Courses

Required Courses
Elective Courses
Proposal Writing, Teaching and Research Requirements
Comprehensive Exams
Dissertation Requirements

Students will take elective courses for a minimum of 9 credit hours. The choice of electives will be dependent on concentration area and should be approved by their advisors and the Director of Graduate Studies. There are three concentration areas for PhD students in DPOP: Pharmacoeconomics, Pharmacoepidemiology, and Social and Behavioral Pharmacy.  Listed below are among the highly recommended elective courses in each of the concentration areas.

Proposal Writing, Teaching, and Research Requirements

Proposal Writing

Students are required to take HPAA 305 as their proposal writing course. If for some reason HPAA 305 is not available, the student must work with his/her Student Advisory Committee to come up with an alternative plan.  The alternative plan must include the student writing a 10-20 page proposal that is similar to the AHRQ or NIH dissertation grant format which follows the PHS 398 guidelines (specific aims, background, preliminary studies, methods).

Teaching Practicum Requirement

The teaching experience is a requirement for students admitted into the doctoral program.  Its purpose is to enhance knowledge and skills in teaching. Optimally, it should be completed during the first two years of the program. It must be completed before taking the comprehensive exam. 

To fulfill this requirement, the student must be involved in teaching a two or three credit hour course. Students should work with the DPOP faculty to determine which course they will select to satisfy their practicum requirement. Students must fill out a contract before starting their practicum. The student will be mentored in teaching by a DPOP faculty member and at the end of the practicum, will be evaluated by the supervising faculty member. A satisfactory evaluation is required to fulfill the teaching practicum requirement. The student must assume responsibility for major aspects of their selected practicum course (e.g. planning and teaching). Simply serving as a teaching assistant does not satisfy this requirement.  Students must deliver at least four 50 minute lectures and must attend at least one seminar on teaching while doing the practicum. Seminars are offered through the graduate school and through the Center on Teaching and Learning.

Research Practicum Requirement

The research practicum is a requirement for students admitted into the doctoral program.  Its purpose is to enhance knowledge and skills in research by working on one or more research projects. Optimally, it should be completed during the first two years of the program to develop the skills necessary to complete the dissertation. It must be completed before taking the comprehensive exams. Students must fill out a contract before starting their practicum.  At the end of the practicum, students will be evaluated by the faculty member who is supervising their practicum. A satisfactory evaluation is required to fulfill the research practicum requirement. The practicum may involve designing and implementing a research project, conducting data analyses, writing manuscripts, preparing a grant proposal, presenting findings at a meeting, or a combination of these activities. Data entry, photocopying, or interviewing patients alone does not satisfy the practicum requirement. The student must devote the equivalent of 15 hours per week for a regular semester (14 weeks), for a total of 210 hours.

Comprehensive Exams

PhD students are expected to complete all the required coursework, proposal writing, and the research and teaching practicums before they can take comprehensive exams.

The objective of the doctoral comprehensive exams is to ensure that students are proficient in three concentration areas before pursuing a PhD dissertation. Although a student may choose to focus his/her studies in one area, the knowledge and skill set in all three areas are considered necessary in general for a qualified PhD candidate to further pursue a dissertation research in pharmaceutical policy and evaluative sciences. The three tested areas are: 1) pharmacoeconomics; 2) pharmacoepidemiology; and 3) health behavioral sciences.  Exams will have three modules, corresponding to these three areas.

Dissertation Requirements

After successfully passing the comprehensive exams, students will begin to work on their dissertation proposal. A minimum of six (6) hours of thesis credit must be taken in order to complete the requirements for the PhD degree. There is no limit to the number of dissertation hours that can be taken; however, no more than six (6) hours may be applied to the minimum of 49 hours needed to satisfy graduation requirements. The Division does not make any additional thesis requirements beyond those stated in the Graduate School Handbook section on Thesis and Dissertation Preparation and Requirements.

Dissertations can follow the traditional monograph or the three paper option format. The three paper option requires three journal-length manuscripts of publishable quality that could be altered slightly for submission to refereed journals, accompanied by additional sections and/or appendices that provide detail normally included in the monograph dissertation format but excluded from articles (e.g., a more detailed literature review, questionnaires, details on data collection, concluding chapter).

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