Early Exposure Experiences of Pharmacy Students to Hospital Pharmacy Practice

We developed an “early exposure” program for first-year pharmacy students at Meijo University to allow them to get used to the hospital pharmacy setting. This program was provided in “Ph armaceutical Review I” as an elective course. One hundred and seventy students (66% of total students) took this program in 1998. Before and after the program, the following two questions were asked to the students, and answers were given by one hundred and thirty eight students (81.2%). 1) What impressions and/or expectations do you have for the site-visit to hospital pharmacy before visiting? 2) What impressions do you have for pharmacists' activities and the roles of hospital pharmacy after your visitation? And how will your experiences learned from this program influence your school studies? The most common answer for question 1 was to watch the real activities and working-areas of pharmacists. On the other hand, the most common answer for question 2 was that they were surprised to see how busy pharmacists really are and to realize the important responsibilities that pharmacists have is helping to improve patient care on their dispensing practice. The results of the survey show that the above described program appears to be a worthwhile educational tool for first-year pharmacy students.