Before watching the A-Day football game on April 18, people will be able to take a look inside the Harrison School of Pharmacy during its open house from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.
The event will be a chance for the student pharmacists, faculty and staff to showcase their work and talents.
The agenda includes a health fair, a compounding lab demonstration, building tours, recruitment and admissions information, an IT demonstration with the Mobile satellite campus, meetings with the dean, a mobile disaster pharmacy and refreshments.
Dr. Thomas Maple, coordinator of the pharmacy school's student services, said the Mobile satellite campus at the University of South Alabama will also be hosting an open house the same day.
The compounding demonstration in the morning will show how certain drugs are handmade.
Later there will be a period for prospective students to learn about career opportunities, applying to pharmacy school and the curriculum.
The meeting with the dean will also be available through video conferencing for the open house in Mobile.
The health fair will be located at the Auburn campus, as well as the mobile disaster pharmacy.
State Pharmacy Director Charles Thomas said the mobile disaster pharmacy is a portable pharmacy set up inside a trailer.
"We have a mobile disaster pharmacy that we can activate during a disaster," Thomas said. "When the Governor declares an emergency, we can deploy it wherever we need to go."
The services that will be offered at the health fair include cholesterol screenings, osteoporosis screenings, blood glucose testing, blood pressure testing and body composition analysis.
Some of the services at the health fair will be free, while others will carry a small fee.
"All of the students of pharmacy are staffing all of the services," Maple said. "It's a good chance for them to show what they've learned."
The open house is not the only opportunity the students have for practice.
"We're constantly applying what we're doing in class in the community through a program we have called PPE, Pharmacy Practice Experience," said Margaret Atkins, a first year student pharmacist.
Atkins said she has three patients she visits at least every other week.
"They can get something out of it, and we can get something out of it," Atkins said.
Maple said the student pharmacists typically go to the patients' homes or assisted living places to discuss their medication or anything else the patients might have questions about.
After taking the PCAT and the required prerequisite courses, students can apply to pharmacy school during their third year of undergraduate studies.
"The competition is really tough, because we receive far more applications than we accept," Maple said.
The program accepts 150 students each year, 125 at Auburn's campus and 25 at the Mobile campus.
"It's definitely very challenging and harder than my hardest class in undergrad," Atkins said. "But, all of my classes are harder than my hardest class in undergrad."
The pharmacy program lasts four years, three years of classes followed by a number of internships.
"Everyone that graduates from our program receives a doctorate of pharmacy," Maple said.
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