the student should have possess the following via completion of the listed activities.
  1. An understanding of the role of the community pharmacist as a primary care provider who identifies and solves drug related problems
  2. Recognition of the most common drug related problems
  3. An understanding of the stepwise process used to identify and solve those problems
    1. Collection of the information necessary to discern if the patient has a drug related problem
    2. Identifying these problems
    3. Developing therapeutic goals
    4. Formulating realistic solutions to the problems
    5. Choosing the most appropriate solution
    6. Implementing the solution
    7. Monitoring the implementation of the solution to achieve the set goals
    8. Construct an organized comprehensive case presentation including the patient's past history, current history, overview of disease, and various treatment methods, critically evaluating each component
  4. An understanding of the Health Care needs of a community and the individuals within that community
  5. An understanding of the interaction of the pharmacist with health care providers regarding drug selection, drug information, and drug therapy monitoring.
  6. Recognition of the impact of social, psychological, and economical factors on drug therapy selection and use.
  7. An understanding of the basic logistics behind operating a clinically active community pharmacy
  8. An understanding of the topics discussed and situations encountered during the clerkship demonstrated by completing a test at the end of the month covering those items.

ASSIGNED Activities

  1. Participate in community health education or screening project.
  2. Present and participate in biweekly topic discussions.

Optional ASSIGNED Activities

Participation may be assigned by the preceptor or chosen by the student if time and opportunity permit.
  1. Involvement with hospice, nursing home or senior center
  2. Selection and use of durable medical products equipment and devices, ostomy supplies, and /or orthopedic appliances

Project Assignment

  1. Prepare a project proposal outlining the expansion of clinical services at the clerkship site. This should include data on need, feasibility, legalities, expense, profitability, and time to implement. This could be an expansion of existing services or a new service to be instituted.
  2. Prepare and deliver an in-service or newsletter to a group of local health care professionals concerning a current topic.
  3. Prepare a paper on specific topic related to patient oriented services in a community pharmacy
  4. Prepare an analysis of a current clinical service for evaluation purposes. This could include, patient subjective evaluation, health care professional subjective evaluation, cost justification, or impact on patient studies.
  5. Participate in expanding the clinical services of the pharmacy as outlined in a previous clerkship project.

Biweekly discussion topics:

Twice a week the student be prepared to discuss one topic from the list provided below. These should prepared by the students as an informal presentation of the topic. The student should be prepared to answer questions asked by the preceptor. This time should also be used to discuss the status of the clerkship projects. Presentations of the above topics should contain at least the following information when applicable:
    Introduction Primary Agents Recommendations
Not all topics will be able to follow this outline 
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