AI-Generated Summary: This article highlights practical strategies pharmacist preceptors can use to create engaging, supportive, and effective learning experiences that help students and residents build confidence and clinical competence. Through intentional teaching, meaningful feedback, and a learner-centered approach, preceptors can inspire professional growth while making experiential education more rewarding for both themselves and their learners.
Authored by: Natasha Advani, PharmD
RWJBarnabas Health, Livingston, NJ
Article Posted 25 June 2026
“I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.”
— Albert Einstein
Precepting pharmacy students during their introductory pharmacy practice experiences (IPPEs) and advanced pharmacy practice experiences (APPEs aka clinical rotations) requires dedication and planning but can be a very rewarding experience. Refining your own precepting strategies will help learners reach the height of their potential. As a clinical generalist in the field for nearly 15 years, I have ushered several pharmacy students along their professional journey. I typically precept for a hospital practice dispensing rotation.
In this article I pull from my experience, providing a few strategies that I have found to be most effective in helping your learners shine and send them off to their bright futures!
1. Assess the Learner’s Background
Building rapport begins even before day one of the rotation. When the students introduce themselves, take the opportunity to collect background information. I like to find out how much experience they have in a hospital setting to determine where to start with the basics. If they already work as a technician, then you can focus more on clinical operations or offer opportunities to explore specialty areas.
It helps to know future areas of interest to arrange shadowing days if you have those specialties at your institution. This provides a break from the monotony of observing order verification. My students report back that they enjoy the opportunities to explore a day in the life of pharmacy professionals they often never considered prior to spending time with specialists in areas such as IT or investigational pharmacy. These areas tend to be glossed over in school so seeing these specialties firsthand really opens their eyes to the possibilities available to them in our dynamic career.
At my institution, I was able to pair a student with oncology interest with our Cancer Center pharmacists and have introduced students to IT and transplant pharmacists as well.
2. Keep a Calendar Draft Handy
I find that keeping a calendar template drafted helps establish baseline tasks and expectations for the rotation. You do not need to reinvent the wheel every cycle, because the basic flow and progression generally stay the same. This way you have a starting point that can be easily tailored to student interests and staffing adjustments as needed.
Every learner experience has parallels with the last. The best preceptors adjust the experience to compliment the needs of the individual learner.
3. Foster independence
Of course, a student’s level of autonomy will depend on their progression in the pharmacy school curriculum and life experience. Broadly, independence should increase throughout the cycle in a way that tasks which require close oversight in the beginning should be handled with a reasonable amount of independence by the end. “Reasonable” will still mean within their scope such as running recommendations by you before speaking directly to patients if they are unlicensed students. However, dispensing tasks that needed demonstrations in the first week should be completed independently by the end, without prompting.
If there is downtime when a student is observing order verification type tasks, I expect students to have the initiative to fill those orders to get them ready for pharmacist check, even if that is not your role that day. When opportunity arises, be sure to encourage such proactive engagement.
If you teach residents while doing routine work, this a wonderful opportunity to implement layered learning – a great strategy to have the resident solidify their own learning while teaching thereby increasing their level of comfort and expertise.
Tasks that require “low” levels of oversight: Technician duties (fulfilling orders, returning medications, possibly delivering medications if they become familiar with the building)
Tasks that require “medium” levels of oversight: Chart review
Tasks that require “high” levels of oversight (this will change as students progress in their learning): Developing dosing and monitoring recommendations for consult services (e.g. vancomycin consults, IV to PO, renal dosing), providing recommendations to the team on rounds about antibiotic selection
4. Facilitate Ongoing Feedback and Open Communication
There is a fine balance between delivering regular feedback and burning yourself out. The frequency of check-ins will depend on how autonomous your student is, but I at least like to touch base quickly at the end of each day- even when my student is shadowing someone else – to ensure that goals are being met, progress is continuing and that there were no unexpected issues or interruptions to the learning experience.
Rotations fly by so real time feedback is critical to assessing growth and addressing issues early versus waiting for the midpoint and final evaluations. By keeping the lines of communication open, you can also understand your student’s learning style quickly to modify lesson plans or course correct deviations if necessary. Open communication additionally supports psychological safety. This is not easy to maintain all the time, but as a role model, it is important to serve as a safe space if a student is struggling with the learning material or has concerns/obligations outside of the learning environment.
One of my students worked a full time job after having to commute quite a distance to my practice site. By providing a little extra flexibility with the schedule, he had the motivation to be fully engaged during the time we spent together and went above and beyond on the projects asked of him. If you foster a warm and welcoming environment, learners are more likely to rise to or even exceed your expectations. All it takes is a little bit of grace and understanding.
Closing thoughts
Ultimately, your goal is to leave students better than how you found them. Under your guidance and incorporating these tips into your practice, learners will acquire the tools they need to really shine. The future of pharmacy is so bright!
DISCLOSURE
The views and opinions in this article represent those of the author and does not necessarily reflect the policy or position of any former, current, or potential future employer.
AI has been used to enhance text and copy editing, but not to develop the article.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Natasha Advani, PharmD has been practicing as a clinical generalist pharmacist for 15 years. She is an alumnus of Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy at Rutgers University and completed PGY1 residency training. Her current practice site is Cooperman Barnabas Medical Center as part of RWJBarnabas Health System in Livingston, NJ. She works closely with interdisciplinary team members across specialties to optimize pharmacotherapy for her patients.
Dr. Advani has served as a preceptor in PA and NJ with a passionate commitment to the education of future pharmacists. She also has experience teaching other healthcare disciplines. She has strong interest in medication safety and strives to streamline the medication distribution process to increase efficiency and safety.
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