Subjects and clinical placements
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As a Pharmacy student, you can expect to combine the study of therapeutics and pharmaceutical sciences with the theory and practice of designing, developing, implementing and evaluating professional pharmacy services. Students have the option to choose electives that reflect their professional interests and will prepare them for the career they want.
Subjects
- Introduction to Pharmacy
- Concepts in Pharmaceutical Sciences
- Pharmaceutics
- Professional Services 1
- Clinical Practice 1
- Professional Services 2
- Integrated Therapeutics 1
- Drug Disposition
- Evidenced Based Practice
- Clinical Practice 2
- Clinical Practice 3
- Professional Services 3
- Integrated Therapeutics 2
- Primary Health Care
- Select: Elective 1
- Clinical Placement 4
- Professional Services 4
- Integrated Therapeutics 3
- Molecule to Market
- Select: Elective 2
Please note that Master of Pharmacy (International) includes International Placement 1 and International Placement 2 in addition to the above subjects.
Advanced Clinical Pharmacy elective at Westmead hospital
UTS is known for its innovation. And this is evident in our partnership with Westmead Hospital., where instead of taking the hospital to the university, we've brought the students to the hospital.
So UTS is really known for its innovation. It's really cutting edge in terms of its resources and one of the areas that we've been demonstrating that is with our partnership with Westmead Hospital. So instead of taking the hospital to the university, we've brought the students to the hospital.
Westmead Hospital is one of the largest teaching hospitals in Australia, servicing over a million people in Western Sydney. Our partnership with UTS provides a unique opportunity for pharmacy students to experience the breadth and depth of hospital pharmacy practise that is otherwise not able to be undertaken as part of a traditional hospital pharmacy placement.
The Advanced Clinical Pharmacy elective's really interesting. So there's no lectures, there's no workshops, there's no formal classes. So what they're gaining is the opportunity to consolidate and to continue their learning but in a self-directed way. So they're learning to react as a pharmacist in that real-world setting.
From an employer perspective, it has been refreshing to watch the students grow and develop during their time with us, in particular, their clinical judgement and confidence in hospital pharmacy practise.
Being in the hospital setting and part of the pharmacy team, students develop their patient-centred care skills, they develop their critical thinking and their clinical judgement skills, and they really learn how to be a pharmacist.
So what I'm enjoying about the Advanced Clinical Pharmacy elective is that you get to take that theoretical knowledge that you learn every day at UTS in the classroom and apply it to a practical setting here at Westmead Hospital.
- I think this elective has really helped me understand the patient perspective, so it's really prepared me as a future pharmacist.
This elective's already helped me in my career. I've got an internship for next year in hospital pharmacy. It's also given me an opportunity to talk to different pharmacists who are in different roles and different stages of their careers and just see where it's possible to go with a career in pharmacy.
Clinical placements
Master of Pharmacy students experience a diverse range of clinical placement opportunities. Students complete approximately 520 hours over the two year program, ranging from half day per week placements during teaching sessions to block placements during session breaks.
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Finding a placement
All placements are generally sourced for students by UTS Pharmacy. Occasionally students may choose to source their own clinical placement (around a particular area of interest or location, for example), but most prefer to take advantage of provided placements as these sites are carefully selected to complement in-class learning.
Placement locations
Students are allocated placements within the Sydney metropolitan and greater Sydney areas. Opportunities to undertake placements in rural and regional settings are also available for students.
Community pharmacy
Our partner pharmacies are located across the Sydney metropolitan and greater Sydney areas, from Hornsby in the North to Wollongong in the South; from Manly in the East to Penrith in the West.
Hospital pharmacy
Our hospital pharmacy partners include some of Sydney's largest teaching hospitals as well as settings in rural and regional Australia.
Alternative and specialist practice settings
Students also have the option to pursue career interests outside the traditional areas of hospital and community pharmacy. Specialist settings can include:
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Pharmacy Consultancy (e.g.Meditrax )
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Pharmaceutical Industry
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Government
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Professional Organisations (e.g. National Prescribing Service)
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Specialist Clinics (e.g. respiratory, oncology, drug and alcohol)
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Research
Female 1: For two days I got to go to Nimbin. They have a multi-facility there where they have aged care and they have a few emergency departments, something that I've never seen before. It was a really great experience. Everyone is just so willing to help and so much more enthusiastic
Male 1: What I like best about the program is being able to learn with other healthcare professionals and work on a case together and solve the patient's problem - all as a team. They've got a holistic and multi-disciplinary approach to the whole thing. They had a conference at the end and it really benefitted the patient to get all that collaborative effort to manage their pain properly. I thought that was really good.
Female 2: Being here with a Parkinson's patient and some of the changes we made in his medications, they followed him back to the hospital and he was just doing so much better the next time we saw him. He was really grateful and it was an awesome experience.
Female 3: Here at the University Centre for Rural Health we have a six to eight week program for pharmacy students. As part of that program they undertake placements in community pharmacies, hospital pharmacy and we organise a number of multi-disciplinary activities for them.
Male 2: Within the constraints that we've got here at the Lismore Base Hospital - as broader an introduction to hospital pharmacy as we possibly can. Within the program, every day there's some learning objectives, so that I will try and sit down with the student at the end of the day and we will go through the previous day's learning objectives. Then at the end of their placement, we like to give the students a bit of a challenge and I try to organise for them to do a case study. Then they'll present the work that they've done on that case study to the pharmacists at one of our weekly clinical pharmacist meetings. So it's a good learning exercise for the students and it's a good learning exercise for us as well.
Female 2: Today we came out to a little school in Woodenbong and we gave a little presentation on healthy eating.
Female 4: After we finished our presentation we took them out and played a little game with them, which they had lots of fun doing. Then we had a healthy lunch and a little handball that we could give them afterwards. It was so good for us to tell all the kids about how important it is to eat healthy because hospitals and specialists are so hard to come by out here.
Female 2: It was really fun for us to be able to tell them a bit about us and what we do and tell them that they can go and see their pharmacist and I think a lot of the kids found that pretty interesting.
Female 3: The students find that rural living is fun. They find that the rural practitioners are welcoming, friendly, helpful and that they are prepared to spend a lot of time with them.
Male 3: Pharmacy students while they're here will see a number of things. Particularly what we're interested in exposing them to is dosing in the public sector. So a chance to give them a real good heads up for a day on addiction medicine I think is both beneficial for them and beneficial for us in the future.
Female 5: What we do here in Nimbin is a little bit unique and different. We approach it with a very holistic type of view. It allows the pharmacy student to see that in a different light. So instead of just seeing it strictly as this diagnosed case, they see it as this human being and he's working with respect and trust to improve and have positive outcomes. That occurs all the time here in the NIS program.
Male 4: We are a community pharmacy and Aboriginal people are an important of our community.
Female 3: The patients are very willing to contribute to the students' learning, as are the clinicians. So the students get a wonderful learning opportunity. They get to do hands on work. They're not just observers. They get totally engrossed and involved. They're allowed to go on home medicine review. They're allowed to interview patients at the hospital. They participate in our inter-professional learning workshop where they actually work with students who are from medicine, from nursing and from other Allied Health professions. Many students come to the Northern Rivers never having been to a rural area before.
Male 5: Coming from the city and coming here, it's a different change. Just because there's a lack of resources and you're applying more of your knowledge. I feel that they appreciate it much more.e
Female 6: So it's really good that we're able to bring our knowledge to the table. But then also we have students from other disciplines bringing their knowledge and we're able to learn off each other. So we're giving the patient the best care possible. I found that really beneficial, not only to my learning but also to patient care.
Male: 6: I guess we've only been touching on the surface because we've been here only a few days. But in that time so far I've met really great people, especially the students that we have to stay with. On top of that from the little hospital experience that I've had, it's that rural hospitality that's really good out here. I'm really looking forward to the rest of the time here.
Clinical placement schedule
Year 1
Year 1 is spent in the same community pharmacy for all placements
Autumn Session - Community pharmacy 1/2 day per week
Session break (June/July) - Community pharmacy 2 week block (full-time)
Spring Session - Community pharmacy 1/2 day per week
Year 2
Year 2 is spent in a range of practice settings:
Summer session break (December, January, February) - Hospital pharmacy (2 weeks of dedicated on-campus orientation to clinical practice plus 2 weeks hospital pharmacy pending placement availability)
Summer session break (January, February) – Community pharmacy or alternative and specialist settings (see above for examples) (2 weeks)
Winter session break (June/July) – Community pharmacy, hospital pharmacy or alternative and specialist settings (4 weeks)
Commencing students
Detailed information on clinical placement requirements and logistics including uniform, vaccinations and more can be found on the UTS Current Students site.