Developing Your Skills
We provide a breadth of experiences that will help to develop resident clinical skills and confidence. These activities include a mixture of formalized didactic teaching, research, presentations in various formats and teaching opportunities.
All Barnes-Jewish Hospital pharmacy residencies abide by the ASHP Duty Hour Requirements for Pharmacy Residencies. Tracking and compliance with duty hours are documented on a monthly basis.
Service Commitment / Staffing
Residents will be assigned to at least one of the Pharmacy & Therapeutics (P&T) subcommittees for Barnes-Jewish Hospital or BJC HealthCare in order to provide service to the hospital and gain extended experience in drug use policy development. Resident staffing in the pharmacy department is comprised of one evening shift per week (1700-2100) and approximately every fourth weekend.
On-Call
Each resident will participate in the pharmacy department’s on-call program to ensure that clinical pharmacy services are available to healthcare professionals and patients at Barnes-Jewish Hospital 24 hours a day. The resident will gain experience in evaluating and making therapeutic recommendations for patients outside of their assigned services. Each resident will be on-call for the duration of one week approximately every ten weeks. Residents are given at home access to the electronic medical record in order to provide appropriate therapeutic recommendations outside of business hours.
Friday Cases
The purpose of Friday cases is for the resident to prepare a formal, evidence-based patient case or journal club to pharmacy colleagues. The resident will use this activity to develop formal presentation skills and refine skills in literature identification and evaluation. All presentations will meet criteria for continuing education through the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education. Residents will prepare at least one formal presentation of a specific patient and a defined topic and one formal journal club. A third formal presentation is required and is a presentation of the resident's choice.
Wednesday Cases
The purpose of Wednesday cases is to allow for open discussion of clinical cases from resident rotations. These sessions are designed to be informal and provide insight into the clinical care, monitoring, and medication selection for patients at Barnes-Jewish Hospital. Insights from a diverse group of preceptors and residents should foster a learning environment for all in attendance with the focus being on the resident learning experience and the development of patient presentation and literature evaluation skills. All residents will present two informal Wednesday cases throughout the year.
Research Project
Under the guidance of a residency preceptor, all residents are responsible for conceiving, designing, and conducting a research project during the year. A wide variety of projects are acceptable, including clinical research, retrospective clinical studies, administrative projects, or quality improvement projects.
Seminar
Under guidance of a residency preceptor, all residents will present an educational activity to St. Louis area pharmacy students, pharmacy residents, and pharmacists. The presentation should be a comprehensive review of literature surrounding the selected topic and include recommendations based upon the literature presented.
Research Design and Statistics Course
Under the tutelage of pharmacy preceptors, residents attend workshops related to research design, various statistical topics and the use of SPSS. The course is designed to complement the design and analysis of the resident's residency project. Topics include study design and methodology, an overview of the hospital's Informatics database, institutional review board submission process and review, an introduction to SPSS and setting up an SPSS database, basic statistical tests, multivariate analysis, and survival analysis. Other statistical topics commonly found on BCPS board certification exams are also covered and include adjusting for multiple comparisons, sensitivity and specificity of diagnostic tests, and analysis of non-inferiority and equivalency trials.
Teaching Responsibilities
All residents may participate in the education of pharmacy students assigned to their preceptors. Residents will also be given the opportunity to participate in Resident Education Academy or other didactive and experiential activities through the University of Health Sciences and Pharmacy in St. Louis (UHSP). Residents taking part in formal didactic activities will receive an adjunct instructor appointment at UHSP.
Residency Education Academy (REA)
PGY1 residents (PGY2 residents optional) will participate in a series of longitudinal workshops offered by UHSP designed to introduce principles of Abilities-Based Education and offer practice opportunities in preparing teaching materials and teaching an elective course. Residents will work in teams of 1-3 to prepare teaching and learning materials. Each resident will be assigned a mentor from their institution to provide guidance and feedback throughout the year. During the Fall, residents will begin to create teaching materials, including learning objectives, handout/study guide, presentation slide set, quizzes, cases, and exam questions. The materials created in the Fall will be used to deliver a 2-hour enhanced lecture to P2 and/or P3 pharmacy students in an elective course during the Spring semester. A certificate of completion is awarded at the end of the Spring semester.
Medical Conferences
A large variety of medical conferences are available at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in conjunction with Washington University Medical Center.
Travel
PGY1 residents may attend the Vizient/ASHP Midyear Clinical Meeting. PGY2 residents may attend the Vizient/ASHP Midyear Clinical Meeting and one additional specialty clinical meeting. If available, a travel stipend will be provided to residents for each residency calendar year. Dependent on departmental funding, all residents will attend Midwest Pharmacy Residency Conference or another regional residency research conference in the Spring of the residency year (this is not included in the travel stipend).
Code Coverage
Residents who are participating in code coverage will complete and be provided necessary training including basic life support and advanced cardiac life support (ACLS) training. After completion of ACLS and pharmacist led orientation sessions, residents will respond to cardiac arrest and emergency situations.
Residency Resilience Sessions
Quarterly sessions are available to promote resident wellbeing and wellness by providing sessions that are non-healthcare related. These sessions are to encourage residents to build resiliency and wellness (both mental and physical), improve preceptor engagement and interaction with residents, and provide non-rotation-based preceptor and resident peer interactions to help build relationship/confidence in having someone to approach if struggling.