Experiential

The NTPD Program experiential training curriculum includes 36 weeks or 1440 hours of advanced pharmacy practice experiences (APPEs) in the following practice areas: 

• Community Pharmacy – Required  
• Ambulatory Care – Required 
• Health-System Acute General Medicine – Required 
• Health System Institutional – Required 
• Elective One 
• Elective Two 

The  required APPE rotation practice areas are community, ambulatory care, health-system acute care general medicine, and health system institutional. In addition, there are two elective  APPE rotations. Elective APPEs may be selected from a variety of medicine subspecialties, such as neurology, oncology, nutrition, infectious disease, critical care, psychiatry and pediatrics. Students can choose from other elective rotation choices including: pharmaceutical care projects, education, administration, industry, managed care, clinical research and others. 

In addition, the APPEs may be completed through a combination of live rotations and challenging some APPEs for academic credit through a credit-by-challenge submission, within the APPE guidelines of the program. All students must perform four live APPE rotations. More information about the APPE rotations is located in the section below.

North American-Trained PharmD (NTPD) students must perform 36 weeks or 1440 hours of advanced pharmacy practice experience (APPE) rotations. * The APPEs may be completed through a combination of rotations and credit-by-challenge submissions provided the NTPD student has the appropriate work experience.  Required APPEs are as follows: 

• Community Pharmacy – Required  
• Ambulatory Care – Required 
• Health-System Acute General Medicine - Required 
• Health-System Institutional – Required 
• Elective One 
• Elective Two 

In the North American-Trained PharmD (NTPD) Program, practice competency is determined by the mastery of outcomes. Many NTPD students have already achieved the outcomes for one or more advanced pharmacy practice experience (APPE) rotations during their pharmacy careers. Therefore, a credit-by-challenge portfolio process exists to grant academic credit up to two APPE rotations based on the NTPD student’s work experience. 

NTPD students may submit a credit-by-challenge portfolio once admitted into the NTPD Program and has completed an advising call.  

Manual and Policies – The DDP Office recommends all NTPD students read through the documents linked below to learn more about the credit-by-challenge process, which provides more information about the review process, submission deadlines, and formatting.

Introductory Pharmacy Practice Experiences (IPPEs): The ITPD experiential training curriculum begins with introductory experiences linked to the online didactic curriculum.  Students complete  400 live contact hours of IPPEs in the following planned manner: 

• 80 hours of community IPPEs – linked to year 1 courses;  
• 80 hours of health system IPPEs – occur in relation to year 2 courses; 
• 240 hours (six weeks) of advanced IPPEs (aIPPES)– linked to year 3 Clinical Capstone course

Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experiences (APPEs): Upon completion of the above, the experiential program continues with seven, six-week advanced pharmacy practice experiences (APPEs), in the following practice areas: 

• Community Pharmacy – Required/ ACPE Core  
• Ambulatory Care  - Required/ ACPE Core 
• Health-System Institutional - Required/ ACPE Core 
• Health System Acute General Medicine - Required/ ACPE Core 
• Elective One  
• Elective Two  
• Elective Three

Elective APPE rotations may be selected from a variety of medicine subspecialties, such as neurology, oncology, nutrition, infectious diseases, critical care, psychiatry and pediatrics, or other elective rotation choices such as pharmaceutical care projects, education, administration, industry, managed care and clinical research.

All APPE rotations are six weeks in length (or 240 hours) completed on a full-time basis, totaling 42 weeks or 1680 APPE rotation hours. 

Fall Semester

• The Office of Experiential Programs (OEP) will email students a survey, where students will identify the number of and type of rotations to complete and choose when to complete rotations from the provided rotation timeframes. 
• The DDP Office will review each student's completed survey and will confirm, by email, each student's eligibility to participate in the Colorado APPE rotation match process. 

December - January

• All eligible students will review the rotation site descriptions, which defines where they may complete APPE rotations in Colorado and will enter their rotation site preferences through CORE.
• Students who submit their site preferences in CORE are expected to complete assigned rotation(s) at the assigned rotation site(s) and during the assigned rotation block(s). Students will adhere to the Rotation Site Availability and Drop Policy. 

Late February - The entire match should be completed! Students will view their schedules in CORE and will have one or two days to request small changes to their schedules. After that, the preceptor(s) will be notified and no further changes will be accepted.