Pharmacy Residency Curriculum Electives

Ambulatory Care - Cardiology (elective)

Preceptor: Angelique Oakley

This is a four-week elective learning experience in the ambulatory care setting at Centra Heart and Vascular Institute in Lynchburg. At the clinic, pharmacists work under a collaborative practice agreement to make treatment recommendations and order certain medications/labs per protocol. The pharmacy resident will become fully integrated into the clinic team which consists of pharmacists, cardiologists, APPs, and nurses. Daily activities include providing direct patient care through in-person and phone visits, review of heart failure and myocardial infarction discharges to facilitate transitions of care, anticoagulation management, and serving as a resource for providers. The resident will provide recommendations for outpatient management of a variety of cardiology disease states including, but not limited to, resistant hypertension, hyperlipidemia, heart failure, arrhythmias, and antithrombotic therapy.

Bridges Medication Chart Review - Longitudinal Elective

Centra Bridges Treatment Center is a well-established 14-acre residential psychiatric treatment facility in Lynchburg, VA.   Bridges provides comprehensive care for boys and girls ages 6-17 years of life with a variety of emotional and behavioral disorders, as well as their comorbid medical conditions.  The therapeutic environment at Bridges includes participation from the family and the community in each child’s treatment.  Bridges is dedicated to the belief that all children deserve a success-oriented treatment program. The pharmacy resident is responsible for completing 30-day medication reviews for patients at Bridges as part this elective longitudinal learning experience.

Emergency Medicine (elective)

Preceptors: Daniel Nassif

Emergency Medicine is a four-week elective learning experience in the Emergency Department at Lynchburg General Hospital. This department is a 58 bed Level II trauma center staffed with highly trained providers, nurses, and other specialties that handle a wide variety of acuity. During the rotation, the resident is expected to care for high acuity patients, respond to code blue events, assist in the management of cath lab and code stroke patients, and be a clinical resource for the providers and nurses in the department.

Long Term Acute Care - 4 weeks (elective)

Learning Experience: Long-Term Acute Care Elective

Preceptor: Dan Payne, III, Pharm.D., BCPS

This is a 4 week rotation in the PGY1 pharmacy residency program. This rotation trains residents to provide care to patients admitted to a 36 bed long-term acute care (LTAC) hospital. The residents become fully integrated with the LTAC interdisciplinary team, round on a daily basis with an LTAC physician and focus on managing drug therapy in patients with multiple medical problems.

The core content is covered via patient experiences; discussions of reading materials; and/or case presentation, and includes a review of:

Neonatal Intensive Care - 4 weeks (elective)

Learning Experience: Neonatal Intensive Care Elective

Preceptor: Dan Payne III, Pharm.D., BCPS

The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Virginia Baptist Hospital is a Level IIIA nursery with 21 beds. This rotation teaches the essentials of caring for neonatal patients, including disease states, and drug dosing with an emphasis on the safe and effective use of medications. Residents will attend daily rounds and be an active member of the neonatal healthcare team.

Areas of focus include:

Teaching and Learning Curriculum Program - (elective)

Centra Pharmacy Residency will offer a teaching certificate in conjunction with Shenandoah School of Pharmacy. Residents are required to complete all pre-class assignments and view all pedagogy seminars live, in order to participate in the discussion. To meet the requirements, Centra Pharmacy Residents will: develop and deliver 2 formal didactic lectures (1 hour each), develop and deliver 2 small group facilitations (45 min each) in the form of a journal club, precept an APPE student in a rotation that has been completed by the resident, write a teaching philosophy statement, and design an electronic teaching portfolio. The specifics of the program are detailed below.

The Shenandoah University Pharmacy Residency Teaching and Learning Curriculum Program (RTLCP) is a collaborative program between the School of Pharmacy and School of Education and Human Development that combines both the knowledge and practice of teaching in a comprehensive year-long program.  The program has been very successful in further developing participants’ teaching skills that have been applied in varied practice settings, including academia and practice.  Through the use of synchronous and asynchronous technology and equivalent practice experiences done at the residency sites, residents and preceptors from distant residency sites also took the program covering 5 states.  With recent technology and programmatic enhancements, participants get a relevant, comprehensive and user-friendly educational experience that can be applied in many settings for the future.

Other Elective - 4 weeks

There is sufficient flexibility within the program to allow the resident to repeat a required rotation or develop a unique 4 week experience after meeting certain requirements and receiving the approval of the program director.