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Curriculum

Pharmacy residents pose together in the pharmacy at Mayo Clinic Health System in La Crosse, Wisconsin.

Clinical training

As a PGY-1 pharmacy resident, you devote much of your time to comprehensive training as a member of the interdisciplinary team. A breadth of learning experiences has been designed to increase and refine your clinical competency, provide evidence-based pharmacotherapeutic care plans, and develop your confidence as an independent practitioner.

Direct patient care services allow you to provide patient-specific pharmaceutical care services. Responsibilities include development of individualized care and monitoring plans for various patient populations. After coaching, instruction and modeling by a preceptor, you are assessed and constructively critiqued on how to further refine the delivery of evidence-based recommendations.

You provide drug information to patients, physicians, nurses, pharmacists and other allied health professionals. Your preceptors offer feedback to enhance your drug-information retrieval skills using a variety of resources and modalities.

Required learning experiences

The PGY-1 Pharmacy Residency at Mayo Clinic Health System — La Crosse is designed to provide a diverse experience for the future pharmacy clinician. Required learning experiences may be extended based on your interests and include the following:

Area Length
Orientation 6 weeks
Internal medicine 4 weeks
Family medicine 4 weeks
Antimicrobial stewardship/Infectious disease 4 weeks
Practice management 4 weeks
Critical care 4 weeks
Emergency medicine 4 weeks
Medication safety Longitudinal, 12 months (average 2 hours per 4 weeks*)
Research project Longitudinal, 12 months (average 12 hours per 4 weeks*)
Quality improvement project Longitudinal, 12 months (average 2 hours per 4 weeks*)
Staffing** Longitudinal, 12 months (average 34 hours per 4 weeks excluding July*; totals 368 hours over the course of the residency year)
Teaching and learning certificate Longitudinal, 12 months (average 4 hours per 4 weeks*)

* This is an average and there will be more and less hours at different timeframes throughout the residency year.

** Resident(s) will staff every fifth week Monday through Sunday and will include on average two project days. Resident(s) will train in July and early August and begin staffing late August pending licensure. Shifts may occur on day or evening hours depending on scheduling needs. In addition, residents are required to staff one evening each month from 5-8 p.m. at the Saint Claire Mission. A total of 18 project days will be provided at minimum through the residency year. Resident(s) will be expected to staff one major holiday (Christmas or Thanksgiving) and one minor holiday (Labor Day or Memorial Day) in addition to regular staffing hours.

Elective learning experiences

Electives are available in a variety of inpatient and outpatient settings that allow you to tailor the program to your needs. The list below includes learning experiences that past PGY-1 residents have completed at Mayo Clinic Health System — La Crosse.

Area Length
Administration 4 weeks
Cardiology/pulmonology 4 weeks
Advanced critical care 4 weeks
Advanced family medicine 4 weeks
Advanced antimicrobial stewardship 4 weeks
Ambulatory services 4 weeks
Hematology/oncology ambulatory clinic 4 weeks
Advanced emergency medicine 4 weeks
Surgery 4 weeks

Additional elective learning experiences may be available upon request.

Staffing commitment

Mayo Clinic Health System — La Crosse pharmacy residents staff an average of 32 hours each month. Staffing may include a combination of day, weekends, and holidays with a central and decentral pharmacy component to advance experience in both operational and clinical pharmacy services. Staffing also includes three hours staffed each month at the Saint Claire Health Mission which provides care for the underserved patient population in the region. No formal on-call program exists.

Curriculum enhancements

The Department of Pharmacy and Mayo Clinic School of Health Sciences are committed to developing and maintaining the best education programs. The curriculum and other aspects of this program are routinely assessed and changed as necessary to ensure the highest-quality training.