Three-year assessment of advanced pharmacy practice experience student and faculty change requests at a college of pharmacy

ObjectiveExperiential education is a critical component of the curriculum of all colleges of pharmacy. Thus, having access to quality and adequate numbers of Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experiences (APPEs) is essential. This study examines APPE change requests from preceptor faculty and students over a three-year period. Such requests are the primary reason to obtain an excess of APPEs. The objective was to determine whether class size influences the excess percentage needed.MethodsData were collected from student records regarding APPE change requests and granted requests for the graduating classes of 2011–2013 at the University of Tennessee College of Pharmacy. Percentages of change requests and granted requests were calculated. ANOVA was conducted to assess differences in change requests and granted requests over the study period.ResultsThere were 660 APPE change requests in 2011, 331 in 2012, and 232 in 2013. The percentage of granted requests calculated from total APPEs was 29% in 2011, 15.8% in 2012, and 12.1% in 2013. The number of change requests and granted requests were significantly higher for the Class of 2011, which had 203 students, compared to 2012 and 2013 (p < 0.05), that had 183 and 147 students, respectively.ConclusionTo conduct a viable experiential program, a public college of pharmacy should maintain a 12–20% excess in APPEs for class sizes of 140 or more. As class size increases to 200 or more, excess percentage of APPEs needed also increases considerably.