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.
Team-Based Learning (TBL) Program
The SSPPS curriculum during the second year has a significant portion of time devoted to Team-Based Learning (TBL) throughout the academic year. The TBL program is integrated into the biomedical curriculum and designed to support pharmacy students’ long-term retention of each block’s course objectives through frequent and spaced assessments of student performance. Students actively work together in teams, assimilating knowledge, solving problems, and teaching one another. This type of active learning helps students develop the critical thinking and communication skills as well as the problem-solving and professional team skills necessary to become competent pharmacists.
Fall Quarter
Cardiovascular System
Cardiovascular System, in the integrated sciences curriculum Human Health and Disease, emphasizes the normal function of the cardiovascular system, focusing on cardiovascular physiology, related cell and molecular biology and pharmacology. To assure that pharmacology can be successfully integrated into this and subsequent organ system blocks, Cardiovascular System includes lectures on some important principles of pharmacology, including drug-receptor interactions and the physiology and pharmacology of the autonomic nervous system.
Foundations of Medicine
Foundations of Medicine is an interdisciplinary course in the integrated sciences curriculum of Human Health and Disease in which the biological basis of modern medicine will be discussed. This includes a fundamental background in relevant cell biology, molecular biology, and genetics. Group study and collaboration are encouraged.
Gastrointestinal System and Nutrition
The overall aim of the course is to introduce key physiological concepts necessary to understand and treat patients with digestive and liver diseases. In keeping with an integrated approach to medical and pharmaceutical education, the course spans various disciplines, ranging from Physiology and Molecular Biology to Anatomy, Histology, and Pharmacology. Pathophysiological principles and links to specific disease states will be mentioned.
Principles of Pharmacology and Physiology
Topics include the pharmacology of autonomic and cardiovascular drugs, receptor pharmacology, drugs acting at cholinergic and adrenergic receptors and their applications and basic principles of absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion, mechanism of action and toxicities.
Pulmonary System
The Pulmonary System block in the Human Health and Disease courses incorporates anatomy, histology, physiology and pharmacology of the pulmonary system with an emphasis on normal lung function and related physiology, cell and molecular biology and an introduction to pulmonary disease. Both clinical and basic science faculty will teach the course, which emphasizes the importance of collaboration and teamwork in modern medical and pharmacy practice.
Winter Quarter
Laboratory Medicine
Laboratory Medicine is an introduction to fundamental laboratory biological tissue testing. Emphasis is placed on general interpretation of laboratory data, normal and abnormal, the systematic use of laboratory tests in the evaluation and management of the most common and important clinical conditions, and the anticipated changes when therapeutics are applied.
Renal System
The Renal System of the integrated sciences curriculum Human Health and Disease emphasizes normal function of the kidney and urinary tract, focusing on kidney physiology, cell and molecular biology and pharmacology. Small-group sessions, team-based learning (TBL) and laboratories incorporating Renal Problem Set/Case Studies will help students master important concepts in kidney physiology. In the Drug Excretion small-group session students will discuss pharmacokinetics and drug excretion.
Principles of Pharmacology and Physiology
Basic principles of absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion, mechanisms of action and toxicities of anti-psychotic, anti-depressant, anti-Parkinson and sedative-hypnotic drugs are discussed
Spring Quarter
Endocrinology, Reproduction and Metabolism
ERM provides an integrated introduction to the physiology of the endocrine, reproductive and metabolic systems of human biology. ERM imparts an understanding of the cell and molecular biology, pharmacology and biochemical principles underlying metabolism, the mechanisms of hormone action, and the role of the endocrine system in regulation of homeostasis and reproduction.
Immunology and Hematology
Immunology & Hematology of the integrated sciences curriculum, two separate but integrated subjects under a single course, presents immunology followed by hematology. Immunology provides the fundamental background of the human immune system including allergy and autoimmunity and how the human immune system fights disease. Hematology will extend the cellular immunology background to diseases of blood cells. Hematology will include lectures, cases, and laboratories and balance active and passive learning to optimally provide a clinically relevant understanding of the human blood system.
Microbiology
Microbiology of the integrated sciences curriculum is designed to provide the basic biology of microbial pathogens, the mechanisms by which they cause disease, the host's defenses against microbial infection and the principles of antimicrobial therapy, incorporating related cell and molecular biology and pharmacology. This will establish a useful body of knowledge relevant to the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of infectious diseases and to provide a basic framework for continuous learning.
Principles of Pharmacology and Physiology
Basic principles of absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion, mechanism of action and toxicities are discussed for drugs in thyroid diseases, diabetes, adrenal dysfunction, reproduction control, coagulopathies, anemia, infection and malignancy are discussed.