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Photos by John Ulan

Sofiya Terekhovska, ’22 PharmD, didn’t expect to spend six weeks of her experiential learning time outside of a pharmacy. Working with patients is what drew her to the profession in the first place, so, in her final year of study — which comprises real-world work placements — she was surprised to find herself in front of a computer at home working on a support guide for preceptors.

Pharmacy students’ experiential learning placements traditionally involve working in a clinical setting under the supervision of a practising pharmacist. In some cases, they take place in a non-patient care context. Terekhovska was tasked with researching and writing under the guidance of Michelle MacDonald, preceptor, clinical assistant professor and Alberta Health Services (AHS) clinical practice leader-faculty liaison, in what MacDonald calls a “leadership elective rotation” — and it turned out to be one of the most meaningful elements of Terekhovska’s education.

MacDonald and co-preceptor Dalyce Zuk, ’05 BSc(Pharm), who was acting manager of compounding and repackaging with AHS at the time, introduced Terekhovska to the worlds of academic, project and clinical leadership and mentored her in developing leadership competencies like communication, teamwork, relationship building, decision-making and conflict resolution, all applicable to any pharmacy job.

The placement had real-life results. Terekhovska recently completed a 15-month role as the Connect Care Implementation Lead for AHS Corrections Pharmacy where she led a project to standardize and implement an electronic health records system for corrections patients — people who are incarcerated in provincial institutions — across Alberta. It was a big job for a recent grad, but Terekhovska felt her experience with MacDonald and Zuk had prepared her for the opportunity.

“The leadership placement encouraged me and helped me overcome imposter syndrome,” she says. “I didn’t know if I would get the job. But having those leadership skills pushed me to apply for it anyway.”

Experiential learning is an essential part of a pharmacist’s education. Classroom learning is important, but a full understanding of the work demands learning on the ground, which is why more than 600 pharmacists volunteer as preceptors in Alberta. Students typically do six rotations — around a total of 40 weeks — throughout the course of their degrees. They gain experience in diverse elective environments like community and hospital settings in cities and rural areas, ambulatory clinics, public health clinics and non-patient care settings where they might work on things like drug information and policy, research or project management. The leadership rotation is one such non-patient care opportunity. It’s offered as an elective to fourth-year PharmD and PharmD for Practicing Pharmacists students and has become a labour of love for MacDonald and her fellow assistant clinical professor Pawan Gill, ’18 PharmD.

What goes on in more traditional clinical placements is fairly straightforward — students provide direct patient care services and are exposed to a wide scope of clinical areas and practices. A leadership rotation can be a bit more abstract in that it usually takes place in an office setting, involves meetings and video calls, and is project-based.

MacDonald and Gill incorporate students into real meetings and work projects for Pharmacy Services in the faculty and AHS. Students identify the skills they want to develop and their interests, and preceptors align their projects to help them meet their goals. Projects can include research, developing preceptor training and tools, preceptor and student engagement, or other tasks connected to pharmacy education.

Last year, 48 elective leadership placements — about 30 per cent of total elective placements — were offered to fourth-year PharmD students.

“Just like someone goes into a clinical placement to learn about patient care, students come into a leadership placement to apply leadership skills to the work we do,” says MacDonald. “We integrate the student into our work.”

Terekhovska’s leadership rotation at the faculty, for example, resulted in the Preceptor Guide: Supporting Learners for Success. Her experience included conducting literature research and focus groups with º£½ÇÉçÇø and University of Saskatchewan experiential education team members.

Working on the project gave her administrative and project management experience, useful in her future role implementing the Connect Care digital information system. MacDonald and Zuk’s mentorship also instilled the problem-solving Terekhovska needed to pursue a long-term career as a frontline corrections pharmacist.

“There’s leadership in our day-to-day,” Gill says. “How do you engage with a patient who is disengaged? How do you resolve conflict with a co-worker? This placement is about building skills that translate to any position in the profession.”

Joy Chemeda, ’25 PharmD, and Prerna Sharma, ’25 PharmD, recently completed a fourth-year leadership rotation with MacDonald and Gill. Their projects included collecting information from students who were on rotations during Alberta’s wildfires in 2023 and 2024, working on quality improvement projects and developing a preceptor engagement survey.

“We conducted interviews with students who had been on rotations during the wildfires,” Chemeda says. “We heard their experiences and if they felt supported, so the faculty can better support students affected by similar crises in the future.”

Neither Chemeda or Sharma have immediate plans to take on administrative roles like Terekhovska did with Corrections Pharmacy, but they both found the placement invaluable for future job preparation.

“Our preceptors were really great at building skills with us, not just for our projects but for us as individuals,” says Sharma. “We learned a lot of communication skills and effective presentation skills.” They say it helped them build confidence and develop empathy.

Today, Terekhovska is working as a pharmacist at the Edmonton Remand Centre — a provincial institution for people awaiting criminal trial — happy to return to a position working directly with patients. She says her experiences with MacDonald continue to shape how she handles her work at the Remand Centre.

“There’s a misconception that leadership skills are only necessary if you want to be a manager,” she says. “Everyone needs leadership skills. I use them in my frontline job too. When I talk to patients who have just been incarcerated, they could be in shock and overwhelmed, and I need those people skills.”

This is exactly the result MacDonald envisioned when she started precepting leadership rotations a little over five years ago. Her goals as an educator and a pharmacist remain to facilitate as much experiential learning as possible to create a generation of pharmacists who are ready to face whatever challenges come their way. The program has this in common with the more traditional clinical preceptor rotations.

“The hope is to show them they can be a leader no matter where they are, however big or small their role,” MacDonald says. “Leadership isn’t just a title. Leadership is who you are and how you show up, and being a role model every day.”