Finding Your Own APPE Sites

[Sparda29]

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Does your school allow you to find your own APPE sites? I found out they allow it for Community pharmacies, but I found out a little too late. Right now I'm at a CVS in Harlem. It's pretty busy so I always have something to do, but I would have rather just picked one of the pharmacies near my house. Gasoline is getting expensive 🙁

 

[PharMed2016]

Yea, our school allows you to find your own APPE sites. 😀

 

[Pharmacy Kid]

Gasoline is getting expensive. I'll take a wild guess and say it'll cost $5 by summer.

 

[SortingItOut]

I never tried, but I heard it was possible at my school. It sounded like a huge process. The biggest issue, in my opinion, is whether or not the location allowed future students to also pick the site. Is there temporary housing available in the area, or would a student have to pay $100+/night to live in a hotel during the week?

 

[PharMed2016]

I never tried, but I heard it was possible at my school. It sounded like a huge process. The biggest issue, in my opinion, is whether or not the location allowed future students to also pick the site. Is there temporary housing available in the area, or would a student have to pay $100+/night to live in a hotel during the week?

Not looking forward to that. I'm hoping that I can find housing or something.

 

[CUninja]

I never tried, but I heard it was possible at my school. It sounded like a huge process. The biggest issue, in my opinion, is whether or not the location allowed future students to also pick the site. Is there temporary housing available in the area, or would a student have to pay $100+/night to live in a hotel during the week?

Yes, it is possible at our school. Get creative with housing. Do one or two close to home. Use your connections with friends. Seek out university housing. Hotels should be a last option. 👍

 

[confettiflyer]

Yup we're allowed, process involved getting the site preceptor to contact our school's coordinator to get affiliation agreements hammered out. Some site preceptors were open to other students, others kept it with the student who requested it. In addition to the local sites in PA/NJ/DE, we had sites in Chicago, FL, NY, CA, AZ, AK, and probably more (I haven't really asked).

 

[DRxUGS]

Our school lets us go wherever preceptors are willing to have us. I went to our rotation director, and told her where I could stay with people I knew, and she basically scheduled everything for me. Worked out wonderful.

Some classmates of mine have went to Alaska, Florida, Hawaii, etc. And our school is in the upper midwest.

 

[bacillus1]

We're allowed to do out-of-network for our elective rotations. Sucks we can't do it for required ones. If we want a particular rotation off, we need to supply the school with an out-of-network option (which has to take place in an elective rotation before the time slot you want off). Looks like I'll be interviewing for residencies while doing a rotation.

 

[confettiflyer]

We're allowed to do out-of-network for our elective rotations. Sucks we can't do it for required ones. If we want a particular rotation off, we need to supply the school with an out-of-network option (which has to take place in an elective rotation before the time slot you want off). Looks like I'll be interviewing for residencies while doing a rotation.

wait can you clarify the bolded part...so say you want january 1 to february 7 off (i'm making up dates), you need to PROVIDE the school with SOME SORT of rotation site from november 23 to december 31?

so say i'm lazy and don't want to go hunting for sites for the school...the school then reserves the right to schedule me in whatever block off it sees fit?

this is....weird? 😕

 

[bacillus1]

wait can you clarify the bolded part...so say you want january 1 to february 7 off (i'm making up dates), you need to PROVIDE the school with SOME SORT of rotation site from november 23 to december 31?

so say i'm lazy and don't want to go hunting for sites for the school...the school then reserves the right to schedule me in whatever block off it sees fit?

this is....weird? 😕

Not necessarily that block, but any block before the rotation you want off. Yes, weird. Only pharmacists I know are retail and mail order, so no way I'm gonna waste one of my electives on that. So yes, the school reserves the right to schedule off whatever it sees fit. Most likely it'll be 2nd or 3rd block. It's a pain when applying for residencies, but people somehow work with that schedule. I think preceptors don't comply with the official absence policy (if you miss, you have to make the day up) and just let people leave.

I asked for a rotation off without going through that whole procedure. The guy refused because he can't do that our whole class of 225 if they ask.

If people want off in the summer, the policy doesn't apply, they can request off, without providing an out-of-network rotation.

 

[mustang sally]

It is possible, though it seemed like too much work to me. I was happy with what my school already offered, but some people set up their own if they wanted to go stay with their mom/dad/grandparents/boyfriend and there weren't any in-system rotations in that city.

 

[confettiflyer]

I think preceptors don't comply with the official absence policy (if you miss, you have to make the day up) and just let people leave.

I asked for a rotation off without going through that whole procedure. The guy refused because he can't do that our whole class of 225 if they ask.

If people want off in the summer, the policy doesn't apply, they can request off, without providing an out-of-network rotation.

Do you guys not use a computer system for scheduling? If not, then I totally understand the guy not wanting to configure 225 peoples' off preferences. We just input our off block preferences in order and let the computer run (it's reviewed and tweaked after), but then again, we have ~75 students to deal with so logistics are easier.

As for preceptors looking the other way, I've talked to many PCP preceptors at my sites and most/all of them said they looked the other way and are more flexible than official policy dictated. This is usually out of pity as they were pretty jaded about the inflexibility themselves and do so as a favor to the students.