Number of Students/Year

[njac]

How many students do you take on rotation? How many students per rotation, how long are the rotations? Do you take residents in addition to students?

What about vacation time? Does someone else precept while you're out, or do you schedule vacations around when students are rotating?

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[BidingMyTime]

How many students you take will depend on how big your facility is, I'd say anywhere from 1 - 5 is average depending on size. Rotation length will depend on the particular school, usually from 5 - 8 weeks. Getting an accredited residency is a completely separate issue from students....generally most places big enough to have a resident will also have students.

I've never known a preceptor to spend 100% of their time with a student. A preceptor may have a student shadow them a day or 2, and the preceptor will check in regularly with the student, but the majority of the rotation will be spent having the student work with other pharmacists or technicians in the various areas of the hospital, or having the student work on a project independently. Taking vacation time shouldn't be an issue, just make sure the student know what they should do in your absence (and share that schedule with another full-time pharmacist, so if there are any issues, that pharmacist will be able to see what the student should be doing.)

 

[njac]

I've been precepting students from schools all over the country for several years now. I usually take 6-7 students over the course of the year, and have another pharmacist who covers my service to share the load with. However, as I'm exploring other options I'm encountering some student burdens that seem nearly impossible.

2 students per 4 week rotation x 9 rotations/year. Seems ridiculous. With plans to add a residency in a few years, so resident and project precepting in addition.

Not sure when I would actually do patient care... Was curious if this is a common expectation, or if this institution is dreaming.

 

[confettiflyer]

Depends what the rotation is. If it's an acute care/critical care rotation, absolutely 1:1 is needed for a quality rotation. I've had two students and it was managable when one was on the institutional/hospital/operations rotation and we spent 1:1 time maybe once-twice a week for a little bit.

With heavy patient and clinical loads, each primary preceptor usually takes on a single student for ~40 weeks a year. We have residents + IPPE students floating around here and there, but those are managed by the operations preceptor who just coordinates.

Yeah I think your institution is dreaming, haha...or they appear willing to turn you into a true academic clinical pharmacist with minimal patient care responsibilities (hah) or have the local pharmacy school cover your salary (I've seen hybrid set ups more frequently now here and there).

As for vacations, we don't really plan around students and just sort of deal with the consequences as they come. Usually we have enough preceptor capacity that someone else can handle the evals/follow up.

 

[xiphoid2010]

I terminated our affiliation agreement. No more students, wasn't paid anyway, dont want to contribute to surpluses either.

 

[confettiflyer]

I terminated our affiliation agreement. No more students, wasn't paid anyway, dont want to contribute to surpluses either.

lol, you couldn't incorporate them into your clinical workflow? After we tune them up the first few days, they handle our adverse event reporting system, pharmacokinetic service workload, and patient counseling with minimal oversight.

Then again, I'm spoiled with UCSF kids for the most part, dunno who you got in your pool. Plus we get awesome library access.

 

[KARM12]

I am very involved with our residency program...6 resident rotations, plus other projects and resident committees. I take 2 students/year. If I really wanted to, I could take more, but I like the independence of a resident over a student.

 

[All4MyDaughter]

I take one at a time, but our department often has two. We've had three once. We just cover each others' vacations and stuff. Ours are from two different schools. Once school has five week blocks and the other has six.

 

[WVUPharm2007]

They tried to get me to babysit when I was at the hospital gig. I told them no. I found that it was very effective at reducing my student preceptoring anxiety.

It takes a weird type of person to actually want to do it voluntarily.

 

[confettiflyer]

It takes a weird type of person to actually want to do it voluntarily.

I get a kick out of kicking students into the real world and out of the ivory tower.

 

[njac]

There's also some confusion that this isn't a generic institutional rotation.

This is an elective clinical specialty rotation, where the service is my baby.

Other than sending them for a few days to the icu or with an id pharmacist, there's not much "sharing"

 

[KARM12]

Same, I have no one to share my student with if I am not there. I don't over burden myself with students because there are other things more pressing and sometimes you just need a break.