Hello Listener. 

In this episode you will learn from Dr. Crystal Burkhardt. Dr. Burkhardt is currently a Clinical Professor for the School of Pharmacy, and maintains a practice site at the Landon Center on Aging at TUKHS campus. She offers an ambulatory care rotation with a geriatric focus for APPE students, and will share her thoughts with us on engaging students within this kind of setting. She shares some great insights into not only leading students through ambulatory care rotations, but some ideas on ways to establish and maintain interprofessional collaborative relationships. 

If you happen to work in other fields than pharmacy, I imagine you will still find this episode helpful as we touch on several ideas related to facilitating learning that are not necessarily pharmacy specific.

Here's my reflection after this conversation was recorded. Regardless of discipline, if there are ways in which we see a way to help other colleagues be more efficient, successful, provide more effective patient care or be more productive as an organization- dive in. Get specific with your colleagues. Understand what their goals are and see how you can fit in to that work. Having a specialization is only valuable if you understand how to effectively share that specialization with your colleagues, organization , and community.

If you have any topic suggestions or feedback for me, do not hesitate to email me at ktfullerton@ku.edu.

In this episode I have a conversation with 2 preceptors at Freeman Health System in Joplin, MO. They both provide their perspectives of rotations / students/ and residents. I really appreciate their mindset as preceptors and wish I could send every student to Freeman Health for at least one rotation. There is a great team there and they work hard to provide quality experiences.

Also, a topic that comes up in the conversation is enrollment and recruitment.

This is a significant topic for all schools of pharmacy as enrollment has decreased nationally over the last several years. The ripple effect is evident as pharmacies are having a difficult time employing student interns and health systems are seeing fewer residency applicants overall

I think it is important for us all to think about our role in the public’s perception of careers in pharmacy and consider ways to affect change in a positive way. Whether it is by increasing diversity, presence in the community, or action through state organizations, there are a multitude of ways we can all help.

Again, I’m so grateful for the opportunity to engage with folks about this work. I hope you find something useful or helpful in this conversation.

Let me know of any topic suggestions for the podcast. You can contact me, Kevn Fullerton, at: ktfullerton@ku.edu

Hello Listener.

Welcome to The Rotation. I’m Kevin Fullerton

The episode today contains a conversation I had with Jacob Hadley at Cooper Drugstore in Augusta, KS. Dr. Hadley has served as a preceptor for us for many years and consistently offers challenging and rewarding experiences for our students. If you are unaware, pharmacy students complete many different rotations throughout their progression in the PharmD curriculum. Our first episode highlighted a good example of one of our Ambulatory Care rotations and this episode highlights one of our IPPE Community and APPE Community sites.

As you listen to my conversation with Dr. Hadley, listen for his comments on meeting each student where they are in their development, honoring their career interests, and ways in which to continue your own professional development by serving as a preceptor.

I appreciate the way Dr. Hadley handles the initial conversation with the student at the beginning of the rotation. Whether you like it or not, when you serve as a preceptor, you are establishing a relationship with the student. How you handle this initial meeting will determine your ability to provide effective feedback throughout the rotation, deliver constructive criticism, and your ability to assess them at the conclusion of the rotation.

I cannot overstate how important it is to approach education as relational.

You may think that a student will only be at your site for a short month, so you don’t have time to cultivate a relationship. Perhaps you think that you just need someone to help with flu shots, compounding, bubble packing, or answering phones.

Keep in mind, there are multiple sides of influence

Students learn who they want to emulate and who they don’t want to emulate.

As a preceptor or field director, or supervisor, do you have a memory of a student who underperformed, was unprofessional or really challenging? Of course, you do.

Students at your site become colleagues who also remember their preceptors and rotations.

What kind of preceptor do you want to be?

How do you want to be remembered?

Thank you for listening.

Please contact me with show suggestions / questions / comments at ktfullerton@ku.edu