PGY1 Program

Duration: Six weeks

Ambulatory Care is a required six-week learning experience at the TMH Transitions of Care Center. The outpatient clinic provides care for adult patients following hospital discharge who are uninsured, do not have an established primary care physician or cannot access timely primary care follow-up. The clinic’s staff manages conditions including asthma, COPD, cirrhosis, diabetes, heart failure, hyperlipidemia and hypertension through in-person and telehealth visits.

This rotation provides experience using pharmacological treatments in an outpatient setting at a critical point in patients’ care. You’ll strengthen your clinical decision-making skills while working with the healthcare team to meet treatment goals, considering medication adherence, affordability and access to healthcare. Patients receive medication samples, education, devices and tools to help manage their conditions and medication therapy.

Duration: Four weeks

Critical Care is a required four-week learning experience at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital. Located in the M.T. Mustian Center, two critical care units and one intermediate care unit include the Cardiovascular Medical Surgical ICU (CVMSICU), Vogter Neuro Trauma ICU (VNTICU) and Neuro Cardiac Intermediate Care Unit (NCIMCU), with 24 beds on each floor. Each unit conducts daily multidisciplinary rounds with physicians, nurses, dietitians, case managers, physical therapists and a clinical pharmacist.

This rotation strengthens your knowledge and experience in providing clinical pharmacy services to critically ill patients, helping you develop into a competent and confident pharmacy practitioner. You’ll learn to manage these patients’ medication needs within the hospital’s pharmacy systems and review the pathophysiology and drug therapies associated with common ICU conditions. You’ll also develop an approach to lifelong learning that includes evaluating current literature to support patient care.

Duration: Four weeks

Emergency Medicine is a required four-week learning experience at the Tallahassee Memorial Bixler Trauma & Emergency Center, a regional referral center and Level II Trauma Center. The emergency department treats a wide range of acute and critical conditions, receiving patients experiencing trauma, stroke, STEMI and sepsis from across North Florida, South Georgia and surrounding areas. You’ll gain experience in the pharmacist’s integral role on the interdisciplinary emergency medicine team, participating in medication therapy assessment, order verification, resuscitation support and rapid response.

This rotation develops your ability to provide safe, evidence-based and time-sensitive pharmacotherapy in the emergency care setting. You’ll strengthen your clinical prioritization, communication and collaboration skills while managing cardiovascular, neurologic, infectious and toxicologic emergencies. You’ll also become familiar with emergency medicine workflows, medication-use systems and transitions of care from the emergency department to inpatient services.

Duration: 12 weeks across two rotations

Internal Medicine is a required 12-week learning experience with the FSU College of Medicine Family Medicine Residency Program at TMH, divided into two rotations: Internal Medicine I and II. Each of the two internal medicine teaching teams includes medical students and residents, a pharmacy clinical pharmacologist, pharmacy students and an attending physician. The clinical pharmacologist supports safe and effective medication use through daily rounds, collaboration with decentralized pharmacists and education for patients, families, physicians and nurses.

These rotations provide intensive inpatient and outpatient experience, combining closely supervised practice with opportunities for greater autonomy. Through classroom learning and hands-on patient care, you’ll develop the clinical and communication skills needed to deliver pharmacotherapy services in both settings. You’ll also identify and resolve medication therapy concerns and take responsibility for the pharmacy care of patients assigned to the Family Medicine team.

Duration: Four to six weeks

Practice Management is a required four- to six-week learning experience at Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare designed to help you develop into a strong, effective pharmacy leader. You’ll work closely with the director and assistant director of pharmacy services to learn the functions and concepts of pharmacy administration in a hospital setting.

This rotation strengthens your problem-solving skills in operational management and your ability to make sound administrative decisions. You’ll also gain experience with the responsibilities of leading and managing a pharmacy department.

Develop your skills in promoting optimal pharmacotherapy through formulary management. You’ll work closely with the medical team to evaluate a medication or drug class for addition to or removal from the formulary.

You’ll also collaborate with clinical staff to improve medication-use systems by completing a medication use evaluation (MUE) relevant to TMH. This evaluation may focus on a specific medication or a process such as prescribing, preparing, dispensing or administering medications. You’ll present your reviews and recommendations to the Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee.

The assistant director of pharmacy clinical programs serves as your primary preceptor, providing guidance to help you complete each step and meet project deadlines.

Patient Safety is a required longitudinal learning experience at TMH. You’ll work closely with the medication safety officer throughout the year to identify and resolve safety concerns within TMH’s medication-use system. You’ll gain experience managing a medication safety program, building relationships between pharmacy and other hospital departments and supporting the implementation of safe medication practices.

This experience introduces medication safety terminology, strategies for promoting a culture of safety and the investigation and analysis of medication events. You’ll use technologies that support safer medication use and learn to communicate relevant safety data. Together with the medication safety officer, you’ll review medication events and trends to develop error prevention strategies. You may also lead a safety initiative, including educating staff and communicating process changes.

By the end of this experience, you’ll be prepared to facilitate Medication Safety and Anticoagulation Subcommittee meetings, identify needed improvements in the medication-use system and implement changes that support safer patient care.

Throughout the year, you’ll build and refine the skills needed to conduct and manage a major quality improvement or research project. Your project will be submitted to TMH’s Institutional Review Board for approval. You’ll also develop a poster for the ASHP Midyear Clinical Meeting poster session and present your project at the statewide Florida Residency Conference in May.

With guidance from the research coordinator and your project mentor, you’ll work through each stage of the project, including generating ideas, reviewing literature, designing the study, writing a protocol, securing stakeholder support and obtaining required committee approvals. You’ll then analyze your data, present your findings and prepare a manuscript suitable for publication.

Develop your skills as an educator through department newsletters, in-service education, lunch-and-learn presentations and the annual pharmacy clinical skills fair during Pharmacy Week.

Throughout the year, you’ll participate in focused topic discussions that complement your rotations, strengthen your application of evidence-based medicine and help you prepare for board certification in pharmacotherapy. These sessions also cover research and quality improvement processes to support your residency project. Additional discussions explore professional advocacy and development.

Staffing is a required learning experience that develops your ability to balance medication distribution and patient care responsibilities as a hospital pharmacist. Your residency coordinator and preceptor will coordinate initial training in electronic health records, documentation of interventions and clinical notes, Pyxis automated dispensing procedures, CII Safe controlled substance procedures, intravenous medication preparation and verification and outpatient prescription processing. Specialists in these areas will provide training whenever possible.

Following initial training, you’ll spend one week alongside a pharmacist in a decentralized pharmacy area to strengthen your order verification skills and perform clinical interventions under supervision.

For the remainder of the residency, staffing responsibilities include:

• One weekend per month, consisting of two eight-hour shifts
• One 3.5-hour staffing shift each week
• At least one eight-hour shift on a major holiday: Thanksgiving, Christmas or New Year’s Day

Your preceptor will work alongside you during weekend shifts, providing instruction, answering questions and supervising your activities to support your development.