Pharmacy Residency Program Overview

The PGY-1 Pharmacy Residency Program at Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare is an ASHP-accredited pharmacy program. The Residency Program provides an in-depth experience in pharmacy practice with a goal to produce well-rounded pharmacists in pharmacotherapy and leadership. The program consists of five required rotations and four longitudinal learning experiences.

Jump to a Section

• Required Learning Experiences
• Elective Learning Experiences
• Meet the Preceptors

Required Learning Experiences

The required learning experiences are customizable.

• Ambulatory Care
• Critical Care
• Internal Medicine I
• Internal Medicine II
• Practice Management
• Formulary Management (Longitudinal)
• Quality Improvement Project (Longitudinal)
• Patient Safety (Longitudinal)
• Education & Professional Development (Longitudinal)
• Staffing (Longitudinal)

Elective Learning Experiences

The resident may customize each elective learning experience to be 4 – 6 weeks in length. Therefore, the number of electives available will depend on the duration of rotations. 

• Academia
• Advanced Ambulatory Care
• Cardiology
• Emergency Medicine
• Infectious Disease
• Neonatal and Pediatric Medicine
• Oncology
• Psychiatry

In addition to the electives listed above, the resident is rewarded the opportunity to customize his/her experience based on individual interests and career goals. In the past, our residents have completed electives in areas such as nutritional support and endocrinology.  

Ambulatory Care

Ambulatory Care is a required six-week learning experience at the Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare Transition Center outpatient clinic. The Transition Center was founded to provide care for discharged adult patients who are uninsured, not established with a primary care provider, and/or are not able to follow-up with primary care provider within reasonable time post-discharge. Various disease states including asthma, COPD, cirrhosis, diabetes, heart failure, hyperlipidemia, and hypertension are managed by Transition Center staff. Patients are encountered during in-clinic visits or via TeleHealth.

The purpose of the Ambulatory Care learning experience is to expose the resident to the utilization of pharmacological treatments in an outpatient practice setting at one of the most critical points in disease state management.  This rotation will emphasize appropriate clinical decision making in managing therapy to meet therapeutic goals as a team member while considering patient compliance issues, affordability of medication therapy, and access to healthcare. Patients are provided with samples, education, devices, and tools to assist with disease state management and medication therapy.

Critical Care

Critical Care is a four-week required learning experience at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital. There are 2 Critical Care Units and 1 Intermediate Care Unit located in the Mustian Center. They are designated as CVMSICU [Cardiovascular/Medical Surgical ICU], VNTICU [Vogter Neuro/Trauma ICU], and NCIMCU [Neuro/Cardiac IMCU]. There are 24 beds on each floor of each unit. Each unit has daily multidisciplinary rounds. The multidisciplinary team consists of physicians, nurses, dieticians, case managers, PT, and the clinical pharmacist. The purpose of the Critical Care rotation is to increase the resident's knowledge and experience in the provision of clinical pharmacy services to patients on the Critical Care Units. 

The rotation will facilitate the resident's development into a competent and confident pharmacy practitioner.  The resident will gain an appreciation for managing these patients within the complexities of the institutional pharmacy matrix. The pathophysiology and drug therapies for common ICU disease states will be reviewed with the resident. In addition, the Critical Care rotation will help the resident develop a lifelong learning approach that includes evaluation of current literature.

Internal Medicine I and II

Internal Medicine is a required 12-week learning experience with Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare Family Medicine Residency. The 12 weeks is divided into two separate learning experiences hence Internal Medicine I & II. There are two internal medicine teams. Each of the teaching teams includes the medical students and residents, pharmacy clinical pharmacologist, pharmacy students, and attending physician. The clinical pharmacologist on the team is responsible for ensuring safe and effective medication use for all patients admitted to the team, including active participation in work and attending rounds daily, collaboration with decentralized pharmacists, education of patients and their family members, as well as education of physicians and nurses.

The Internal Medicine experience is an intensive inpatient and outpatient experience which allows for both closely supervised and more autonomous pharmacy practice by the resident. The primary goal is for the resident to learn clinical and communication skills necessary to deliver pharmacotherapy services to patients in inpatient and outpatient settings. This is achieved through both didactic and practical experiences. The pharmacy resident is also responsible for identifying and resolving medication therapy issues for patients and assuming care of all patients under the care of the Family Medicine team.

Practice Management

Practice Management is a required, four to six-week learning experience at Tallahassee Memorial Healthcare with the primary purpose of building a strong, effective leader in the profession of pharmacy. The resident will work closely with the Director and Assistant Director of Pharmacy Services to become introduced to the functions and concepts of pharmacy administration within the hospital setting. The learning experience will afford the resident opportunities in developing problem-solving skills related to operational management, enabling strong administrative judgments, and assuming overall responsibilities of leading and managing a pharmacy department.

Formulary Management (Longitudinal) 

This longitudinal learning experience will build the resident’s skill sets in promoting optimal pharmacotherapy through formulary management. The resident will work closely with the medical team on analyzing a drug or class of drugs for formulary addition or deletion. In addition, the resident will work with the clinical staff on improving a medication use system via completing a medication use evaluation (MUE) pertinent to the organization. The MUE may focus on either a specific medication (drug utilization review) or medication use process, e.g., prescribing, preparing, dispensing or administering. The resident will present these reviews to the Pharmacy & Therapeutics Committee. 

The Assistant Director of Pharmacy Clinical Programs serves as the primary preceptor for this learning experience ensuring all steps in the process and deadlines are performed and met.   

Patient Safety (Longitudinal) 

Patient Safety is a required, longitudinal learning experience at Tallahassee Memorial Healthcare. The resident will work closely with the Medication Safety Officer throughout the year to identify and resolve safety issues within the facility’s medication-use system. The resident will gain an understanding of and experience in the management of the health system’s medication safety program. This exposure and experience shall include developing relationships between the pharmacy department and other areas in the hospital and providing leadership for implementation of safe medication practices within the Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare system.

While working closely with the Medication Safety Officer, the residents will gain exposure to medication safety nomenclature, promotion of a culture of safety, and the investigation and analysis of medication events. The resident will also have the opportunity to utilize the various technologies that improve the medication-use process and communicate the pertinent safety data that can be generated from these systems. The Medication Safety Officer will discuss the various medication events with the residents in an effort to stimulate error prevention strategies based upon trends. Depending on the events, the resident could be assigned a safety initiative to lead and coordinate, to include staff education and communication of process modification. 

By the end of the longitudinal learning experience, the resident should be able to effectively facilitate the Medication Safety and Anticoagulation Subcommittee meetings, identify process changes needed in the facility’s medication-use system, and implement the steps needed to improve the safety of the medication-use process.

Quality Improvement/Research (Longitudinal)

During the course of the year, the resident will build and refine the skills necessary to conduct and manage a major project. The project will be submitted to the organization’s Institutional Review Board for approval. In addition, the resident will develop a poster to present at the ASHP Midyear Clinical Meeting poster session, and present their project at the state-wide Florida Residency Conference in May. 

Under the guidance of the Research Coordinator and project mentor, the resident will focus on the key steps to performing a quality/research project to include: idea generation, literature search, study design, writing a protocol, ascertaining stakeholders support, receiving the appropriate committee approval(s), data analysis, and presenting project and preparing in publishable form.

Education & Professional Development (Longitudinal)

This longitudinal experience incorporates unique opportunities to deliver education to the department through newsletters, in-services, lunch and learn presentations, and the annual pharmacy clinical skills fair during Pharmacy Week. The residents will participate in Didactics throughout the year, a focused series of topic discussions intended to supplement discussions on rotations, sharpen the residents' skill set in application of evidence-based medicine, and prepare the resident for board certification in pharmacotherapy. Didactics sessions will also review processes related to conducting research and quality improvement projects to augment the residents’ project. Additionally, residents will take part in discussions surrounding professional advocacy and development. 

Staffing (Longitudinal)

Staffing is a required learning experience designed to train the resident in balancing the various distributive and patient care-based functions normally encountered by a hospital staff pharmacist. The residency coordinator and preceptor will coordinate initial training in basic elements of staff pharmacist activities. This will include use of Electronic Health Records, documentation methods of interventions and clinical notes, Pyxis automated dispensing machine procedures, CII Safe narcotic procedures, intravenous admixture preparation and checking, and outpatient prescription processing. Specialists in the designated functions will provide the training whenever possible.

Following the initial training, the resident will spend 1 week with a pharmacist in a decentralized pharmacy area focusing on sharpening order verification skills. The resident will also provide other clinical intervention activities during this time, under the supervision of the training pharmacist. The preceptor will be a training pharmacist.  

During the remaining course of the residency, the resident will work one weekend per month (two 8-hour shifts) in a staffing role. The resident will also work one 3.5-hour staffing shift each week and at least one 8-hour shift on one major holiday (Thanksgiving, Christmas, or New Year’s Day). The preceptor will work along with the resident on the weekend shift. The preceptor will provide instruction, answer questions, supervise activities, and provide any other guidance as needed to assist resident in the development of necessary skills.  

Meet the Preceptors

Required Learning Experience Preceptors  

• Zemoria Johnson, PharmD, DPLA, CPh, LSSGB
• Angie Jones, PharmD, BCPS, CP-C
• Joan Hazen, PharmD
• Natalie Robertson, PharmD, MHA, CPh 
• Kelly Rodrigue, PharmD, BCIDP 
• Phillip Treadwell, PharmD 
• Jay Wallace, PharmD, CPh
• Cicely Williams, PharmD, CPPS