Doing all P4 rotations at one institution ?

[optimusprime71]

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Has anyone here do their P4 rotations through a longitudinal program where you are required to do almost all rotations at one institution (but different hospital locations)? Some of the benefits cited by the program representatives are that the rotations being demanding like a residency workload, lots of presentations, one big research project, close mentorship with preceptors. Disadvantages (or advantage ?) is being at same institution for most rotations (one elective can be elsewhere). I feel like this can be a sneek peek at the residency and can know if I want to do residency or not based on this experience. If anyone has any experience or insights whether it is beneficial to join this longitudinal program, please share. Thanks.

 

[confettiflyer]

It depends. But some of the value in rotations is seeing how pharmacy is practiced at other institutions. By putting all of your rotations at one institution, you lose some of that valuable insight. That said, if it's a big/well-known institution with a variety of sites, it could be advantageous. It just really depends.

 

[Sparda29]

Less networking opportunities. Plus let's say you have a rotation go not so good and the preceptor starts telling his other preceptor buddies to watch out for you/give you a tough rotation.

 

[gwarm01]

Less networking opportunities. Plus let's say you have a rotation go not so good and the preceptor starts telling his other preceptor buddies to watch out for you/give you a tough rotation.

This is what immediately struck me. What if there are no job openings when you graduate? You just spent a year of your life not meeting other pharmacists and gaining insight in different methods of practice.

 

[optimusprime71]

This is what immediately struck me. What if there are no job openings when you graduate? You just spent a year of your life not meeting other pharmacists and gaining insight in different methods of practice.

There will be different preceptors for each rotation. Just that they practice at different locations under the same institution name. It was also mentioned that a preceptor/mentor at a longitudinal program can know you better and write a good letter vs a regular 6 week rotation who knows you for a short period of time. Additionally, the argument is that you don't have to spend time getting oriented to different computer systems and places and save time. I am really mixed on this.

 

[confettiflyer]

Additionally, the argument is that you don't have to spend time getting oriented to different computer systems and places and save time. I am really mixed on this.

Orienting to different systems is a bonus in my book, it makes you more flexible especially if you try to find work at different institutions.

But it's not a huge factor in hiring someone, except maybe for temp/per diem work (which is all you can probably find).

 

[Rockinacoustic]

I would only do it if you absolutely want a job or residency position there.

 

[BenJammin]

Doing all of your rotations at one location gives me the impression that you're a very narrow minded student and will probably be a narrow minded pharmacist. Wouldn't hire you, FYI. Sorry.

 

[trailerpark]

Doing all of your rotations at one location gives me the impression that you're a very narrow minded student and will probably be a narrow minded pharmacist. Wouldn't hire you, FYI. Sorry.

That seems like a very narrow minded response . He probably wouldn't want to work for someone like you anyway, FYI. Sorry.

 

[EML9255]

I would never. I loved having variety with my rotations. I learned a lot of good and bad practices by being at different locations

 

[owlegrad]

The thing I loved about my rotations was the variety I would not want to do this

 

[BenJammin]

That seems like a very narrow minded response . He probably wouldn't want to work for someone like you anyway, FYI. Sorry.
View attachment 184977

LOL seriously? Diversity in rotations speaks volume about your ability to adapt to different environments. Get out of here with that crap.

 

[trailerpark]

APPE rotations are jokes, whether you do them a few miles down the road from each other or at a different department a few hundred feet away hardly says anything about the type of person you are.

 

[confettiflyer]

Doing all of your rotations at one location gives me the impression that you're a very narrow minded student and will probably be a narrow minded pharmacist. Wouldn't hire you, FYI. Sorry.

I'd attribute it to the school for having absolute control over the student during the scheduling process, so I'd do my due diligence and evaluate them like any other candidate. If those rotations were at, say, all UCSF-affiliated locations and clinics, I'd hire them in a heartbeat.

 

[BidingMyTime]

Has anyone here do their P4 rotations through a longitudinal program where you are required to do almost all rotations at one institution (but different hospital locations)? Some of the benefits cited by the program representatives are that the rotations being demanding like a residency workload, lots of presentations, one big research project, close mentorship with preceptors. Disadvantages (or advantage ?) is being at same institution for most rotations (one elective can be elsewhere). I feel like this can be a sneek peek at the residency and can know if I want to do residency or not based on this experience. If anyone has any experience or insights whether it is beneficial to join this longitudinal program, please share. Thanks.

The school is trying to say that a BENEFIT is the "rotations being demanding like a residency workload". Sorry, I never wanted a resident workload, but if I had, I would have wanted it when I was being PAID to be a resident, not when I was PAYING to be a student. That is a big minus, not a plus in my book.

I agree with everyone who says that the variety of rotations is the true benefit of the rotation year. Working with a lot of different people, working with a lot of different systems, working with a lot of different focuses. Granted I did mine back in the old days when it was only 1 semester of the 5 year program, my 3 rotations were at vastly different settings and were good learning experiences. I am surprised that a school requires students to all do them at the same system (even in different environments, the corporate focus and process/system will mostly likely be the same) Unless there were some benefit of this program compelling to you as an individual, I would not choose such a program (compelling reasons, say you live/want to live in a remote area where all closest rotation sites would be through the same system, or you are 100% sure that you want to work for that system *and* that they want to hire you, or for some reason the experiences offered through this program aren't available at other rotations and you really want those experiences)

 

[optimusprime71]

Seems like the consensus is against doing all rotations at the same hospital system. I just hope that I find good rotations/preceptors from different hospitals that test my knowledge and train me well. I felt that by doing that program, I would be forced to be more prepared for residency.

 

[BeLikeBueller]

Has anyone here do their P4 rotations through a longitudinal program where you are required to do almost all rotations at one institution (but different hospital locations)? Some of the benefits cited by the program representatives are that the rotations being demanding like a residency workload, lots of presentations, one big research project, close mentorship with preceptors. Disadvantages (or advantage ?) is being at same institution for most rotations (one elective can be elsewhere). I feel like this can be a sneek peek at the residency and can know if I want to do residency or not based on this experience. If anyone has any experience or insights whether it is beneficial to join this longitudinal program, please share. Thanks.

I have almost all of my P4 rotations at one institution this year, by choice. This is with one exception, which actually happened after my schedule had been finalized, so I was initially going to complete all of my rotations at one institution. I don't necessarily see it as a bad thing, because even though other pharmacists may practice differently, you should be rotating through different services or locations each month, so aside from the administrative aspect of the overall organization, you will see a lot of different perspectives through your various preceptors. I will say this, however. All of my preceptors (despite doing very well on their respective rotations), recommended that I do a residency at another institution, so that I could see different perspectives than I had on my P4 rotations (because I would be rotating through the same preceptors during residency, seeing the same things I had seen just a year earlier).

So I say that to caution you - if you want to do a residency at this rotation, it may be better to diversify the institutions that you see in your P4 year.

Otherwise, I haven't really had anything bad happen yet. I could see how, if you really ticked someone off, it could follow you throughout the year, but hopefully that won't be an issue for you.

Good luck and God bless!

 

[MatCauthon]

Terrible idea, IMO.

Out of my 7 rotations, I worked at 6 different companies/hospitals. Within a year of graduation, I had had job interviews, residency interviews, and serious job discussions with all 6 of these companies. I received 3 jobs offers, and had 2 near misses from these companies. I accepted two job offers and was able to ditch the residency process completly.

In my experience, having a wide variety of rotations was critical to landing a job. The other factor was networking while on rotation, working hard, and doing projects that caught the attention of my preceptor and the hiring managers. At the end of the day, I'm probably not much more impressive than any other pharmacist out there. However, networking is everything in this world.

 

[farmadiazepine]

variety.

it's so dumb to do all your rotations at one institution

 

[IndustryPharmD]

I think it's stupid. The whole purpose of the P4 is to allow students to gain experience in a variety of settings, so doing all of your rotations in the same system is pigeonholing yourself for no good reason. You will still have different preceptors and different teams, so you gain no advantage in terms of knowing anyone better (and all pharmacists within the same geography tend to never be more than one connection apart anyway). You do, however, prevent yourself from knowing the good vs the bad vs the ugly because you have nothing to benchmark your sites against.

Don't schools require a mix of rotations, though? I guess you can do your outpatient/ambulatory care in the large system too, as well as drug info or something like that to fulfill your non-direct patient care requirements, but it's even worse. Then you really don't know how the real world functions and just drink the intra-system koolaid all the way.

I would certainly never consider someone like that for an industry job... not that they would apply. 🙂