Overview: St. Joseph Medical Center Pharmacy Residency

These areas are to be covered early in the residency program. During orientation, residents are expected to acquire the following general skills necessary to care for patients in subsequent required rotations and longitudinal experiences: 

• Aminoglycoside dosing
• Anticoagulation management
• Antiemetic dosing for chemotherapy
• Antimicrobial stewardship practices
• Chemotherapy plan management
• Code Blue management
• Epic training
• Glycemic control management
• Order verification, compounding, and product checking
• Pain management
• Renal dosing adjustment
• TPN/PPN management
• Vancomycin dosing

Residents participate in eight required rotations spanning 40 weeks, with the opportunity for further experiences based on individual background and interests. All are direct patient care rotations with the exception of Practice Management.

Residents will conduct a project aimed at identifying, organizing, and solving a clinical or management-related problem that aligns with the organization’s strategic initiatives and focus. Successful past projects have resulted in protocol/guideline development and the addition of new pharmacist service lines. This longitudinal research project will be presented formally and the resident will be encouraged to submit their final manuscript for publication.

Required experiences related to formulary management, resource stewardship, and clinical practice improvement will span the residency year. These additional program components encompass activities such as performing medication use evaluation, attending all P&T Committee meetings, contributing to a monthly newsletter for VMFH clinical staff, completing preferred drug reviews to support hospital-based infusion clinics, and leading presentations to include a regional facilitated discussion on an issue related to health inequity, inclusive practices, and/or identification of implicit biases.

Residents will have opportunities to work with pharmacy students, both on rotation and in serving as assigned mentors, within the longitudinal student precepting experience. Residents will also be directly involved in education of providers, pharmacist interns, and pharmacy technicians, and may elect to complete a teaching certificate program. Longitudinal staffing experiences provide additional opportunities to continually apply knowledge and skills throughout the year.

Elective rotations are direct patient care specialty rotations. All will be 2-4 weeks in duration. In addition to those listed here, residents may propose and create alternate rotations based on areas of clinical interest.

• Advanced Ambulatory Care
• Advanced Critical Care
• Advanced Emergency Medicine
• Advanced Infectious Disease/Antimicrobial Stewardship
• Advanced Internal Medicine
• Advanced NICU
• Advanced Oncology
• Hospice

Benefits include 30 days of paid time off to be accrued for use as vacation, holiday or sick leave, in addition to medical, dental, and life insurance for the resident, their partner and/or dependents. Travel funds to regional and national conferences may be available. The current stipend is $69,264 annually ($33.30 per hour).