Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experience Rotations

This comprehensive experience provides students with a strong foundation in the diverse aspects of institutional pharmacy practice within a pediatric oncology setting. Students gain exposure to core hospital pharmacy operations, such as medication distribution systems, sterile compounding (including chemotherapy and TPN), controlled substance management, inventory control and outpatient services. The rotation also offers insight into broader administrative and clinical functions, such as formulary management, pharmacokinetics, pharmacogenomics, collaborative practice, and involvement in research protocols and investigational drugs.

This rotation emphasizes clinical communication, patient education and exposure to hospital-based community pharmacy operations, providing a unique blend of ambulatory care and community practice experience. Students engage in direct patient care with a focus on medication reconciliation, discharge counseling and chronic disease management. They work closely with interdisciplinary teams to support transitions of care and ensure optimal medication use.

Candidates for this rotation must have a strong interest in developing and improving clinical research skills. Students will collaborate with pharmacy fellows to engage in pharmacoepidemiology, pharmacogenomics, or pharmaceutics-focused clinical research.

This rotation introduces fourth-year pharmacy students to the responsibilities of managing pharmacy services within a pediatric academic health system. Students work alongside pharmacy leaders to gain exposure to personnel management, regulatory and accreditation requirements, quality improvement initiatives, project management, and departmental operations. Students develop an understanding of how pharmacy leaders support safe and efficient medication-use processes, foster team engagement, and align departmental goals with the St. Jude mission. This experience is designed to enhance leadership awareness, strengthen professional communication skills and provide insight into career opportunities within pharmacy administration and health-system leadership.

Students become familiar with daily clinical pharmacy practice and the intersection of pharmacy practice with pediatric catastrophic disease on their assigned service. Students will work with a multidisciplinary team to develop therapeutic recommendations and education for patients and their caregivers. They also engage in pharmacokinetics, pharmacogenomics results, nutrition support, medication reconciliation and pharmacotherapy in the context of clinical trials.

Students will be introduced to the procedures and best practices, technology, regulations, and documentation requirements for pharmacy sterile and nonsterile compounding. Students are also involved in process improvement and medication error risk mitigation within the cleanroom setting, as well as hazardous drug compounding and handling.

Students gain an understanding of the role the medication safety and policy pharmacist plays in optimizing medication use and improving patient outcomes. Students learn to identify contributing factors to medication-related events and develop strategies for improvement, identify opportunities to enhance systems and processes within the medication use cycle to reduce medication errors, and develop and review medication use policies.

Students gain experience utilizing a person’s pharmacogenomic profile results to optimize pharmacotherapy within an established clinical pharmacogenomics program. This rotation provides students with the opportunity to observe, participate in and contribute to a clinical pharmacogenomics program, including interpreting test results, returning results in the pharmacogenomics clinic and providing recommendations for optimizing medication therapy. Students improve their patient counseling skills by learning how to communicate complex genetic information effectively. Learners also gain insight into guideline development, literature review and clinical implementation through interactions with Clinical Pharmacogenetics Implementation Consortium leaders. Additionally, students complete a project from initiation through completion, fostering skills in critical thinking, research and advancing personalized medicine practice.

Students gain an understanding of the role an informatics pharmacist plays within a health system while enhancing their understanding of pharmacy and medication-use–related systems and technologies. They gain exposure to clinical and operational workflows that are supported by these systems and the informatics team members who maintain the support model.

Students gain experience in diverse health care environments worldwide. Students observe, participate in and contribute to the delivery of pharmacy services in global contexts, ranging from resource-limited settings to advanced health care systems. Students gain insight into the role of pharmacists in international health care systems, explore cultural differences in health care delivery, and understand the challenges and opportunities within global pharmacy practice.