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The External
Doctor of Pharmacy Degree
Clerkship Overview

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What are the Elements of a Clerkship?

• A pharmaceutical care learning experience
   
  • Pharmaceutical care emphasizes the unique contributions of pharmacists as members of the health care team, specifically that of promoting positive therapeutic outcomes and enhancing the quality of life that should accompany our health care experiences
• Pharmaceutical care offers an approach to implementing problem oriented drug therapy review in a structured environment
• Pharmaceutical care involves the identification, resolution and prevention of drug related problems
• The pharmacist's first responsibility in pharmaceutical care is to maintain or improve the patient's quality of life by optimizing drug therapy
• Pharmaceutical care requires taking responsibility for redesigning an existing drug therapy plan, designing new drug therapy plans, and monitoring the side effects of drug therapy
• The clerkship experience allows the student to practice the process through which he or she cooperates with and assists a patient and other professionals in designing, promoting, and monitoring a therapeutic plan to ensure specific therapeutic outcomes for the patient (i.e., improve a patient's quality of life by reducing the risk of drug related problems)
   
• University directed and facilitated
   
  • Completed under the direction of faculty of the school of pharmacy--including adjunct faculty practioners
     
• Quality controlled
   
  • Uniform course goals and objectives
  • Common method of evaluating performance
     
• Defined length of time
   
  • Each clerkship in our program is equivalent to 4 weeks of full time experience, that is 160 hours. They may be completed part-time

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Goals of a Clerkship

It is expected that the successful student will enhance their:

• Pharmaceutical care and clinical problem-solving skills including:
   
  • Gather data and assess patient's drug-related problems
  • Develop a pharmaceutical care plan for the patient
  • Recommend a therapeutic drug monitoring plan, including drug concentration monitoring, and indicators of efficacy and toxicity
  • Assess drug therapy regimen in a patient with altered renal or hepatic function
  • Demonstrate an awareness of the assessment skills in the areas necessary to monitor medication outcome
     
• Communication skills
   
  • Provide drug information verbally and in writing
  • Communicate drug use information to patients
  • Write patient consult notes in a professional format
     
• Professional behavior
   
  • Demonstrate professional attitude, motivation, and ethics
     
• Factual information
   
  • Demonstrate a fundamental knowledge of pharmacotherapeutics in the areas necessary to provide the service
     
• Organizational awareness
   
  • Understand the organized health-care environment in which the clerkship is taking place in order to provide pharmaceutical care

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Types of Clerkships

• Traditional Clerkship Model
   
  • Completed in typical patient care settings, whether in-patient or out-patient, where you are a guest
  • Usually full-time (40 hours per week for 4 weeks), but may be part-time
  • Must demonstrate professional growth and maturation as an outcome
     
• Nontraditional Clerkship Model
   
  • Can be in pharmacist's practice environment, the pharmacist may be paid by the an outside agency while completing the clerkship
     
    • A change in practice habits can have a large influence on pharmacy practice
    • Performing activities that are part of regularly assigned work responsibilities or for which competency has been demonstrated via portfolio will not be considered for clerkship credit
    • Must demonstrate professional growth and maturation as an outcome
       
  • Same goals, objectives, and outcomes as traditional clerkship
     
    • Attend to "outcomes" not to "time in experience"
    • Each experience is equivalent to 160 hours of learning, and may be taken part-time
       
  • Same evaluation methods
  • Requires experienced and trained preceptors (preceptor-less rotations may be appropriate under certain circumstances, but are considered rarely)
     
• The Practice Advancement Clerkship Model (PAC)
   
  • Equivalent to up to 3 clerkships, number is dependent on the project
  • Completed in 6-8 months (i.e., part-time)
  • A faculty member will supervise, advise, and evaluate the PAC activities
  • Foster learning through the justification, development, evaluation, and implementation of new pharmaceutical care services
  • Performing activities that are part of regularly assigned work responsibilities or for which competency has been demonstrated via portfolio will not be considered for clerkship credit
  • Must demonstrate professional growth and maturation as an outcome
  • Objectives of the PAC:
     
    • To identify and justify a specific PC service in a pharmacy setting in which the pharmacist is practicing
    • To develop the structure and procedures under which the service will function
    • To justify the program on an economic basis to financial administrators at the practice site
    • To develop and implement the process for instituting the program at the practice site
    • To develop a plan for evaluation of the program outcomes relative to both patient care and resource utilization
    • To provide a written report

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What to do to Obtain Approval for a Clerkship

• Complete at least 4 pharmacotherapeutic weekend workshops (5 must be completed before starting the clerkship)
• 0utline the project in writing
   
  • Include an overall goal (one sentence)
  • Describe 3-5 objectives (use action words) which will be accomplished to meet the goal
  • Provide an outline describing:
     
    • Where it will be accomplished
    • What general type of experience is it (e.g., general medicine, ambulatory, etc.)
    • The specific activities which will help accomplish the objectives
    • The timeline in which the objectives will be accomplished (estimated)
    • A plan for how the outcomes will be evaluated
    • How will you ensure quality of the experience
    • How the experience will lead to your professional growth and maturation and is not part of your regularly assigned duties
       
• Find a faculty preceptor or advisor for the project (someone willing to help oversee and guide you, not necessarily on our full time faculty)
• Get the proposal approved by the clerkship director
• Register for the course through your university
• Provide a written report describing your experience and how well your objectives were met, detailing what you learned, and evaluating the experience