IPPE / APPE

Introductory Pharmacy Practice Experience (IPPE)
Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experience (APPE)

 

The experiential curriculum provides entry-level Doctor of Pharmacy students with structured, supervised experience in select areas of pharmacy practice. The primary objective of experiential education is to ensure that each student develops the knowledge, technical and application skills, professional judgment, and communication skills necessary for entry into the profession of pharmacy and to become an active participant in providing contemporary patient-centered care.

Skills Intensive IPPE Rotations

Throughout each semester of the didactic curriculum, students will integrate and apply knowledge gained into a single skill-focused experience in a variety of practice settings. Rotations are structured and sequenced intentionally. Skills intensive rotations build towards the immersion rotations that follow in the subsequent summer. During the experience, students will also gain initial experience interacting directly with patients, preceptors, technicians, and other health care providers and pharmacy personnel.

Immersion IPPE Rotations

During the summers after year 1 & year 2 of the curriculum, students complete more extensive placements to gain a better understanding of contemporary U.S. healthcare practice models and patient care activities. These 2-week, full-time placements allow students to participate in the breadth and depth of activities that occur within the practice. Settings for rotations include community pharmacy, institutional heath-system pharmacy, and interprofessional practices in both the ambulatory care/outpatient setting and in the inpatient setting. These immersive experiences facilitate further development of knowledge application and clinical reasoning skills.

Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experiences (APPEs)

The APPE curriculum is designed to allow students to mature professionally and integrate, apply, reinforce, and advance the knowledge, skills, attitudes, abilities, and behaviors developed in the pre-APPE curriculum and co-curriculum.

All students participate in ten (10) month-long rotations as part of the APPE curriculum which applies to all classes beyond Class of 2025. The curriculum is comprised of core required experiences across all major practice areas, as well as student selected elective experiences which allow for the exploration of areas of professional interest and expand their understanding of professional opportunities. The majority of electives must have a patient care focus.

The curriculum includes over thirty (30) unique elective courses. Students can seek out opportunities in direct patient care experiences involving psychiatry, emergency medicine, infectious disease, hematology/oncology, and more. They can also take advantage of non-patient care focused experiences focused on pharmacy management, research/drug development, and other administrative or regulatory activities.