Pharmacy students' application of knowledge from the classroom to introductory pharmacy practice experiences.

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether and how pharmacy students used knowledge learned in the classroom during their introductory pharmacy practice experiences (IPPEs) in community and hospital settings.
DESIGN: To reinforce course concepts and make connections between coursework and practice, students documented examples of how knowledge from first-year courses was used in IPPEs. ASSESSMENT: Data submitted were categorized by classroom-based pharmacy course, including the frequency with which each course was cited. For community practice experiences, most student examples of knowledge application related to the self-care therapeutics course, pharmacy practice laboratory course, and dose form/compounding laboratory courses. Hospital IPPE examples were most frequently based on the pharmaceutical calculations course, physiology/pathophysiology course, medicinal chemistry course, and pharmacy practice laboratory course.
CONCLUSION: All prior classroom-based pharmacy courses were cited by students as being useful during IPPEs, although some were more frequently cited than others. This activity provided useful programmatic assessment data.