School of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences Scholars Program

The Scholars Program of the University at Buffalo School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences is designed to identify students with demonstrated excellence in academic achievement having an interest in postgraduate training.  This program provides mentorship to third and fourth professional year students in the areas of clinical practice, scholarship, and teaching so as to help mold the future leaders of our profession. 

In addition to the traditional PharmD program requirements, the Scholars Program student will participate in the following activities during their third and/or fourth professional year:

1. Mentoring: One-on-one direct mentoring for professional growth, clinical practice, scholarship, and/or teaching. Mentors are faculty or adjunct faculty members. Students will be given the opportunity to submit their top three mentor choices, either from a provided list or of their own choosing. Mentors not pre-identified will need to be approved by the Scholars Program Committee. Note: Research track students will identify their mentor via their track as per their research interests.
2. Curriculum: Modified coursework encompassing clinical, research, teaching, and leadership. View the detailed course information about the Scholar Student Curriculum.
3. Experiential Education: Tailored introductory (IPPE) and advanced pharmacy practice (APPE) experiences, focusing on clinical practice, scholarship, and/or teaching. Students will complete one IPPE-3 rotation, one clinical APPE rotation, and one elective APPE rotation (block or longitudinal) with their mentor. Note: Research track students will complete their elective rotations in research with their research track advisor.
4. Journal club: Students will participate in a monthly journal club, and  will be required to present a critical assessment of one peer-review clinical study to the members of the scholars program.
5. Teaching activities: Students will provide service as a teaching assistant in the Pharmaceutical Care course sequence.
6. Scholarship: Students will conduct a scholarly project, i.e. research project, review article, etc., and submit their manuscript for publication in a peer-reviewed journal. Note: The research project for research track students will satisfy this requirement.
7. Professional Presentation: Students will present their scholarly project in the form of a poster presentation at the annual Western New York Residency Research Presentation day or the UB School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences poster presentation day, and as a 15 minute platform presentation to the members of the scholars program, both during the spring semester of their fourth professional year. Students will alsosubmit their scholarly project as a poster at a state or national pharmacy meeting.

Please refer to the Scholars Program Handbook for more information.

Eligibility Requirements

To be eligible for the program, students must have a minimum of a 3.5 GPA in required courses and documented history of professional organization involvement. A student having a GPA of less than 3.5 may petition to enroll in the program, pending input from his/her faculty advisor – a letter of support from the faculty advisor must be sent in with the student’s application materials.

Apply!

Students must formally apply to the Scholars Program to be considered. To apply, students must complete the Scholars Program Application along with emailing their CV as directed between December 1st and December 15th of their second professional (P2) year. Applications are not accepted at any other time. Applications are reviewed by the Scholars Program committee in January. Selected students will be offered an interview, which will be held in February. Following interviews, a maximum of 10 students will be invited into the Scholars Program. They will be notified no later than April. These students will participate in the above outlined activities during the third and fourth professional years.