Learn in state-of-the-art health care institutions from leading experts.
The Pitt Pharmacy Experiential Learning Program (ELP) makes up one-third of the PharmD curriculum. Pitt pharmacy provides you the opportunity to apply didactic learning in a real-world experience with the guidance of a preceptor as you develop the skill, attitudes, and values to become a trusted professional.
Pitt Pharmacy has created affiliations with over 1000 preceptors in the state, nationally and internationally to provide required and elective experiences. Sites include, but are not limited to, hospitals, community pharmacies, managed care organizations, pharmaceutical industry companies, and more.
First Year (P-1) focuses on enhancing social awareness and understanding of health-related unmet medical needs within the community, developing communication skills with patients from diverse populations.
Second Year (P-2) focuses on the pharmaceutical care process in the community and understanding the prescription preparation, dispensing, and counseling skills.\
Third Year (P-3) focuses on institutional and health system pharmaceutical care process along with responsible medication preparation and delivery.
Fourth Year (P-4) the entire year consists of eight full-time five-week rotations that provide intensive practice of the pharmaceutical care process with increasingly complex pharmacotherapeutic problems. There are five required rotations that cover the pharmaceutical care process in different practice settings. There are three elective rotations that provide the opportunity to gain experience in global health, pharmaceutical industry, managed care, or other specialty areas.
Personalizing your learning is facilitated by the diversity in experiences that are available to you including sites in 11 different countries, many pharmaceutical companies, the FDA, research at NIH or Pitt, and more.
Throughout the PharmD program, students will complete two types of practice experiences.
The Introductory Pharmacy Practice Experiences (IPPEs) consist of 300 hours or more throughout the first three professional years.
The Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experiences (APPEs) are completed in the fourth year with a minimum of 1440 hours in a variety of practice settings.
The combined hours of IPPE and APPE experiences comprise over 30% of the PharmD curriculum.