Innovative Approaches to Experiential Education

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ACCP Member Sheila M. Allen, Clinical Assistant Professor, Director of Immunization Programs, and Director of Introductory Pharmacy Practice Experiences (IPPE) at the University of Illinois – Chicago (UIC) College of Pharmacy, shared her institution’s approach to managing experiential education during the COVID-19 pandemic.

With 173 first-year pharmacy students and 193 third year pharmacy students requiring IPPEs, and another 115 fourth-year pharmacy students pursuing advanced pharmacy practice experiences (APPEs), the college of pharmacy faced a real challenge to deliver experiential education on both its Chicago and Rockford campuses. Early on, UIC decided to suspend IPPEs due to the loss of numerous health system partners.

However, APPEs could not be suspended in order to ensure on-time graduation for students in the class of 2020. With the assistance of dedicated faculty, the college pursued some creative approaches. Ambulatory care and medicine APPE faculty implemented remote conferencing to coordinate topic presentations, journal clubs, and case presentations for students during ambulatory care and medicine core APPEs at UIC and surrounding health systems. Hospital APPE faculty at UI Health created a rotating on-site schedule that was supplemented with remote learning activities and in-service presentations for students during Hospital Core APPEs. Several UIC administrators also worked together to create an online state board examination preparation elective APPE for students.

Through these approaches, the faculty and administrators discovered new ways to think about the experiential learning environment and identified expanded opportunities for collaboration among practice sites. UIC is currently in the process of creating a preceptor webinar to highlight some of these new models of learning for future implementation within respective practice settings.