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Abstract

Purpose:The demand for oncology pharmacists has increased since 2008 and about 1% of the nations licensed pharmacists consider themselves board certified oncology pharmacists despite it being the second largest specialty after pharmacotherapy and one of the firsts to develop in the Board of Pharmacy Specialties. The purpose of this paper is to provide information on how an oncology elective in a pharmacy school was developed, what it consisted of and to provide results of student surveys on it. Basic Procedures:The oncology elective was offered to third year pharmacy students in their last term of didactic pharmacy courses. Electives are chosen by students; who are required to take two electives each term in their third year. Topics covered in the elective ranged from double checking a chemotherapy order, making chemotherapy with a closed system transfer device, new drugs, first line treatment articles, oral targeted chemotherapy agents, nutrition for oncology patients to a service learning project that was oncology related. Main Findings and Conclusions:The oncology elective overall received positive feedback. Thirty-two of forty-three students (74.4%) filled out the end of course student evaluation. As rated by the students in the course, overall the mean score of the course was 4.4 out of 5 (88%).