Elevate

With an eye on deepening engagement for PharmD students at both the Chicago and Rockford campuses, the UIC College of Pharmacy’s revised curriculum blends a more comprehensive emphasis on experiential education alongside earlier access to pharmacy content.

According to College leaders, the now two-year-old curriculum, which updated a curriculum installed nearly two decades prior, reflects considerable shifts in the healthcare and academic landscape and provides students even greater access to career and postgraduate opportunities.

“With access to thought-leading faculty and high-quality instruction, as well as exposure to research, the latest technology, and real-world practice areas, we’re providing our students the experiences they need to be successful professionals in the contemporary healthcare world,” Dean Glen Schumock says.

Developing a revised curriculum

Spurred by changes to the North American Pharmacist Licensure Examination, new standards from the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), and shifts to the Pharmacy College Admission Test blueprint, College leaders took their first steps toward a new curriculum in 2009.

Over a nearly seven-year development process, a committee headed by Associate Professor Dr. Robert DiDomenico and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Dr. Marieke Schoen gathered feedback from students, faculty, and preceptors; hosted discussion at faculty retreats, College Advisory Board meetings, and an ACPE site visit; and assessed the College’s existing curriculum to identify unintended redundancies and gaps in content as well as opportunities to improve teaching methods.

Launched in fall 2016, the revised curriculum included updates to required pre-pharmacy coursework, new competencies and outcomes, and 35 new courses. PDAT 10, a new course in the Pathophysiology, Drug Action, and Therapeutics series, for instance, challenges students to manage disease states in complex patients. Other new course additions covered topics such as patient safety; professional development; and clinical pharmaceutics, pharmacokinetics, and pharmacogenomics.

While still requiring students to complete 133 hours of coursework, the new curriculum also increased the number of advanced pharmacy practice experiences in the fourth professional year from six to seven.

“We had a successful curriculum in place, but also saw various changes in pharmacy practice and patient care,” Schoen says. “We needed to focus more on the soft skills and inter-professional education, to update content, and to emphasize certain areas like patient safety and immunology more.”

And there was a particular push, sparked specifically by student and alumni feedback, to provide pharmacyspecific content and experiential education earlier in students’ academic careers.

Those particular changes, Schumock notes, allow students to better understand different areas of pharmacy practice and potential career possibilities.

“By getting students pharmacy-specific content and experiential experiences earlier, they’re able to pursue career opportunities more intentionally and tailor their coursework and extracurriculars accordingly,” he says.

The curriculum reflects considerable shifts in the healthcare and academic landscape.

“ It is the teachers of the curriculum and the learning environment we create that make UIC so distinctive, and our revised curriculum only reinforces our strength as one of the nation’s top pharmacy schools while elevating the entire student experience to a better place.”

GLEN T. SCHUMOCK Professor and Dean

The revised curriculum, however, did more than map out a PharmD student’s four-year academic journey. It also empowered faculty to pursue fresh courses and instructional methods, particularly those driven by the latest research in learning theory.

“We were leaders in active learning strategy, but we wanted to do more to keep students engaged beyond the traditional lecture format,” Schoen says.

Over the last two years, in fact, faculty members have introduced new course formats designed around technology, student participation, and direct application of knowledge.

Clinical Assistant Professor Dr. Samantha Spencer, for example, has incorporated team-based and group activities alongside independent, self-paced learning in

her courses on drug information and evidence-based medicine. Specifically, Spencer worked with UIC’s TALK (Teach, Assess, Learn & Know) Center to develop short videos students watch prior to class. When students then assemble in the classroom, they work in teams to practice the technical knowledge and communication skills so critical to success in healthcare’s team-based environments.

“The resounding thing we’ve heard from students is that they feel more engaged in the classroom and are enjoying the teamwork aspect,” says Spencer, who earned the College’s Frederick P. Siegel Innovative Teaching Award earlier this year for her ambitious instructional efforts.

The College also instituted some modular courses, essentially stacking a 10-week, two-credit course on top of a one-credit course covering a semester’s opening five weeks. These modular courses provide students intensive focus on a specific topic while reducing a sometimes overwhelming course burden.

“We had some semesters with six or seven courses and that was too many,” Schoen says.

By pairing expert faculty and the latest research alongside a more dynamic classroom experience and compelling experiential opportunities, Schumock says UIC’s PharmD students are well positioned to thrive in today’s healthcare marketplace. �

“The resounding thing we’ve heard from students is that they feel more engaged in the classroom and are enjoying the teamwork aspect.”

DR. SAMANTHA SPENCER Clinical assistant professor