Residency Program Specifics

The primary objective of the core rotations are to reinforce key concepts and encourage the development of new skills that will enable residents to easily transition into well-rounded clinical pharmacists. The residency program also allows residents to select from a variety of elective rotations to tailor their experiences to their interests. The program is customized to meet each resident based on their experience, interest, and ultimate goals. The core rotations are required to be completed as they are essential for the pharmacy practitioner.

Required Core Rotations (each are 6-weeks)

Internal Medicine I & II

The goal of these rotations is to provide opportunities for residents to build on clinical pharmacy knowledge and skills and apply them in direct patient care activities in the adult medicine setting.  This course takes place in a general medicine unit where patients are managed using a team-based approach.   Team members may include pharmacists, physicians, nurses and other healthcare providers.  Residents may participate in the following types of activities: attending family practice rounds with a healthcare team, reviewing all assigned patients, identifying problems requiring therapeutic interventions, consulting with physicians, monitoring patient outcomes and providing educational sessions for the professional staff.

Critical Care

The goal of the Critical Care rotation is to provide opportunities for the residents to build on knowledge and skills acquired through didactic education and advanced pharmacy practice experiences and apply them in the care of the critically ill patients. This rotation will take place in an environment where care is provided to patients who have unique dosing and/or medication requirement; and require a specialized level of care and monitoring to ensure patient safety and/or appropriate outcomes. The resident will design, recommend, monitor, and evaluate patient-specific therapeutic regimens for selected critically ill patients. The patient population includes a mix of trauma, medical, and surgical ICU patients.

Trauma/Surgical ICU

The goal of this rotation is to develop the resident's knowledge base and problem-solving skills in the management of critically ill patients and allows the resident to serve as the pharmacotherapeutic specialist for critically ill trauma, cardiology, and medical patients. They will participate in multidisciplinary care rounds daily with various provider groups in the Trauma intensive care unit (TICU) and Cardiovascular ICU (CVICU). The multidisciplinary rounds in both TICU and CVICU are comprised of the surgeon (trauma surgeon or cardiothoracic surgeon) or pulmonary intensivists, as well as nurse practitioners, physician assistants, pharmacist (with pharmacy residents and/or students as available), nurses, dieticians, case managers, and respiratory therapists. Additionally, the resident will discuss patient cases with the preceptor, present pharmacy journal clubs pertinent to the current practice interest and maintain organized and up to date patient data.

Emergency Medicine

This rotation involves the provision of direct patient care in the emergency department (ED) setting. It is designed to further develop and refine the resident's knowledge and understanding of the pharmacotherapy learned on various rotations thus far in their residency. The resident will gain an understanding of emergency medical care from patient triage to either discharge or admission to the hospital. They should gain an appreciation of how the pharmacist can enhance the quality of care delivered in the department through observation and participation and will learn how to simultaneously balance supporting both the central pharmacy and ED team.

Infectious Diseases

The goal of this rotation is to expose the pharmacy resident to various aspects of Antimicrobial Stewardship and Infectious Diseases Consult Service in the inpatient setting. Patients include those from all services, inpatient locations, and levels of acuity. The resident will observe and function in the role of an Infectious Disease Pharmacist. This will include focused review of patients with infectious diseases and following along with the Infectious Disease Consult Services. Additionally, if time and opportunity allow any drug utilization and quality improvement projects, meetings, and responsibilities as necessary. The clinical responsibilities include but not limited to review patient profiles for rational drug therapy, active participation in various rounds, providing drug information and time allowing participating in Antimicrobial Stewardship activities as well as involvement in quality improvement projects under the supervision of the preceptor.