Questions to Ask Pharmacy Students
Questions for preceptors, managers, and mentors talking with pharmacy students on rotation or interviewing for intern and technician roles, covering where they are in the program, how they think through a problem, how they handle being wrong, and what they want from the time with you.
20 questions, each with the reason to ask it · includes a conversation guide
The questions
Open any question to see why it works.
- 1
Where are you in the program, and which rotations have you finished so far?
The order of rotations shapes what a student can already do more than the year they are in. Someone who has done acute care before community will have habits around documentation that a student straight from didactic work will not.
- 2
What pushed you toward pharmacy in the first place?
The honest answers range from a family member's illness to a chemistry class to a relative in the profession. What you are listening for is whether the reason has been revised since they started, which is a sign they have been paying attention to the actual work.
- 3
What has surprised you most about the profession now that you have seen it up close?
This separates students who have been observing from those who have been getting through. Common real answers involve how much of the job is phone calls, insurance, and other people's mistakes, and a student who has noticed that is ready to talk about the work.
- 4
Which setting do you picture yourself in, and what would change your mind?
The second half is where the useful answer lives. A student who can describe what would move them from community to hospital, or from either to industry, is making a decision rather than repeating a plan formed in the first semester.
- 5
Tell me about a drug information question you had to go and answer for someone.
Ask what they searched, what they found, and how they decided the answer was good enough to give. The process is more revealing than the conclusion, and a student who only names a single tertiary source has not yet been asked anything hard.
- 6
Walk me through what you do with an order you are not comfortable with.
You want the sequence: check the chart, check indication and renal function, look up the reference, then who they talk to and in what order. Students who skip straight to calling the prescriber usually have not been on a service where that call is expensive.
- 7
Tell me about something you caught on a profile or a chart.
Even early students have at least one, and how they tell it matters. Listen for whether they mention what happened next, since noticing a duplicate therapy is common and following it through to a resolution is not.
- 8
What do you do when the literature does not answer the question?
This is most of clinical practice and students are rarely taught to sit in it. Good answers involve reasoning from mechanism, asking a colleague, calling the manufacturer, and being explicit with the prescriber about the uncertainty rather than hiding it.
- 9
How would you counsel someone who has decided to stop taking a medicine they need?
Watch whether they start by lecturing or by asking why. Cost, side effects, and belief about the diagnosis are the usual reasons, and a student who names those before offering a solution is ready to be put in front of patients.
- 10
How comfortable are you picking up the phone to question a prescriber?
Almost everyone says they are getting more comfortable, so follow up by asking about the last time they did it and how it went. Students who have had one bad call and stopped calling are the ones who need the most supervised practice.
- 11
Tell me about a time you were wrong about something clinical.
The presence of an example matters more than its content. A student with no example either has not been challenged or is managing the conversation, and the pharmacists who are hardest to teach are the ones who cannot narrate an error.
- 12
Which therapeutic area do you feel weakest in?
You are testing self-assessment and inviting them to spend the rotation on it. A specific answer such as anticoagulation or psychiatric dosing is workable, whereas everything is fine tells you they will not ask for help when they need it.
- 13
How do you keep up when a guideline changes?
Students have usually only learned from whichever version was current in class, and few have thought about the next thirty years of updates. The answer tells you whether they have built any habit at all, or are relying on being told.
- 14
What would you like feedback on from me, specifically?
Asking this in the first week changes what the rotation is for and gives you permission to be direct later. If they cannot name anything, offer two options and ask them to choose, since the ability to receive feedback is itself the skill in question.
- 15
What do you want to be able to do by the last week that you cannot do now?
It converts a vague rotation into something with a target, and it exposes mismatched expectations early: a student expecting to run their own patient list on a site where that is not possible needs to hear that in week one.
- 16
How do you handle a shift where you are behind and someone is angry with you?
Volume and hostility are the parts of the job that end careers, not the pharmacology. Ask for a real instance from a technician job or an intern shift, since students who have worked the counter answer this very differently from those who have not.
- 17
Are you planning to apply for residency, and how did you decide?
Both answers are fine and the reasoning is the point. Listen for whether they have talked to anyone who did not match, and whether they have thought about what they will do if they do not, which many have not.
- 18
What does the money side look like for you: loans, hours, where you can afford to live?
Ask only if you have the relationship for it, and ask plainly. Debt shapes which jobs a graduate can take and it is the constraint most mentors politely leave out of career advice, which makes the advice less usable.
- 19
What part of this job do you think would be hardest to keep doing for thirty years?
It asks for a realistic view of a long career rather than a first job. Students who can name something, whether that is repetition, staffing, or the emotional weight of certain patients, are usually the ones who last.
- 20
What is something you know how to do that I probably do not?
Students arrive with fresher training in newer therapeutics, informatics tools, and search techniques, and almost none of them will offer it unprompted. Asking flips the hierarchy for a minute and usually makes the rest of the rotation more honest.
Working with students on rotation
Practical guidance for the conversation itself.
The first week
The first week
- 1Ask what they have already been signed off on rather than assuming a level from the year of study. Programs sequence very differently.
- 2Set the expectation for questions explicitly: when to interrupt you, when to look it up first, and what should always be checked before it leaves the building.
- 3Give one small task they can own from day one. Students who spend the first week shadowing rarely become useful by the last.
- 4Agree how feedback will happen and when, so the midpoint evaluation is not the first time they hear anything critical.
- 5Tell them what a good rotation looks like from your side. Most students are guessing at the standard they are being measured against.
Reading the answers
Reading the answers
Ask for process, not for the right answer
A student can memorize a dose. Asking how they arrived at it, what they checked, and what would change it shows whether they can handle the case they have not seen.
Push one step past the first answer
The initial response is usually a rehearsed one. What they say when you ask why, or what if the patient is in renal failure, is the actual measure of their understanding.
Notice how they say I do not know
The students who say it cleanly and then go and find out are the ones you can trust unsupervised sooner. Guessing confidently under mild pressure is the trait that matters most to correct early.
What goes wrong on rotations
What goes wrong on rotations
- Filling the weeks with tasks that need doing rather than tasks that teach, so the student leaves competent at your workflow and nothing else.
- Asking only recall questions, which rewards the student who memorizes and tells you nothing about judgment.
- Saving all criticism for the final evaluation, where the student can no longer act on it.
- Assuming a quiet student is disengaged. Some are managing a commute, a job, and a family alongside the rotation.
- Letting a student present to a prescriber without agreeing beforehand what they will say if challenged.
- Treating career questions as settled. Many students change direction during their final year and have nobody to talk it through with.