Diabetes Concentration

This unique program provides students the opportunity to fulfill their general and professional electives with courses that will assist them in developing expertise in diabetes. The general goal of this concentration is to prepare pharmacy students to be competent providers of diabetes patient care.
Fundamental concepts include an enhanced understanding of the following:

1. Pathophysiology of and endocrinologic basis for diabetes.
2. Social Mileu for diabetes
3. Impact of diabetes on minority populations.
4. Psychosocial issues and the impact on diabetes management
5. Therapeutics of managing diabetes
6. Developing/marketing diabetes care services

Occupations - The concentration enables pharmacy students to:

1. Effectively coordinate the care of diabetes patients.
2. Become leaders in diabetes management by establishing practices which provide high quality diabetes care.
3. Effectively negotiate with patients and other providers to improve the quality of diabetes care.
4. Monitor subjective and objective markers of safety and effectiveness and intervene as required to ensure safe and effective therapy.
5. Select appropriate prescription and non-prescription therapies.
6. Monitor patients for adverse drug-drug and drug-disease interactions and intervene as appropriate with patients and health care providers.
7. Educate patients on techniques such as insulin injection and self-monitoring of blood glucose.

Curricular Requirements

Students planning to pursue this concentration should complete the Declaration of Concentration Form.

The concentration consists of both a didactic and experiential component. A total of 20 credit hours is required for the concentration. The didactic component constitutes a total of 10 credit hours of which 7 credit hours are required (and may also fulfill professional elective requirements) and 3 credit hours are elective. The remaining 10 credit hours are completed through experiential rotations.

Elective Courses (3 credits)

Elective courses previously determined to provide an appropriate background in psychosocial issues, educational principles, and cultural aspects of chronic disease.  Potential courses include the following:

• EDUC 164 - Perspectives in Race, Ethnicity, and Gender (MyDUSIS Subject: Teaching and Learning)
• SOC - Specific courses as approved by the Associate Dean.
• PSY 124 - Health Psychology (requires Psy 1 prerequisite)
• *HSCI 145 - Health Coaching (requires PHAR 071 or HSCI 055 prerequisite)
• *PHAR 114 - Advances in Cardiac Disease (requires PHAR major)
• *PHAR 116 - Topics in Neuropharmacology (requires PHAR major)
• Courses offered through the Global and Comparative Public Health Concentration
  
  • HSCI 144: Introduction to Public Health
  • POLS 127: Global Public Health
  • POLS 169: Comparative Public Health Policy
  • HSCI 143: Epidemiology
  • PHIL 124: Health and Social Justice, OR PHIL 151: Environmental Justice
  • WLC 148: Intercultural Communication
  • WLC 150: Spanish for Health Care Providers

* 2 credit course; additional 1 credit will be fulfilled by Global and Cultural Understanding AOI requirement.

Other courses as approved by Associate Dean, including transfer courses from DMACC, Grandview and other institutions. Complete the Transfer Credit Request Form to ensure that the course will fulfill the requirement.

These electives need to be completed by end of the P2 year when the professional pharmacy course work begins.

Required Courses (7 credits)

The professional coursework that will need to be taken includes the following courses:

PHAR 126 - Principles of Nutrition (Prior to the P3 year) 2 credits - WWW

PHAR 128 - Advanced Diabetes Care (P3 Fall) 3 credits - WWW

PHAR 129 - Integrated Diabetes Cases (P3 Spring) 2 credits

Note: The above courses will also fulfill professional elective course requirements.

Experiential Components (10 credits)

One 5 credit hour rotation is required in an area which provides greater than a 50% concentration in diabetes care, or care for a minimum number of patients with diabetes. This includes, but is not limited to any of the following:

• Blackfeet Community Hospital IHS
• Camp Hertko Hollow
• Children's Health Center
• Iowa Diabetes & Endocrinology Center (IDEC)
• Iowa Methodist Med Ctr. Discharge Counsel Diabetes - Pharmacy Department
• Iowa Methodist Medical Center Pharmacy
• Jordan Creek Internal Medicine
• Kaiser Permanente-Skyline Medical Facility
• Lakeview Internal Medicine Clinic
• Urbandale Family Physicians

One 5 credit hour rotation is required in practices which may provide less than a 50% concentration in diabetes, but still enable the student to participate in diabetes management (e.g. family practice, pediatrics, or geriatrics).

Click here to return to Programs