Abstract

Background

The recently revised 2025 Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE) Standards state the expectations of Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experiences (APPEs) are to “emphasize continuity of care and incorporate acute, chronic, and wellness-promoting patient-care services…[and] expose students to diverse patient populations as related to age, sex race/ethnicity, socioeconomic factors…and disease states.”1 These expectations describe the conditions under which student pharmacists are expected to develop and demonstrate competence in the entrustable professional activities (EPAs), which were revised in 2022 to more accurately reflect current pharmacy practice.2 However, the definition of required APPE (Standard 3.2.d.) states that the inpatient patient care APPE, specifically, must occur within an “adult” population.1 The addition of this qualifier is confusing and raises questions related to the overall objectives of the inpatient patient care APPE. Further, this qualifier is not added to other required APPE, such as ambulatory care.

When considering the expectations of APPE (Standard 3.2.a.) it seems that an inpatient pediatric patient care APPE could only assist with meeting the expectations of this accreditation standard. As written, the Standards allow for student pharmacists to complete all their APPE in adult populations only, which raises the question of how Schools and Colleges of Pharmacy ensure that students are exposed to “diverse populations that include age…”.1

Well-designed APPEs across any age group should provide students with the opportunity to practice and demonstrate competence in the EPAs. This can be achieved by contributing medication-related knowledge as part of an interprofessional team, creating patient-specific pharmacotherapy plans using the framework of The Pharmacists’ Patient Care Process, and/or utilizing literature to answer medication-related questions. Many skills described by the EPAs are also found in the North American Pharmacist Licensure Examination competency statements, which are not age specific.3 Further, the authors contend that an inpatient pediatric patient care APPE provides a deep exposure to key skills assessed on the North American Pharmacist Licensure Examination, such as pharmacy calculations.

In this commentary we explore concerns related to the definition of required inpatient adult patient care APPE and how this creates a missed opportunity for high-quality student learning experiences that meet both APPE expectations and society’s need for a practice-ready, generalist pharmacist. Additionally, we provide recommendations as to how Schools and Colleges of Pharmacy can and should encourage student participation in experiential education opportunities in pediatric practice settings.

This publication was included in our repository because co-author, Norman E. Fenn III. is a Manchester faculty member who practices in pediatrics at Parkview.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2-1-2025

Publication Title

J Pediatr Pharmacol Ther

First Page

4

Last Page

7

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