Value of the Student Pharmacist to Experiential Practice Sites: A Review of the Literature

Abstract

Pharmacy students provide many recommendations with high acceptance rates. During their pharmacy practice experiences, students generally confer economic and clinical benefits that may exceed the costs associated with their supervision and training.

Providers' Perceptions of Student Pharmacists on Inpatient General Medicine Practice Experiences

“…The contribution of the student pharmacist on daily rounds has been described quantitatively in the literature using various endpoints such as the total number of interventions performed, percentage of recommendations accepted, type of interventions, time spent, and cost avoidance/savings. 1 The participation of pharmacy personnel, including students, during medical rounds may add additional value by facilitating relationships with the medical, nursing, and other allied health care staff, while addressing unmet needs and increasing efficiency within the pharmacy department. 2 Doctor of pharmacy students at Northeastern University are required to complete at least 1 of their advanced pharmacy practice experiences (APPEs) within a hospital inpatient general medicine setting.…”

Collaboration: A Key Ingredient for Experiential Training

“…In our experience, and as indicated in the literature, students are already providing value to patients during their experiential training, 2 but we acknowledge that there are opportunities to ensure that this occurs more consistently.…”

“…These results were shared with participants in a symposium entitled "Managing the Change to Entry Level PharmD in Canada", hosted by the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Toronto in November 2004. 2 A similar survey conducted in 2009 yielded comparable results, with only 11 (15%) of 73 hospital pharmacy directors and managers indicating that they would be able to provide longer or more clinical practice rotations, arguing the same main concerns as in 2004. 3 However, 46 (63%) of the respondents expressed their willingness to work with academic institutions in developing innovative models of experiential education for student pharmacists.…”

Capacity Ratios to Assess the Solvency of a College's Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experience Program

“…Competition for preceptors and sites is directly related to the capacity of experiential education programs, and a great deal of the literature focuses on delineating barriers to increasing capacity, forming new methods for preceptor and site development, and describing the benefits of precepting student pharmacists. 4,9,[12][13][14][15] Our office is now faced with the task of using the information gained in this analysis to increase capacity in those areas found to be insolvent. Additional research will be needed to calculate capacity ratios for all elective practice experiences in order to find other categories in need of expansion.…”