Overview

The Introductory Pharmacy Practice Experience (IPPE) Program begins the beginning of the first professional year of pharmacy school and continues for all four years.

Year 1 – Students receive direct training in a community pharmacy for 50 hours each semester, with one semester being in a chain community pharmacy and the other semester in an independent community pharmacy.
Year 2 – Students receive direct training in a hospital pharmacy throughout both semesters (50 hours each semester).
Year 3 – Students receive health-focused service learning opportunities, including medical mission trips, rural health promotion and screenings, indigent clinics and charitable pharmacy experiences, education at local elementary and secondary education institutions. These experiences have the following desired learning outcomes:

• Integrating a biblical worldview into healthcare
• Promoting health and preventing diseases in different communities and at risk populations
• Exhibiting servant leadership

Year 4 – Students participate in nine months of full-time Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experience (APPE) rotations. These rotations allow the student to bridge didactic training and IPPE with real-life experiences in several areas of contemporary pharmacy practice emphasizing problem-solving, clinical skills, and critical thinking. Knowledge, practice skills, and professional attitudes and values must be integrated and applied, reinforced, and advanced throughout the curriculum, including the pharmacy practice experiences.

• Each rotation is one calendar month in length and includes advanced community practice, advanced health systems pharmacy, ambulatory care practice, and adult acute care practice.
• The students will also select a rotation in either advanced community practice or advanced health systems pharmacy and in either advanced ambulatory care practice or advanced adult acute care.
• There are opportunities for three elective rotations to complement the program.