Doctor of Pharmacy (Pharm.D.) Program
GRADUATION UNDER A PARTICULAR CATALOG
PRESCRIBED WORK FOR ALL DEGREES - BASIC EDUCATION REQUIREMENTS
SUGGESTED FINE ARTS & HUMANITIES ELECTIVES
SUGGESTED SOCIAL & BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES ELECTIVES
Pharmaceutical care and implementing change
The role of the pharmacist has undergone a metamorphosis over the past century. Pharmacists entered the 21st century as apothecaries, whose function was to procure, prepare, and evaluate medicinal drugs. That function waned as the industrial age took over the production of pharmaceuticals and pharmacists simply distributed these medicines. About 25 years ago the picture began to change. With the development of more sophisticated medications and increased knowledge regarding their mechanisms of action, clinical pharmacists appeared on the scene. As the 21st century approaches, the pharmacy profession, like other components of the health care system, faces new challenges; however one thing is very clear: as a result of the continuing revolution in education and training programs and practice innovations, pharmacy practice has a more patient-oriented and less product-oriented focus.
There is little debate that the use of prescription and non-prescription medications constitutes the primary therapeutic means available to treat illness. Although medication use has assumed this primary role, its provision to patients occurs through a highly fragmented system of prescribing, dispensing, administering, and monitoring. While each party in the process believes it is making rational, positive contributions to the process, increasing concern is being expressed regarding the need for improved quality of medication use and the need for a reduction in medication-related problems.
The result of this fragmentation has been characterized as "medication misadventuring." Misadventure means great misfortune or disaster. In fact, much of the problem is not inherent in the drugs themselves but rather in the way they are prescribed, dispensed, used or misused. The contribution of patient non-compliance, preventable adverse effects and drug interactions, therapeutic failures, and medication-induced hospitalizations to health care costs is estimated to be in the tens of billions of dollars each year. If that is the case, pharmacists are best equipped to have a major positive impact on this problem.
National professional pharmacy organizations as well as pharmacy educators believe that pharmacists should accept additional responsibility and assume greater authority in cooperatively managing patients' medication use. By assuming this leadership, pharmacists can assure optimal therapeutic outcomes and reduce the extent of preventable medication-related problems.
To these ends the profession has embraced the concept of "pharmaceutical care". Pharmaceutical care includes the determination of the drug needs for a given individual and the provision not only of the required drugs but also of the services necessary (before, during and after treatment) to ensure optimally safe and effective therapy.
Pharmaceutical care is a patient-centered, outcomes-oriented pharmacy practice that requires the pharmacist to work in concert with the patient and the patient's other healthcare providers to promote health, to prevent disease, and to assess, monitor, initiate, and modify medication use to assure that drug therapy regimens are safe and effective.
Two components must be present whenever pharmaceutical care is delivered:
"... pharmaceutical care is the responsible provision of drug therapy for the purpose of achieving definite outcomes that improve a patient's quality of life. Pharmaceutical care is what an individual pharmacist does when he or she
1 adapted from an APhA White Paper on The Role of the Pharmacist in Comprehensive Medication Use Management.
To ensure that pharmacists have the tools to practice patient-oriented pharmaceutical care, curriculum design at the University of Texas College of Pharmacy has moved away from the traditional separate-discipline approach to drug design and drug action towards a more integrated and problem-based approach to the treatment of disease. For example: instead of discussing the etiology of hypertension, structure-activity relationships, mechanisms of action, and therapeutic aspects of hypertension medications in three separate courses, discussion of hypertension and antihypertensives are now integrated into a module in a single pharmacotherapy course. This is followed by a small group discussion (about 10 students) on the treatment of a hypertensive patient beginning with a discussion of the patient's history, interpretation of laboratory results, review of current medication use, identification of any medication misadventures, and finally recommendations for drug therapy and improving the patient's quality of life.
Because the delivery of pharmaceutical care will require pharmacists to monitor a patient's progress toward better health, expertise in such areas as patient assessment become critical. A broad exposure to disease management is also essential. To better meet these new demands of practice, the College will begin to offer the Doctor of Pharmacy degree as its only entry-level degree to students admitted in the Fall of 1999 and thereafter.
(Required of all students who enter the professional sequence of courses in Fall 1999 and thereafter)
This professional sequence, leading to the six-year Pharm.D. degree, is designed to provide a combined academic and clinical service experience for selected pharmacy students and practitioners whose abilities and career aspirations suggest significant potential for innovative leadership in professional practice. This goal is accomplished through a carefully balanced and orderly curriculum that combines courses in basic and advanced pharmaceutical sciences with a structured clinical and professional practice experience program.
This professional curriculum provides students with a strong foundation in the basic pharmaceutical sciences, applying the principles of chemistry, biology and physiology mastered in the two-year pre-pharmacy program. This basic training is supplemented by advanced clinical and professional practice experience in the later semesters of the professional sequence, and by electives which allow the student to enhance particular areas of interest.
In addition to required coursework, students take at least two professional elective courses for a total of at least four semester hours. Students must take the courses used to fulfill this requirement after admission to the professional curriculum.
The principles of the basic pharmaceutical sciences comprise much of the first segment of the professional sequence: Pharmacology, the study of how drugs work in the body; Pharmaceutics, which devotes attention to dosage forms and the related phenomena surrounding the absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion of drugs and their metabolites; Medicinal and Natural Products Chemistry, the study of intermediary metabolism, macromolecular chemistry and the structure-activity relationships among drugs, including those of natural origin; and Health Care and Pharmacy Administration, which exposes students to the principles of personnel and financial management, applied to pharmacy practice and to the role of pharmacy in health care.
After establishing the principles of the basic pharmaceutical sciences in the first year of the curriculum, the second year will focus on disease states through an interdisciplinary approach to disease management moving away from the traditional separate-discipline approach to drug design and action towards a more integrated curriculum. For example: Instead of discussing the etiology of hypertension, structure-activity relationships, mechanisms of action, and therapeutic aspects of hypertension medications in three separate courses, all aspects of hypertension and antihypertensives are integrated into a single module in the pharmacotherapy series.
In addition to the coursework in the pharmaceutical sciences and pharmacotherapy, students learn to perform in various practice environments. In the clinical training program students begin to provide pharmaceutical care to patients in the Student Health Center Pharmacy during their second or third professional year. By applying earlier lessons, students in this course learn about patient counseling, drug information, and patient profile monitoring.
Clinical training is continued in the third professional year when students learn about the clinical management of drugs, drug literature evaluation, and other practical skills necessary to function as a pharmacist in any of today's practice settings. The curriculum concludes with seven rotations which span one calendar year. These pharmacy practice rotations are in clinical, hospital and community settings in Austin/Temple/Waco, Dallas/Fort Worth, El Paso, Galveston/Houston, and San Antonio.
The rotation sequence consists of one rotation in the summer, three each in the fall and spring semesters.
Five of the seven rotations are required internships according to the following structure:
The remaining two rotations are elective experiences which may or may not be patient oriented experiences.
Addtional PharmD information may be viewed at :
http://www.utexas.edu/pharmacy/general/pharmdcurriculum.html
The College of Pharmacy also offers research-oriented M.S. and Ph.D. graduate programs in: Pharmaceutics (including physical pharmacy and biopharmaceutics), Medicinal Chemistry and Natural Products Chemistry, Pharmacology and Toxicology, Pharmacy Administration and Pharmacotherapy.
Inquiries should be directed to Mickie Sheppard, Graduate Coordinator, College of Pharmacy, Pharmacy Building 2.222, 471-6590.
To receive a degree in the College of Pharmacy, a student may select the catalog in effect when entering the College or any catalog published thereafter; however, the student must fulfill all the requirements set forth in a catalog under which he/she is entitled to graduate. The student should choose the catalog under which he/she intends to graduate during the first semester of registration in the professional curriculum of the College. For specific wording of Graduation Under a Particular Catalog, the student should consult the College of Pharmacy section of The Undergraduate Catalog from UT Austin under which he or she intends to graduate.
For Students Who Adopt the 1996-98 catalog or a more recent catalog
|
3 hrs 3 hrs 6 hrs 6 hrs 3 hrs
varies |
Each of the courses listed below is accepted for credit toward the fine arts and humanities elective requirement for a degree in Pharmacy. Not all of these courses are offered each semester, nor is this an exhaustive list of courses offered each semester. There are other courses available that will also satisfy this requirement.
FINE ARTS - suggested areas of study from which to choose courses
Architecture (ARC)
Art (ART)
Art History (ARH)
Drama (DRM)
Music (MUS)
&
#160; Ensemble (ENS)
Instruction in various instruments: clarinet, flute, oboe, piano, violin,
etc.
Departments of language such as:
Classic Civilization: CC 336M: Medical/Scientific Terminology
French Civilization: FC 339: Development of French Film
European Studies: EUS 361: Topics in Modern Europe
HUMANITIES (HMN)
| HMN 350 (mult. titles) | Issues of Life & Death Medicine & Ethics Values & Decision Making |
PHILOSOPHY (PHL)
| PHL 322K | History of Ethics |
| PHL 325L | Business, Ethics & Public Policy |
| PHL 325M | Medicine, Ethics & Society |
Each of the courses listed below is accepted for credit toward the social and behavioral sciences elective requirement for a degree in Pharmacy. Not all of these courses are offered each semester, nor is this an exhaustive list of the courses offered each semester. There are other courses which may be more to your liking that will also satisfy this requirement.
| ANTHROPOLOGY (ANT) | TITLE |
| ANT 301 | Physical Anthropology
|
| ANT 302 | Cultural Anthropology
|
| ANT 318L | Mexican American Culture
|
| ANT 323K | Primate Behavior
|
| ANT 324L (mult. titles) | Contemp. Mexico; Concepts of Poverty
|
| PSYCHOLOGY (PSY) | |
| PSY 301 | Introduction to Psychology |
| PSY 308 | Biopsychology |
| PSY 309 | Personality |
| PSY 319K | Social Psychology |
| SOCIAL WORK (SW) | |
| SW 310 | Introduction to Social Welfare |
| SW 311 (mult. titles) | Introduction to Alcohol & Drug Abuse |
| SW 327 | Human Behavior & Social Environment |
| SW 360K (mult. titles) | Alcoholism & Alcohol Abuse Treatment/Alcohol & Drug Abuse Introduction to Gerontology Issues in Aging: Health & Social Services |
| SOCIOLOGY (SOC) | |
| SOC 302 | Introduction to Study of Society |
| SOC 318 | Juvenile Delinquency |
| SOC 321K (mult. titles) | Econ. Security and Business Experience Social Structures and Values Issues of Life and Death Sociology of Entrepreneurship |
| SOC 333K | Sex Roles |
| ECONOMICS | |
| ECO 302 | Introduction to Macroeconomics |
| ECO 303 | Introduction to Microeconomics |
| GEOGRAPHY | |
| GRG 301C | The Natural Environment |
| GRG 301K | Introduction to Climate |
| GRG 301L | Introduction to Landforms |
| GRG 303K | Intro. to Cultural and Historical Geography |
| GRG 305 | This Human World: Intro. to Geography |
| GRG 325 | Geography of Texas |
| GRG 357 | Medical Geography |
| LINGUISTICS | |
| LIN 306 | Introduction to the Study of Language |
| LIN 315 | Speech Science |
| LIN 321L | American English |
| LIN 325 | Black English |
| LIN 364M | History of the English Language |
Summary of Course Combinations That Satisfy the Legislative Requirements for Government at The University of Texas at Austin
GOV 310L & GOV 312L
GOV 310L & GOV US
GOV 310L & GOV 3 TX
GOV 3 US & GOV 3 TX
GOV 312L + GOV 3 US + GOV 105
GOV 3 US + GOV 3 US + GOV 105
*GOV 105 is a correspondence course.
Summary of Course Combinations That Satisfy the Legislative Requirements for History at The University of Texas at Austin
6 hrs of coursework covering any aspect of American history