The Auburn Pharm.D. program is a new and very different learning experience for most students. The combination of empiric and active learning methods requires a student who can assume responsibility for one's learning and problem solving. The following description provides an overview of the experience:

Year 1
Imagine yourself a first-year Pharm.D. student. You have a course load that provides an important biomedical science foundation for the future courses. At the same time, you begin to feel like a pharmacist because you are involved with a Pharmaceutical Care Team, which is responsible for providing actual patient care. Although you do not yet have the ability to solve these patients' drug-related problems, you are learning to talk to and care about people who will eventually become your patients.

Year 2
Your pharmaceutical knowledge, skills, and abilities are expanding each day as you encounter courses such as Principles of Antimicrobial Therapy. This course will provide you with a foundation about the body's immune system and drugs that help the body eliminate infectious diseases. The Pharmaceutical Biotechnology course will provide you with a foundation in how biotechnology-derived proteins and other substances are being developed as therapeutic and diagnostic agents. The Pharmacy Care Systems III course will enhance your understanding of the health care economy and how to make drug therapy decisions that are both cost-effective and improve patient quality of life. During the last part of the second year, you begin a series of modules. Each module is 3 or 4 weeks in duration and focuses on a given body system and diseases. In each module you are assigned case studies and learn by identifying and solving the patient's drug-related problems and preparing a therapeutic plan.

As a second year student on your Pharmaceutical Care Team, you are now more actively involved in patient care. You can now obtain and assimilate patient data. With the assistance of your Mentors you are identifying drug-related problems. You are even teaching the first year students on your team, reinforcing what you learned last year. At the end of this year, you complete a special examination that will provide both you and faculty with feedback about the pharmacy knowledge, attitudes, and skills you can now integrate. You will complete a similar examination at the end of each academic year.

Year 3
During this year, you complete the series of modules you started last year.  (There are 10 total modules in this phase of the curriculum.)  You are a member of a small group consisting of 8 – 10 students and an instructor who serves as a facilitator (not a lecturer).  During each week of the module, your group progresses through a series of case studies that require you and other students to explain basic science mechanisms, identify drug-related problems, and develop a therapeutic plan for the case study patient.  (Although most of the outcomes in Table 1 will be emphasized during this year, particular focus is given to outcome statements 6 – 10.)  Throughout the module, your group meets and is presented with a variety of case-studies.  You and other students on the team request information about the patient and, through this discussion, identify hypotheses about the patient’s problems and what the group needs to learn in order to solve the case-study (these are “learning issues”).  Subsequently, your group divides up the learning issues among each other.  Before the next session, each student will conduct self-directed learning to answer the assigned learning issue.  In addition, the group meets with faculty members who have expertise on a given topic to resolve their learning issues.  This self-directed learning requires you and others in your small group to use drug information resources, medical literature, the Internet, and other technologies.  Therefore, as a student you will continually develop your drug information skills.  After this time period, the student group meets again and each student reports what they have learned and teaches the rest of the group about the assigned learning issues.  During the group meeting, the group works on resolving the case. Once your group has resolved the case-study, your group will compose and verbally present recommendations to the group’s facilitator or other students.  This process continues the development of your communications skills.  Following successful completion of the first case-study, your group is assigned another one.  This process continues until the end of the module.

 In addition, you now have an important responsibility on your Pharmaceutical Care Team.  Your ability to handle patient cases is now much greater since you have some foundation in pharmacotherapy and experience in identifying and solving drug-related problems of the patients.  Therefore, your responsibilities in mentoring first and second year students are now greater.

Year 4
During this entire year, the provision of pharmaceutical care is ubiquitous.  Specifically, your focus of daily activities involves the following:  1) establishing pharmacist-patient relationships, 2) identifying, resolving, and preventing drug-related problems, and 3) documenting patient outcomes.  You are exposed to automation and robotics and you will see how they expand pharmacist opportunities to provide direct patient care. 

Most of your rotations focus on management of common illnesses and diseases that patients present within the community setting.  Much of this care is provided in the outpatient setting.  You are completing rotations with pharmacy faculty that are affiliated with family practice, medical residency programs, and other primary care settings around the state.  Rotation sites to which you could be assigned include Huntsville, Tuscaloosa, Birmingham, Montgomery, and Mobile, Alabama, and Columbus, Georgia.  In addition, you have the opportunity to select more distant rotation sites, which provide unique learning experiences such as the U.S. Public Health Service.  These sites provide unique learning experiences.

Final Outcomes Assessment
Having completed Year 4, you must demonstrate that you have achieved the abilities that you started developing when you entered pharmacy school.  You have successfully completed a simulation exam that required you to conduct an initial patient work up, identify and resolve drug-related problems and prepare a therapeutic plan for the patient.  This process required you to interact with other health professionals, make ethical decisions, and demonstrate self-directed learning skills.  Having successfully completed all program requirements, you are recommended for graduation.

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updated June 1, 2004