School to offer online pharmacy program

EAST COUNTY — With the hopes of providing convenient, quality learning experiences for students, Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine braces for an innovative step forward.

Starting in August, the Lakewood Ranch campus of LECOM will offer online courses for its pharmacy program, making it the second college in the country to offer a distance-education pharmacy program.
Creighton University, located in Nebraska, pioneered the idea to offer an online pharmacy program in 2001.

LECOM representatives began researching the option two years ago, meeting with Creighton University officials last year to discuss best practices. LECOM announced its new program this month.

“The biggest benefit will be for people who can’t come to campus,” said Dr. Katherine Tromp, director of the distance-education program. “Maybe they have children and they can’t send them to daycare. This way, they are able to balance that.”

Tromp said the four-year online program will be just as rigorous as on-site classes.

About 40 instructors from LECOM’s Bradenton and Erie, Pa., campuses will record lectures focused on topics such as different types of medications, how to apply them to patients and the chemistry behind creating medicine. Students can later watch or listen to the lessons via the school’s website.

To substitute for what would be in-class group work, students will be required to log on to an online forum — GoToMeeting — to engage with other students.

Once logged in to the program, group members can see each other through Web cameras and share screen shots with their classmates.

Students enrolled in the program maintain responsibility for the same assignments, exams and other material covered in the traditional classroom setting.

So far, 300 students have applied to the program. March 1 marks the application deadline for the program.

Students competing for a place in the national program should expect to dedicate more than 60 hours per week to the program.

“Students will be putting in full days; it’s not like they have an hour or two of class,” Tromp said. “They’re putting in seven-hour days, and a lot of effort to get that learning. It’s all there, just in a different way.”

Contact Amanda Sebastiano at [email protected].