KU Pharmacy summer camp open for registration

LAWRENCE — High school students can now register for KU School of Pharmacy’s 2024 summer camp. The camp offers a hands-on experience to explore the pharmacy profession. In addition to day camps on the University of Kansas Lawrence campus June 10, 12 and 14, a two-day, two-night camp is offered June 23-25.

Pharmacy summer camp is designed and directed by current KU Pharmacy students. Day camp participants are engaged from 8 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Cost is $75 and includes snacks and meals. Participants will be guided through activities by pharmacy students and School of Pharmacy faculty. The cost of the expanded overnight camp is $250 and includes campus housing, on-site transportation and meals.

The participant experience will include:

• Career discovery – exploring the ever-increasing career opportunities for pharmacists.
• Learning about various pharmacy practice settings, including community pharmacy and institutional hospital practice sites.
• Visiting campus research laboratories and interacting with science faculty.
• Utilizing the pharmacy school facilities, including lecture classrooms and the pharmacy practice skills lab.
• Hands-on, nonsterile compounding of medications.
• Working with current pharmacy students to learn more about patient counseling, diabetes education, immunizations and more.
• Discussion of current pharmacy practice methods with real-life practitioners during a virtual tour of local pharmacies.

Joe Heidrick, associate dean for experiential education and clinical assistant professor, helped create the pharmacy summer camp and has been part of the camp faculty since its inception.

“Summer camp is a great opportunity for high school students to explore the vast career opportunities available within the pharmacy profession — through the lens of current pharmacy students,” Heidrick said. “We realize we cannot expect young people to be excited about the profession unless we give them reason to be excited. Summer camp is made fun by our students and the supportive relationship we build with our campers.”

“The pharmacy summer camp provided me with opportunities to learn about the many clinical aspects of pharmacy as well as meet some current pharmacy students and professors,” said Alexa Reynders, a student in the class of 2024 from Chanhassen, Minnesota. “This experience showed me that pharmacy is about caring for patients, keeping them safe and educating about medications. The summer camp ultimately played a pivotal role in my decision to attend pharmacy school.”

“I attended KU's summer camp right before my senior year of high school,” said Kendal DeWalt, pharmacy class of 2024 from Onaga. “At that time, I was not sure what career path I wanted to pursue, but attending pharmacy camp made my decision that I wanted to continue with pharmacy. The camp does a great job showing different career opportunities in pharmacy, and you get to do many hands-on activities. You can get a lot of connections this way and get insight to the application process and information about the schooling itself.”

The KU School of Pharmacy Summer Camp has limited space available. Registration will be closed when full.

Photos: Students participate in the 2023 KU School of Pharmacy Summer Camp.