Accelerated Program

One of only a limited number of accelerated Doctor of Pharmacy Degree programs nationwide, South University provides four academic years of study within three calendar years. After being accepted to the South University School of Pharmacy, students begin a full-time 12-quarter schedule.

Curriculum

The carefully structured curriculum is designed to prepare graduates for high standards of contemporary pharmacy practice as well as the evolution of the profession.

Teaching Method

In a setting of collaborative learning and teamwork, the program interrelates the basic sciences and practice.

Technology and Facilities

The South University School of Pharmacy offers personalized and technical instructional delivery utilizing industry-standard equipment and facilities.

The role of pharmacists in the medical field is changing and evolving to meet the demands of the profession and society. The Doctor of Pharmacy degree program’s curriculum at South University is structured to produce graduates who can adapt to the profession’s changes while also maintaining high standards of pharmacy practice. South University’s progressive curriculum is designed to incorporate technology in addition to a traditional classroom setting.

South University Campus and Affiliations with Healthcare Facilities

The South University School of Pharmacy in Savannah is a 40,000-square-foot, freestanding, facility designed specifically to house a modern pharmacy school. The building provides instructional, laboratory, and office facilities for pharmacy students, faculty and administrators. This facility also provides two large modern lecture halls and an adequate number of small classrooms to facilitate small group instruction.

A General Purpose Laboratory is located in the building. This laboratory includes rooms for patient counseling practice and teaching physical assessment. All rooms have videotape/playback capabilities. In addition, a sterile products room and a model pharmacy are available. This practice laboratory accommodates up to 34 students per class, and is designed to emulate real practice settings as well as to provide maximum use in the academic program. There is also a 32-station Analytical Chemistry Laboratory that is used for chemistry, pharmaceutics, and professional laboratory courses. A Drug Information Center on the first floor provides an active learning center in the School of Pharmacy.

Practice sites have been recruited to support the experiential component of the curriculum. Early activity will be focused on the introductory practice experiences. Students will be precepted at sites in all three phases of practice experience: introductory, intermediate and advanced. Experiential sites will include, but not be limited to, chain and independent community pharmacies, teaching and community hospitals, long term care facilities, managed care facilities, pharmaceutical companies, home infusion therapy companies, regulatory agencies, family practice clinics and a veterinary hospital, among others.

On June 14, 2010, South University opened the doors to the second campus offering the Doctor of Pharmacy Program.  The School occupies a new building in Columbia, SC, on the existing South University campus. The building is complete with a pharmacy practice lab, mock pharmacy and patient assessment labs affording students the opportunity to develop dispensing, compounding, intravenous admixture and patient assessment/counseling skills.  The laboratory in Columbia accommodates 48 students and is a complete practice and chemistry laboratory in one.  An onsite Drug Information Center provides information to consumers and healthcare professionals as well as serves as an advanced rotation site for students.

Columbia faculty, in conjunction with our Savannah faculty, are a combination of professionals who enable us to utilize Tandberg distance education, and other modern technologies in combination with live instruction, and who provide the pharmacy education required for our students to develop the professional skills to serve patients.

South University has developed a program that is visionary in its approach to educating Pharmacy students, with a carefully structured curriculum designed to prepare graduates for both high standards of contemporary pharmacy practice and the evolution of the profession. At South University, we have integrated Medicinal Chemistry, Pharmacology, and Therapeutics into one combined continuing course sequence developed in full collaboration by science and practice faculty. The resulting efficiency allows a rigorous comprehensive didactic component in a curriculum that contains 12 months of full-time rotations using an accelerated, full-time 12-quarter schedule designed to deliver four academic years in three calendar years.

Program Student Learning Outcomes:

• Accurately and legally process drug orders: interpret and evaluate prescriptions, compound, prepare, package, and dispense medications.
• Communicate with patients and provide counseling regarding the purposes, uses, and effects of medications, related therapy, and general health promotion.
• Design, implement, monitor, evaluate, and modify or recommend modifications in drug therapy to insure effective, safe, and economical patient care.
• Identify, assess and solve medication-related problems, providing clinical judgment and recommendations for achievement of individualized therapeutic outcomes.
• Evaluate patients through interview, physical assessment, and objective tests, and triage patients to other health professionals as appropriate.
• Manage and utilize systems, technology and personnel to support, build and enhance the practice of pharmacy including storage, preparation, dispensing and administration of medicines.
• Understand relevant diet, nutrition, and non-drug therapies.
• Collaborate with other health professionals in patient care, scholarship, and service.
• Evaluate and document interventions and pharmaceutical care outcomes.
• Retrieve, evaluate, manage, and communicate professional information and literature.
• Contribute to the rational use of medications through skills related to formulary management, medication use evaluation, and adverse event reporting.
• Display professional attributes of a pharmacist including ethical decision making, critical thinking, and life-long learning as described in the Pharmacist’s Oath.
• Understand the major components and dynamics of the U.S. healthcare system, and roles of pharmacy and the pharmaceutical industry within the system.
• Understand and use pharmaceutical calculations and pharmacokinetic principles to support accurate and safe drug delivery.
• Predict the major pharmacological activity, potential side-effects and physicochemical properties of a drug based on its chemical structure.
• Comprehend basic pharmacological principles (dose-response relationships, drug receptor binding, drug metabolism & elimination) as well as the mechanism of action of a drug, its therapeutic indication and adverse effects.
• Understand the normal functioning of cells, tissues and organ systems in the context of the overall homeostasis of the organism.
• Understand how various disease states affect the normal physiology and homeostasis of an organism and use this understanding of pathophysiology as the basis for drug therapy.
• Compare and contrast various routes of drug administration and predict the availability, metabolism and elimination of a drug following its administration by these various routes.
• Understand the structure, physiochemical properties, and function of key biomolecules within the human body with respect to their role in metabolism, biosynthesis, energy production and expression of genetic material.
• Understand and apply the mathematical, physiochemical and biological principles governing the formulation, preparation & effectiveness of various dosage forms as well as new technologies involved in the development of these dosage forms.