Bulletin Board
The Latest Info
Note: PCAT will be required for fall 2011; it is not required for fall 2010.
AS IS TYPICAL, our 2008 graduates performed above the state and national averages on the North American Pharmacist Licensure Examination (NAPLEX). The WSU grads' passing rate was 96.51, which exceeded both the state-wide passing rate of 96.45 and the national passing rate of 95.48. This spring our 2009 graduates again outscored their peers on the Multistate Pharmacy Jurisprudence Examination (MPJE). WSU's passing rate was 93.75 compared with the state-wide passing rate of 89.06 and the national passing rate of 86.23.
We Have Outstanding Students!
WSU pharmacy student Andrew Helm is the new president-elect of the National Community Pharmacists Association's students' council and will serve as president in 2010-11. It will be the second time in three years a WSU student has served as president of the 16-member national student leadership council. WSU pharmacy student Jason Doss, who graduated in May, just finished his term as president for 2008-09. In addition to new student council president-elect Helm and past president Doss, student Manpreet Chahal of the class of 2010 is serving his second year on the NCPA student council.
Helm has since been appointed by Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire to be the student trustee this next year on the state’s Higher Education Coordinating Board, and he will be speaking at the NCPA annual convention in New Orleans in October about leadership in pharmacy and getting involved in the legislative process.
Why So Many Prerequisites?
Why have we increased our prerequisite courses? Because our PharmD curriculum has been recently re-packaged to bring you fewer “background” courses and more “professional level” courses - immediately. We’ve injected a greater emphasis on working with patients into our curriculum while not losing any substance in our strong science and research components.
Because of this, we are way in the forefront of meeting the accreditation standards that will soon be required of all colleges of pharmacy in the country. Our curriculum will, once again, be a model for other pharmacy schools to follow.
(We also felt that you shouldn't have to pay professional-level tuition for the undergraduate-level courses that used to be in our curriculum!)
All our professional courses are taught by Pharmacy faculty and not by other departments on our campus. Therefore our students' courses and the entire curriculum is designed specifically with their future patients in mind.
Choose A Great School to Learn About a Great Profession
Pharmacists are very dedicated, trustworthy people, and the WSU College of Pharmacy takes seriously our mission to train and educate our future pharmacists. The Essential Functions are attributes and skills the College of Pharmacy considers necessary for entrance, continuation, and graduation from WSU's PharmD program. Before classes ever begin for a brand new pharmacy student, we hold a formal event called the White Coat Ceremony, during which the new students stand, raise their right hand and take the Pharmacy Students Pledge of Professionalism. This is a precursor to another ritual we lead them through after their four years of pharmacy school come to a conclusion. During the graduation events these same students will stand, raise their right hand and take the Oath of a Pharmacist. At both of these solemn rites, their parents, teachers and friends are in attendance to witness, support, and celebrate with them.
The centerpiece of the WSU PharmD curriculum is a series of experiences collectively designated as the "Pharmaceutical Care Laboratory" (PCL). The laboratory exercises represent real life problems and rely on computer simulations and other instructional devices. Skills emphasized in the PCL include patient counseling, comprehensive assessment of patient drug therapy, drug use evaluation, and management of drug therapy of patients with specific disease states, among others. Also highlighted are pricing, business management decision-making, and determining the financial consequences of providing a specific pharmaceutical care service.
The Pharmaceutical Care Center (PCC) is equipped with workstations, patient counseling rooms and counters, a communications laboratory, and a variety of drug information resources. A separate component of the PCC includes prescription compounding, intravenous solution preparation and prepackaging laboratories. Students have access to a large patient database as well as a variety of pharmacy computer systems. These include capabilities for training students in managing inventories, pricing, third party processing, maintaining patient profiles, and other computer based patient drug therapy management aids.
Other courses in the curriculum will provide the knowledge base necessary for students to acquire needed skills to deliver high quality pharmaceutical care to their patients.
General Overview
The WSU Doctor of Pharmacy (Pharm.D.) program requires 3 years of pre-pharmacy studies followed by 4 years of professional education, regardless of prior degrees.
WSU pharmacy students attend classes at the main campus in Pullman for the first two professional years, and at the branch campus in Spokane for the third year, and the fourth year is spent doing rotations. All rotations may be completed in a single city: Spokane, Yakima, Tri-Cities, Vancouver, Tacoma or Pullman.
While we receive 800 to 900 applications annually, the program admits 94 students each fall semester only. Students pay professional-level tuition.
Clery Act Compliance
State and federal laws require institutions of higher education to notify prospective students of the availability of information regarding campus safety. WSU’s campus safety report is available at the following link: www.go.wsu.edu/safetyinfo.
Pharm.D.
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