Pharmacy Practice Residency Program

Upon completion of the program, Residents will gain clinical, institutional, and administrative practice experiences in a large, community, teaching hospital that emphasizes patient safety while gaining competence and confidence in hospital-based and ambulatory pharmacy services. A list of skills that the resident will gain includes:

• Managing medication regimens
• Providing drug information
• Instructing pharmacy students
• Gaining operations and administrative pharmacy practices
• Staffing in a hospital pharmacy
• Developing and implementing a research project

Abington Memorial Hospital offers two full-time appointments for the one year PGY-1 Pharmacy Practice Residency Program. The Abington Memorial Hospital PGY-1 Pharmacy Residency program is accredited by the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP).

Salary and fringe benefits for the residency program: 

• Stipend: $45,000.
• Medical, dental and life insurance coverage
• 10 paid vacation days
• Sick days consistent with AMH Human resource policies
• Travel stipend for ASHP Midyear Clinical Meeting and Eastern States Conference
• Two lab coats
• Garage parking

CORE ROTATIONS

General Medicine

• The foundation of the clinical pharmacy experience at Abington Memorial Hospital (AMH) is through managing medication therapy for a variety of general medicine patients. During this introductory, clinical rotation residents will round with an Internal Medicine Team. The medical team generally consists of an attending physician, medical residents and medical students.  Pharmacy residents will assist in the management of medication therapy for a variety of acute and chronic diseases and conditions. Routinely residents will intervene in the care of patients, and provide education to patients and the medical team. The basis of pharmacy-directed recommendations and education will be national, evidence-based guidelines and AMH-established formulary guidelines and recommendations.

Infectious Diseases

• This rotation's team consists of members from the Division of Infectious Diseases including, an attending physician, a fellow, a medical resident and a medical student. Pharmacokinetic monitoring will be reviewed thoroughly. This rotation will set a great foundation in the appropriate use of antimicrobials for future rotations.

Pain Management

• The complex world of pain management is introduced in this rotation. Residents will work with a pharmacist, the Palliative Care Team, and the Pain Management Team. The goal of this rotation is for the resident to understand the key concepts and current practices for managing a patient's pain so that the resident can design appropriate medication regimens for individual patients.  

Critical Care

• Critical care is a multidisciplinary approach to the patient with the provision of compassionate and effective patient care.  In this rotation, important principles of physiology, pathophysiology, epidemiology, and where appropriate, microbiology, of the various organ systems correlating to the pharmacologic needs of the critically ill patient will be addressed. The resident will be an integral member of the team caring for patients in an intensive care unit through active participation in therapeutic decision making, drug therapy selection and appropriate dosing and monitoring of medications.

Medication Safety

• Abington Memorial Hospital prides itself on its culture of safety. The interdisciplinary approach to patient safety experienced during this rotation includes actual and potential medication safety event analysis, as well as monitoring regulatory compliance and current medication safety literature. Projects during this rotation involve the planning and implementation of both departmental and/or hospital-wide process improvements. The resident will facilitate the activities of the Medication Safety Subcommittee, as guided by the Medication Safety Officer.

CORE LONGITUDINAL EXPERIENCES

Ambulatory Care

• Pharmacy residents will rotate to the Abington Family Medicine center located approximately 1.5 miles from Abington Memorial Hospital to  care for patients in an outpatient setting.  In this medical resident run practice, the pharmacy resident will have opportunities to provide drug information, medication recommendations, medication monitoring, and patient education.  

Pharmacy Administration

• This is a longitudinal experience where the resident is included as a pharmacy management team member. Through this experience the resident is exposed to operational and financial management of pharmacy practice which includes interactions with hospital administration as well as physician and nursing leadership.

Pharmacy Practice

• To become a well-rounded pharmacist, the pharmacy practice experience is crucial. Throughout the year, pharmacy residents are responsible for the duties of a staff pharmacist; which include order entry and verification/ distribution, medication order checking, double- checking high alert medications, and handling physician inquiries. The clinical pharmacist training will also be applied when pharmacy residents participate in the anticoagulation monitoring and therapeutic drug monitoring programs.

Teaching

• As a regional hospital close to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, there are several opportunities to gain pharmacy school teaching experience. In the area schools of pharmacy there are opportunities to serve as an instructor of required practice laboratory or case-based courses. On-site at Abington, there are several Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experience (APPE) and Introductory Pharmacy Practice Experience (IPPE) teaching options throughout the year where the resident assists Abington preceptors with students.

ELECTIVE EXPERIENCE OPTIONS

Abington offers some flexibility in selecting elective rotations for its pharmacy residents. The residency director and preceptors will work together with the resident to select electives by considering the residents' respective preferences and interests.

ELECTIVE ROTATIONS

• Oncology
• Neurology/Trauma ICU
• Palliative Care
• Antimicrobial stewardship program
• Center for Safety and Quality
• Teaching at an area school of pharmacy
• Any of the core rotations
• Resident-specific interest

• A clinical research project is developed, prepared, completed, and  presented at the Eastern States Pharmacy Residency Conference in the Spring of the residency year.  In addition to conducting research, a project manuscript must be completed at a level of quality for submission for publication in a peer-reviewed journal.

• A formulary monograph selected by the Department of Pharmacy must be completed and presented to the appropriate hospital committee, meeting or department.

• A Medication Utilization Evaluation will be designed, implemented and completed and presented to the appropriate hospital committee, meeting or department.