U N I V E R S I T Y  O F  P I T T S B U R G H

March, 2002 

School of Pharmacy

The School of Pharmacy at the University of Pittsburgh provides a different experiential education component in each year of the program. Scott Drab, director of professional experience programs, offers service learning in the first year of the curriculum. Since its inception in 1998, the course has fostered outcomes such as the development of communication skills, a sense of professional responsibility, a keen sense of ethics, and critical thinking skills. Drab asserts, “Building communication skills is important. For example, it’s very different communicating to a child than it is to older people. This experience gives students the opportunity to develop these skills early in the program.”

About 95 new pharmacy students are assigned to 1 of 16 groups that focus on various community sites. The diverse locations, ranging from senior centers to oncology clinics to psychiatric agencies, are assigned according to the individual student’s interests. However, Drab encourages them to select areas with which they are not familiar. They might tutor students at the East End Cooperative ministries, coordinate a program on diabetes, or conduct a discussion on medication for people with psychiatric disorders at People’s Oakland.

In addition to the students’ learning, the program helps meet community needs. Students visit the sites to determine how they can best serve these patients. In order to implement a successful plan, students draw upon information from their courses, consult with faculty members, and conduct research.

“The idea is that these are the people students will be working with when they are in the profession,” Drab reports. “For example, some students don’t have an extensive working relationship with the elderly, so this gives them a chance to learn about the populations they will be dealing with. It also opens their minds to cultural diversity issues. Many of them have never dealt with homelessness, nor have they seen how ethnicity can affect practices of taking medication.” One of Drab’s colleagues, Sharon Connor, offers an elective course, Pharmaceutical Care for Underserved Populations, for third-year pharmacy students. Working closely with the medical school’s Program for Healthcare to Underserved Populations (PHCUP), the Salvation Army, the RX Council, the Eldorado Senior Center, and Health Care for the Homeless (HCH), students explore the possibilities of interdisciplinary health care. Connor describes the course as “basically street outreach with integrated systems of primary care, mental health, and substance abuse services.”

Each semester, roughly eight students spend three hours every other week on activities such as constructing a drug formulary, conducting health screenings, and promoting awareness of health issues.

Vikki Lam, a Pharmacy student working at Independence Court, commented, “Experiential learning applies what we learn. It lets us work with real people with medical disabilities, drug addictions, and different backgrounds. It opens our eyes so we have a chance to understand the people we will be serving. Today, pharmacy is moving away from the white lab coat image—patient health is our goal, and it may be in the form of prevention or patient education. By getting us out into the real world, we can see for ourselves how it really is.”

"Service-learning teaches us lessons that cannot be taught in a traditional classroom environment. In order to effectively enhance our patients' quality of life, we must have superlative communication skills.  These skills include attentive listening, explaining difficult concepts so all can understand, and reading body language. It is only through real-life experiences, such as those provided by service-learning, that a pharmacy student can hone these skills." ---Michele George, pharmacy student

“I come to rely on these students a lot,” commented Jane Langan, activities director at Independence Court. Langan added that she sees benefits for both students and the people they serve: “Just learning from the elderly is a benefit for any student. The experiences that some of these folks can share are amazing. The students have such different backgrounds that they can share with the residents, too. The students and residents develop relationships. They get to know each another on a one-to-one basis.”

Photo: Vikki Lam and Janean Witowski serve snacks to seniors at Independence Court during a holiday celebrations.

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