Pharmacy residency

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Pharmacy Residency is education a pharmacist can pursue beyond a PharmD. The first year is normally a general residency (medicine) or PGY-1 (post graduate year 1). A second year can be done in one of many different specialties and is called a specialized residency or PGY-2. Each residency is a year long endeavor (some are actually now 2 years), usually located in some sort of inpatient healthcare facility.

There are three different kinds of PGY-1's, as recognized by American Society of Health-System Pharmacists. These are Pharmacy Practice (based in hospital setting), community residency (based in a community pharmacy) and Ambulatory Pharmacy (based in clinics, such as Lipid-management clinics or anticoagulation clinics).

The Pharmacy Practice residency usually covers a wide array of topics, and along with a few years of experience, deems one eligible for Board Certification in Pharmacotherapy Specialty.

The Community Pharmacy residency usually covers many issues at hand with patients coming to community pharmacies and provides in depth knowledge of patient medication adherence patterns, medication therapy management, and collaborative drug therapy management with associated practitioners with prescribing authorities.

The Ambulatory Pharmacy residency dwells into long term care issues requiring many medications for comorbidities. The pharmacists in this specialty are trained to not only verify prescriptions and advise on medication safety, but are also trained to select the optimal pharmacoeconomic option from different drug delivery systems and different drugs within the same class.

The PGY2 consists of many different sub-specialties. The American Society of Health-System Pharmacists recognizes the following: Managed Care Pharmacy, Health Administration Pharmacy, Ambulatory, Cardiology, Critical Care, Drug Information, Emergency medicine, Geriatric, HIV, Infectious Disease, Internal Medicine, Medication Use Safety, Nephrology, Nuclear,Nutrition Support, Oncology and Palliative Care/Pain Management.

The PGY2 year further trains the pharmacist with symptoms, treatments (both drug and non-drug) in a particular area. Upon completion of a PGY2, one becomes eligible to take the Pharmacy Board Certification Exam for one of the five specialties currently recognized by the Board of Pharmaceutical Specialties. These Specialties are psychiatry, nutritional support, oncology, pharmacotherapy and nuclear pharmacy.

After completion of PGY2, one can either choose to practice or pursue a fellowship, which would train one to be an independent researcher.