PGY-1 Residency Program Information

The application deadline is January 5th each year.

All residents also have a one month orientation to UNC Hospitals in July, where they will be exposed and trained to the integral operations necessary for the entire year. Each December will be spent in a research rotation, focusing on learning study design, statistics, and working on the required pharmacotherapy project and publication.

Pharmacy Practice / Staffing Component
Residents will receive training and orientation to the department's services during their first few weeks of the program. Over the course of the residency year, residents must staff for a total of 400 hours. Pharmacy practice responsibilities include staffing in decentralized or central pharmacist positions. Activities include, but are not limited to, verifying patient-specific orders and medications, providing pharmacokinetic consults when requested, answering in-depth drug information questions, attending all adult codes as the pharmacy member of the code team, providing patient education and solving pharmacotherapy situations as they may arise. For PGY1 residents, this commitment is fulfilled by staffing every third weekend and for three concentrated weeks distributed over the course of the year. Additionally, residents are also responsible for staffing during one of three major holiday blocks (Thanksgiving, Christmas, or New Years) and one of two minor holidays (Labor Day or Memorial Day.) These requirements may be changed annually based on the needs of the department.

Teaching Opportunities
Our teaching experience is provided through the University of North Carolina Eshelman School of Pharmacy. The residents have been involved in this program for over 10 years. Each resident will earn an appointment with the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy as a Clinical Instructor in the Division of Pharmacy Practice and Experiential Education and serve as a teaching assistant for the Pharmaceutical Care Labs courses. Residents work with second and third professional year students. A core group of 10 students will be assigned to each resident to engage in therapeutic case discussions and to instruct in the basics of physical assessment, patient counseling and written and verbal communications. Five hours are committed to this experience each week, including teaching, preparation, and grading of assignments.

Residents are offered the option to pursue completion of a teaching certificate through activities in the Pharmaceutical Care Lab (PCL) and other longitudinal requirements over the course of the year. An application process is necessary to join the teaching certificate program, and if accepted, residents will be provided guidance on lectures, portfolio development, and PCL participation to receive their certificate.

Educational Opportunities
UNC PGY1 residents are incorporated into a layered learning model with students on rotation at UNC Hospitals, co-residents including PGY2’s, and clinical specialists. Our layered learning model has been piloted on several rotations in which learners of various levels participated on the same team. This model will continue to be offered on several rotations. Other educational opportunities include POD discussions, case conferences and student seminars. POD discussions are topic discussions determined by preceptors ahead of time which can be led either by PGY2s on rotation or a preceptor specializing in that topic. Case conferences are interactive, didactic and case-based weekly opportunities headed by clinical specialists and presented by PGY2s, PGY1s, and students. There are two student seminars presented each week covering a variety of timely topics with a focus on providing useful information for UNC practitioners. These are all weekly opportunities for the resident to develop a more complete pharmacotherapy foundation.
 

Mentorship
The residency program at UNC has a strong history of mentorship, and this ideal is built into nearly all aspects of residency training. Each resident will have multiple mentors for multiple purposes. Mentors are chosen by the residents for research projects, presentation development, and personal mentorship. The personal mentor exists to guide the resident through the academic year. The mentor is an individual who can answer questions, provide feedback, and counsel residents on how to approach the many challenging parts of the residency year. Mentors of PGY1 residents participate in a program-wide resident progression committee that monitors the growth and development of residents over the course of the year.

Community Outreach
Residents participate in activities involving community outreach through participation in the Inter Faith Council Shelter (IFC) and the Student Health Action Coalition (SHAC). The IFC Shelter is a 30-bed facility that provides temporary, overnight housing and meals to those in need. In addition, the IFC shelter provides general and psychiatric clinics to be utilized by its residents. The SHAC clinic is the oldest student coordinated health service in the U.S., providing free multidisciplinary, comprehensive medical care to the underserved community of Chapel Hill. Our residents volunteer at the clinics an average of 2-3 times during the year, helping to provide care to the patients. Participation in the clinics provides an excellent opportunity for residents to help disadvantaged patients with medication-related issues, physicians with medication-related decisions, and to precept students during the medication dispensing and counseling process.

Residency Research and Publication
Each resident is expected to participate in a project that enhances these learning objectives: developing research criteria, seeking approval of criteria from the IRB, collecting and summarizing data, analyzing results, and presenting findings. To fulfill this requirement at UNC Hospitals, each resident must complete a pharmacotherapy project, a medication use evaluation, and an administrative project. The ideas for these projects, which will be identified early in the year, will arise from interactions with the UNC Hospitals’ pharmacists and the UNC School of Pharmacy faculty. The pharmacotherapy project is a year-long activity that is designed to be a learning experience. Each resident will present to a research committee the initial design, finalized protocol, interim data, and final results. Feedback from the Residency Research Committee is provided at each stage to enhance resident. Parts of these research projects will be presented at the University HealthSystem Consortium (UHC) Annual Meeting, the Southeastern Residency Conference (SERC) or at specified subspecialty meetings as determined by the residency program director. In addition to conducting and presenting research, residents are required to submit a manuscript for publication over the course of the year.

Clinical On-Call Program
The department of pharmacy provides an on-call pager service to our physicians, nurses, and other clinical staff. While this service does not have an in house on-call component, the residents do participate in answering on-call drug-information requests 24 hours a day. The resident will field medicine, surgery, oncology and pediatric questions. The types of questions that are referred to the service are those that can require significant time to research, or a specialized knowledge base. Each resident will rotate through primary on-call responsibilities. While on-call, the resident will be available over a 24-hour period and will have specified back-up pharmacists to assist with difficult questions if needed.

Post-residency plans
While the focus of our program is the provision of patient care, our residents leave our programs and pursue a variety of different positions, including further PGY2 training, fellowship training, or clinical employment. A majority of PGY1 residents complete PGY2 residencies in specialty fields. From there, many have taken on roles as clinical pharmacists nationwide and even worldwide. In these roles, a majority of our graduates are now involved in residency training at their own institutions. Others have pursued successful academic careers at schools of pharmacy nationwide, or further specialty training in either fellowships or graduate studies. Opportunities for residents upon completion of the UNC Training Program are abundant and represent a wide scope of practice styles and settings.

Annual Residency Trip
Another highlight of the year is our residency trip. The residency trip provides an opportunity for the PGY1 residents to visit 2-3 residency programs. They contact the programs and arrange tours, luncheons, etc. with the host institution. This is always a fun trip and it allows for resident bonding and the creation of new professional contacts. Afterward, residents usually take a weekend break and go to the beach, hiking, whitewater rafting, shopping, etc. They then report back to our program about the trip, which helps enrich both the residency program and the Department of Pharmacy.

Resident Evaluations
Evaluations are a large part of the residency process. At UNC, we utilize the ASHP-endorsed online evaluation system, ResitrakTM. Evaluations are built for each individual rotation, as well as for presentations, research, and staffing components of the program. Additionally, quarterly global evaluations are held with the program director, coordinator and/or mentor to ensure progress on long term goals.

Salary and Benefits
PGY1 salary -  $37,500

Each resident will receive two lab coats, a tablet computer, and travel reimbursement for selected professional meetings. Each resident will be given 15 days of paid time off (PTO) for the entire year. These days include all vacation, sick leave, interview days, and meeting attendance.  

Residents are offered medical, dental, disability and life insurance policies. In addition, residents are given an academic faculty appointment as a Clinical Instructor at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. As faculty members and employees of UNC hospitals, residents are eligible for discounts throughout the UNC Campus and in the community.

The application deadline is January 5th each year.