Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experiences
Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experiences (APPEs) begin during late spring of your second year and continue through your third year in medical centers and hospitals, outpatient facilities, and community clinics at one of five APPE programs located throughout California:
- San Francisco Bay Area (San Francisco and areas immediately south and east)
- North Bay (areas north of San Francisco Bay)
- Greater Sacramento (northern portion of the California Central Valley)
- Fresno (southern portion of the California Central Valley)
- Southern California (Los Angeles and Orange Counties)
Four core APPE rotations
An APPE rotation is a six-week, full-time clinical experience at a medical center, hospital, or clinic setting that provides real-world pharmacy experience. You’ll have eight six-week, full-time APPE experiences in the UCSF PharmD program.
All students will take four core APPEs.
The remaining APPEs are elective opportunities, two of which must be in direct patient care settings. Two elective APPEs may be taken in non-direct patient care settings.
- Hospital pharmacy systems and practice experience
- Community pharmacy systems and practice experience
- Acute care experience
- Ambulatory care experience
Direct patient care APPE elective examples
- Cardiology
- Clinical pharmacokinetics
- Compounding
- Community pharmacy
- Critical care
- Emergency medicine
- Geriatrics
- Hematology/oncology
- HIV Primary care
- Home care
- Hospice care
- Infectious diseases
- Nephrology
- Neurology
- Neurosurgery
- Nutrition
- Oncology
- Pediatrics (including PICU/NICU settings)
- Poison control
- Psychiatry
- Pulmonology
- Surgery
- Transitional care
- Transplant
Non-direct patient care APPE elective examples
- Administration
- Automation/informational technology
- Clinical informatics
- Compounding
- Consulting
- Drug information
- Industry
- Managed care
- Nuclear pharmacy
- Veterinary medicine
- Program directors and preceptors
Program directors and preceptors
Each of the five APPE programs is managed by a school faculty member who serves as program director. At each APPE rotation, you’ll be under the direct supervision of a preceptor who provides patient-oriented pharmaceutical services at the site, research activities in the pharmaceutical industry, or pharmacy expertise within the organization.