PGY2 Residency in Ambulatory Care

residency at a glance

Overview

The PGY2 Ambulatory Care Residency at ACPHS is a one-year post-graduate program designed to develop leadership skills and provide training and experience in various areas of ambulatory care practice, research, teaching and service. This unique program provides exposure to primary care and public health pharmacy, as well as specialty areas that include rheumatology, pain management, and nephrology. Core learning experiences include outpatient primary care, rheumatology, nephrology and hypertension, public health pharmacy, pain management, academia/teaching, and research/scholarship. Electives are selected based on residents’ needs and interests and may include community pharmacy within a federally qualified health center, medication therapy management, practice management, pharmacogenomics, and/or subspecialty ambulatory care pharmacy. The ACPHS Teaching and Learning Certificate Program is offered as an optional experience for residents who have not previously completed a teaching certificate. There are opportunities to participate in public health outreach, transitions of care, and in local and national committees and foundations. Previous residents have gone on to jobs in academia, ambulatory care pharmacy, managed care and specialty pharmacy.  

program structure

Signature experiences of the program include delivery of clinical services in public health, rheumatology, nephrology, pharmacogenomics and pain management. Required learning experiences include primary care, rheumatology, nephrology, community and public health pharmacy, pain management, academia/teaching, and research/scholarship. Electives are selected based on residents’ needs and interests, and may include practice management and leadership, pharmacogenomics, and/or subspecialty ambulatory care pharmacy as requested. The ACPHS Teaching and Learning Certificate Program is offered as an optional experience. There are opportunities to participate in public health outreach, transitions of care, advanced community pharmacy, and in local and national committees and foundations. 

*Rotation blocks are generally 6 weeks in length and align with the APPE student schedule

**Electives are selected based on residents’ needs and interests and may include inpatient pharmacy practice, medication therapy management, and/or subspecialty ambulatory care pharmacy. There are also opportunities to participate in public health outreach, transitions of care, and in local and national committees and foundations.

core clinical services

Signature experiences of the program include delivery of clinical services in family medicine, rheumatology, nephrology, community pharmacy and public health.

Family Medicine 
Saratoga Hospital's Medical Group (SHMG) consists of over 30 specialty providers with 20+ locations across Saratoga County and beyond.  SHMG provides a care model mimicking the patient centered medical home.  Primary care, psychiatry, pain management, addiction, and dental services are all being provided under one roof. Pharmacy residents work as part of the interdisciplinary team managing patients in collaboration with physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, nurses, credentialed alcoholism and substance abuse counselors (CASAC), social workers, and community health workers. The residents provide pain management consults focused on non-opioid interventions, risk mitigation strategies, controlled substance policies, as well as provider and patient education.  The team is also able to provide pharmacogenomic testing to patients for a variety of indications and have expanded that service to several neighboring practices.  In addition, the pharmacy team assists in the daily activities of providing primary care such as answering drug information questions, answering complex insurance prior authorizations, performing medication reconciliation at transitions of care, as well as medication teaching and education.  There is a strong focus on management of patients with overlapping rheumatic diseases.

College Parkside Pharmacy & Collaboratory
ACPHS College Parkside Pharmacy is located inside Whitney Young Health Center, a Health Center Program grantee under 42 U.S.C. 254b, and a deemed Public Health Service employee under 42 U.S.C. 233(g)-(n). Whitney M. Young, Jr. Health Center is a Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) deemed facility.

As full-service pharmacies, they include point-of-care screening services coupled with associated disease state counseling. Under the supervision of a licensed pharmacist, students and residents have opportunities to expand their patient counseling skills in areas that could include Medicare Part D plan finder, blood pressure screening, disease management and prevention, medication therapy management, self-care, immunization/vaccines, wellness counseling. In addition to the clinical skills needed to be successful pharmacists, residents have opportunities to learn the essential business skills required to successfully manage a pharmacy. The ACPHS pharmacies provide hands-on experience in revenue analysis, inventory turnover analysis, break-even analysis, and pharmacy cash-flow analysis. Through their experiences in the pharmacies, residents are better prepared to “think like entrepreneurs,” proactively seeking out opportunities not only for operational efficiencies and growth but for creative health care business models.

The dynamic layout of the ACPHS Collaboratory, “laboratory for collaboration,” includes adjustable, classroom-style space for community meetings and classes, as well as office space and private meeting space for patron consultation. Cubicle and office spaces currently support community health workers, pharmacy team members, and students. Signature services at The Collaboratory are delivered by ACPHS’s Public Health Pharmacy Team (PHPT) and Trinity Alliance’s Wellness Advocates Linking Communities (WALC) team, which are co-located in the space. Together, the programs address social justice and social determinants of health, with both having the goal to improve population health and reduce avoidable emergency department visits/hospital admissions. Pharmacists have a long history of acting as public health advocates and practitioners within their communities. This collaborative model, which bridges social supports and health care, deploys pharmacy services into the community, allowing for a deeper understanding of the role that pharmacists can provide. The operations and student involvement at The Collaboratory are overseen by public health and pharmacy practice faculty, and the day-to-day management is being over-seen by a site coordinator.

Specialty: Rheumatology & Nephrology
Albany Medical Center (AMC) is the only academic medical center in the Capital District.  AMC Division of Rheumatology offers a 2-year medical fellowship program in rheumatology allowing for a layer learning model for medical and pharmacy trainees. Pharmacy residents and medical rheumatology fellows, along with students and medical residents, spend time learning and caring for patients with rheumatic disease as part of the multidisciplinary team.  The Division of Rheumatology at AMC encompasses both adult and pediatric outpatient rheumatology clinics and inpatient consult service caring for individuals with autoimmune and musculoskeletal diseases.  The Pharmacy Team, including the pharmacy residents and students, work collaboratively with 4 adult rheumatologists, 3 pediatric rheumatologists, and 2 medical rheumatology fellows on a daily basis with some providers serving as co-preceptors and mentors for the pharmacy residents.  

Nephrology rotations are a hybrid learning experience to expose the resident to management of outpatient kidney disease and includes experiences in an academic medical setting, in private practice and in dialysis. The learning experience includes patient care activities at the Division of Hypertension & Nephrology located at Albany Medical Center South Clinical Campus, Capital District Renal Physicians/New York Nephrology and Fresenius Kidney Care. The practices are responsible for managing patients with stage 1-5 chronic kidney disease and patients with acute kidney injury, hypertension, nephrolithiasis, transplant, and autoimmune kidney disease. Residents interact with attending nephrologists, 1-2 physician nephrology fellows, nurses, dialysis staff, dietitians, social workers, and advanced practitioners. Rotations in both nephrology and rheumatology at AMC allow for increased collaboration among mutual patients especially those with kidney disease associated with systemic lupus erythematous and vasculitis and also management of bone disease in patients with advanced kidney disease.

Responsibilities

The resident will be responsible for providing clinical pharmacy services in various settings. This will allow the resident to develop relationships with patients and practitioners and to become adept at clinical evaluation and medication management in ambulatory practice.

A customized plan will be developed for the resident on the basis of previous experience and interest areas. The resident will also be involved with teaching, research, and service activities at ACPHS. 

Program Requirements

Applicants must:

• Possess a Doctor of Pharmacy degree from an accredited school or college of pharmacy
• Be eligible for a license to practice pharmacy in the State of New York
• Have completed or expect to complete an ASHP-accredited PGY1 residency program

For more information, contact Residency Program Director Dr. Katie Cardone at katie.cardone@acphs.edu