Year 3 of the Curriculum – Course Work | Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences

Fall Quarter

Therapeutics I

First in a four-part series presenting drug therapy management of different diseases. Emphasis is on drug selection, monitoring therapeutic outcomes, integrating laboratory tests/organ function, drug interaction/adverse reaction recognition/management, applied pharmacokinetics and developing analytical and patient care skills.

Advanced Professional Practice Lab

Development of professional skills and the application of knowledge necessary for practice. The Advanced Professional Practice series will provide students with opportunities to apply their knowledge of pharmacotherapy to standardized patients in simulated ambulatory and hospital environments. Students will develop communication skills for varied real world challenges. Student pharmacists will develop their skills related to the safe and accurate distribution of medications in a simulated environment. Students will train in health care teams with students from health care disciplines to learn effective communication and organization for effective and safe patient care.

Pharmacogenomics

This course provides an understanding of the evolving area of genomics and the correlation between an individual's or subpopulation's genetic make-up and their response to drugs.

Winter Quarter

Therapeutics II

Second in a four-part series presenting drug therapy management of different diseases. Emphasis is on drug selection, monitoring therapeutic outcomes, integrating laboratory tests/organ function, drug interaction/adverse reaction recognition/management, applied pharmacokinetics and developing analytical and patient care skills.

Therapeutics IV

Fourth in a four-part series. Students will use their previous knowledge of anatomy, physiology, pathophysiology, pharmaceutics, pharmacokinetics, pharmacology and literature evaluation to formulate appropriate therapeutic decisions. Each week students will apply the knowledge acquired from lectures and readings to patient cases that will be discussed with peers in weekly conference sections. By the end of the series, students will have reviewed the pathophysiology of major disease states, the pharmacology of the drugs used to treat these disease states, and critically analyzed the decision processes to create and implement therapeutic plans. The therapeutics series of courses is the culmination of knowledge gained in previous years to prepare students for the practice of pharmaceutical care on clinical rotations. Pharmaceutical care is defined as the responsible provision of drug therapy for the purpose of achieving definite outcomes that improve a patient’s quality of life.

Contemporary Topics in Pharmacology I

This course develops drug focused pharmaceutical chemistry, pharmacology and pharmacogenomics principles. Integration with Therapeutics courses brings together structure-activity-relationships, metabolic pathways, mechanisms of action, excretion, and population genetics to enhance drug selection for simple/complex therapy.

Spring Quarter

Applied Pharmacoeconomics

Introduction to management principles utilized to manage drug therapy for patient populations to produce quality clinical, economic and humanistic outcomes in a cost-effective manner. Emphasis is on the application of basic management and decision analysis functions to evaluate the need for and document the effect of pharmaceutical care interventions in a variety of pharmacy practice settings.

Therapeutics III

Third in a four-part series presenting drug therapy management of different diseases. Emphasis is on drug selection, monitoring therapeutic outcomes, integrating laboratory tests/organ function, drug interaction/adverse reaction recognition/management, applied pharmacokinetics and developing analytical and patient care skills.

Advanced Professional Practice Lab

Continuation of Fall Quarter Advanced Professional Practice. Development of professional skills and the application of knowledge necessary for practice. The Advanced Professional Practice series will provide students with opportunities to apply their knowledge of pharmacotherapy to standardized patients in simulated ambulatory and hospital environments. Students will develop communication skills for varied real world challenges. Student pharmacists will develop their skills related to the safe and accurate distribution of medications in a simulated environment. Students will train in health care teams with students from health care disciplines to learn effective communication and organization for effective and safe patient care.

Contemporary Topics in Pharmacology II

Year-Round

Introductory Pharmacy Practice Experiences (IPPE)

Students are expected to engage in IPPEs in the areas of community pharmacy, institutional health-system pharmacy, health-related service learning, and simulated activities during the first three years of the pharmacy curriculum. These experiences are intended to serve as a bridge between didactic courses and fourth-year Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experiences (APPE). Students must complete 300 IPPE hours by the end of the Winter Quarter of the P3 year in order to progress to fourth-year APPEs.

Co-Curricular Program

The Co-Curricular Program organizes and documents the learning environment outside the classroom to focus on activities that are student-centered, learning-focused, and intentional. The goal is to promote high-quality co-curricular activities across the student experiences that build competencies to prepare student pharmacists to be practice-ready and team-ready.

Pharm.D. Required Student Research Project

Completing a research project is required of all students and is a prerequisite for graduation. Students are encouraged to consider potential projects beginning in their first year. Students may complete their research project in any academic year. For Pharm.D./Ph.D. program students, completion of the Ph.D. thesis project will satisfy this graduation project requirement.