We consider our nontraditional program fortunate
in the caliber of our students. Many have obtained residencies, certification in various
areas including BCPS, are full time clinical faculty with other programs or have generally
developed themselves through self-directed life long learning prior to pursuing their
nontraditional Pharm.D.
As a result of these previous excellent self-development programs, we frequently are
asked if prior clinical experience can apply towards clerkship credit. Within our program,
credit for prior learning occurs indirectly because prior clinical experience enables the
student to meet and/or demonstrate the outcome expectations of our clerkships in a shorter
time frame. Since our program is competency based and not clock hour mandated, the
advanced student can quickly demonstrate their skills through performance. Additionally,
we have limited our clerkship requirements to four clerkships, which by design has
indirectly given credit for post B.S. prior learning (many other programs require more
than four clerkships). Although many prior learning experiences incorporate excellent
clinical clerkship experiences, the College can not apply that experience towards
clerkship credit for the following reasons:
- The Pharm. D. degree is an ACPE approved academic degree and this credit can only be
transferred from other ACPE accredited Pharm.D. clerkship programs.
- Many of these other learning experiences denotes experience beyond that of an academic
degree and to accept it for credit would obfuscate the differentiation between the two.
- We do not have the time or the personnel to individually evaluate each student’s
prior learning through portfolio review. We recognize that some programs use a portfolio
system to evaluate prior learning but we haven’t developed the infrastructure to do
so.
We understand the student’s request for waiving some of the clerkship requirements
but have established our policies for the previously stated reasons and our policy has
served us well. We find that students with strong clinical backgrounds or prior learning
are able to rapidly demonstrate their performance to our satisfaction. However, this
demonstration must be within the structure of our current accredited program. We hope that
the student recognizes that if we were to start waiving various requirements of the
curriculum, potential questions and confusion on the part of accrediting agencies could
occur. We are committed to protecting, to any concerned party, the credibility of our
students’ degree via the nontraditional Pharm.D. pathway at Arkansas.
