Thank you double DAWG for the information
Athens is a small city and I heard there is not many pharmacies in the area to accommodate UGA COP students for rotations and that was the reason why UGA adapted the 2+2 program. Do year 1, 2, 3 IPPEs all take place in the city of Athens?
First, second, and third year IPPEs do not all take place in Athens, no. They take place all over the state. I'll try to break it down into what you do each year, and where you might do it:
First Year: Spring semester classes for first-year students only last 12 weeks (instead of 16), then you take your finals, and then you spend the last 3 weeks of the semester working in a retail pharmacy. It could be in a retail chain, in a grocery store pharmacy, or in an independent. For this, you will name cities within Georgia that you are willing to be located in for the IPPE. Not surprisingly, most students would like to be in Athens, but it's simply not possible to place ~145 students all in Athens. They will tell you to include cities that your parents or other relatives may live in, so that if you get placed there you will have accommodations. I think that they give out-of-state students without other accommodations in Georgia priority for Athens IPPE locations so they can continue to live in their apartments or whatever. The other 2 IPPE experiences during the first year actually take place during the summer and include a one-day introduction to hospital experience and a one-day introduction to an ambulatory treatment center. For the hospital experience, they give you a list of the 4 or 5 cities to choose from where there are hospitals that they have partnered with for the IPPE. You rank the choices in order of where you'd like to be, and they try to give you one of your top priorities. This year the choices included Athens, Atlanta, Savannah, Commerce, Royston, and Rome I think. For the day in an ambulatory treatment center, everyone is assigned a day at Mercy Health Center in Athens.
Second Year: This information will be less detailed because I know less about it
During the second year, you have IPPE experiences that take place throughout the semester. You will be part of a program called "Healthy Fit" where you are teamed up with a group of your classmates (3 or 4 people per group) and you will have real patients that you meet with several times throughout the year and monitor their health. Under the supervision of faculty, you will develop diet and exercise recommendations, promote healthy lifestyle choices, and monitor their medication adherence and such. Then in the summer between second and third year, you are required to attend a camp. The camps are for different groups of special need children and you will go and serve as a counselor.
Third Year: I know even less about third year, but I'm pretty sure it is a continuation of the second year "Healthy Fit," only you and your team's responsibilities will grow because you will have the knowledge to suggest more things, etc.
The 2+2 program definitely increased UGA COP's ability to provide students with more opportunities by spreading them out to other cities with really great IPPE/ APPE sites such as Augusta, Albany, and (soon to be) Savannah, but I wouldn't say that they developed the 2+2 program because opportunities in Athens were lacking. I think that most cities (outside of large cities like Atlanta) are going to have trouble finding locations to place ~145 students. I'm certainly not familiar with the IPPE/APPE practices of other schools, but I would guess that many schools spread students out across surrounding areas to provide them with the opportunities they need.
Hope this helps.
