The 3 Most Valuable Tips for Pharmacy Rotations — The Truth Revealed

It’s that time of the year. As a Pharmacy student you get to take all the information you’ve learned from all the previous years and put it to practical use. It’s finally your get away from the constant boring lectures and spending countless hours studying for exams. It’s your moment to go get out in the field and learn everything you can. It’s time, for pharmacy rotations.

The mindset of the typical pharmacy student goes something like this:

1. Go to a rotation site.
2. Comply with the preceptor’s demands and follow the site’s monthly schedule while trying to learn as much information as possible.
3. Hope that your efforts were enough to get you an A.
4. Make a decision based on your experience whether you could see yourself ever practicing in a similar setting.
5. Repeat.

Don’t get me wrong, there is definitely value in approaching rotations in this manner, however, these three tips will help you get the MOST value from your rotations in the long term.

Maintain an open mind.

One of the biggest mistakes any pharmacy student can make is going into each practice site with a closed mind. Often times, you hear comments from other students like:

I don’t care about this site

This rotation doesn’t matter, I’m going to work for CVS anyways

I’ll never practice in a hospital setting

I can’t stand this preceptor, this month is going to suck

Negative comments like these limit yourself and your experience at a practice site. Believe it or not, your mindset will subconsciously effect how you perform at a rotation site and how you perceive the experience. If you go in negative and close-minded, then the experience will be perceived as negative and you most likely won’t get the full value the site has to offer. Maintaning an open mind will maximize the experience while exposing you to more opportunities in the field. This will create options for you to practice and experience throughout your career.

Switch your mindset approach to what value can you give to the site, not what value will the site give to you.

This shift in mindset benefits you in the short term and the long term.

Each rotation has a specific and consistent set of tasks the pharmacy student is expected to perform over the course of the month. By shifting your mindset to what value you can bring to the site, you’ll find yourself taking initiative and performing well beyond the expectations of the site. In the short, this will create opportunites for you to learn and experience more from the site than the average pharmacy student.

In the long term, this kind of mindset will create an internal fulfillment within your practicing career by going above and beyond for your patients and peers. This will also create numerous amount of opportunities for you within the field and grow your network full of positive, innovating and inspiring individuals. These point leads me to the most important tip.

The most valuable thing you will acquire from rotations is not what you learn, but who you meet.

I’m going to repeat this because this is super super important.

The most valuable thing you will acquire from rotations is not what you learn, but who you meet.

I want you to realize this and let it sink in. Over the course of your education, you have developed the ability and the resources to continually learn and look up information. If you never took step in a single rotation, you still have access to the information via different sources to learn the material over the course of your career. However, the opportunity you get to meet certain individuals may only occur during your time at the site.

It’s very crucial that you take the time to make a great impression and build a relationship with these individuals and have them in your network. Doing this over the course of your career will open many doors, inspire many opportunities, and create innovating movements within the profession of pharmacy.

By putting your focus on these three things, I have no doubt that it will not only maximize your rotation experience, but will put you in the best position to maximize your experience in your whole entire career.

Thank you for reading.

Best,

Scott Weaver, PharmD

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