Your opinions on "student interest groups" for pharmacy

[lookatbanner]

So as you all probably know, medical students often have special interest groups for all of the specialty areas, which provide information on things such as career lifestyle, invite speakers, hold discussion groups on current issues of that field, and offer connections to practitioners for research opportunities and shadowing.

Would this work at all for a college of pharmacy? Let's assume only the "big" fields were covered initially: ID, ambulatory care, etc.

The reason I ask is because I'm considering starting something like this at my college to give people access to those kinds of specialties before rotations so they can get a better idea of what kind of residency they want to go into or what rotations to pick. Also, for networking of course. Or getting pre-pharm students involved even, so they know that there's more to pharmacy than working retail.

However, I know pharmacy is fairly different from medicine, and a lot of people in my class aren't even interested in residencies, let alone specific specialties.

Would this be a fail idea? Would any of you consider joining an interest group? Do your schools have anything like this?

Thanks =).

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[pharmasaur]

my school's AMCP has a lot of managed care speakers/residents come and talk to us...we have a clinic volunteering org that brings in amb care people...industry org that brings in industry speakers....NCPA brings in small business owners. the alphabet soup orgs at your school dont do that already?

 

[owlegrad]

the alphabet soup orgs at your school dont do that already?

This was my initial thought as well.

 

[lookatbanner]

my school's AMCP has a lot of managed care speakers/residents come and talk to us...we have a clinic volunteering org that brings in amb care people...industry org that brings in industry speakers....NCPA brings in small business owners. the alphabet soup orgs at your school dont do that already?

Not really in a concentrated way.

Like we definitely have speakers that come in sporadically but they tend to be a random mish mash of things. We had one cardiology speaker, one compounding pharmacist, some policy speakers, etc.

Definitely nothing in the way of an industry organization or am care organization. We have no AMCP or NCPA either that I know of, just ASHP and APhA, SnPHA and our fraternities.

I was thinking more along the lines of bringing in speakers every couple months, or monthly even for specific interest groups. E.g. if it were cardio, we could talk a cardio pharmacist talk about a unique STEMI patient case, or maybe some medication error that arose, or JNC8 guidelines, do journal clubs etc.

I think maybe our school is lacking a bit in that area so wanted to see what everyone else does to raise interest in pharmacy specialty areas.

 

[pharmasaur]

I think it's a good idea but It really depends if your student body is interested in it and will come out to the events. The worst thing is having a guest speaker with like 5 students attending. We've had some events where there's just so little attendance and it's not fun and looks bad.

 

[lookatbanner]

I think it's a good idea but It really depends if your student body is interested in it and will come out to the events. The worst thing is having a guest speaker with like 5 students attending. We've had some events where there's just so little attendance and it's not fun and looks bad.

Yeah that's what I"m worried about. I know there are at least 10 people in my class who would probably come to those sorts of events just because those are the kids that are super gung ho about clinical pharmacy and what not.

But I feel like the majority might be retail bound or aren't interested in specializing.