Preparation for board certification in oncology

Mayo Clinic Hospital — Rochester offers a structured education program to meet the requirements of an American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP)-accredited PGY-2 oncology residency and prepare you for successful achievement as a Board Certified Oncology Pharmacist (BCOP).

The curriculum is designed around your learning experience schedule to correlate presentation topics with the patient population served. Preceptors in hematology and oncology teach a one-hour lecture two to three days a week covering disease states and drug classes.

PGY-2 oncology residents are required to lead four of the lectures for the BCOP program, including two disease-state topics, one patient case, and one new drug approval journal club.

TLC workshops

A teaching workshop is required for all residents who have not completed a previous certificate program. At the beginning of the academic year, you attend an eight-hour workshop to learn the foundational principles of pedagogy, course creation, philosophies of learning, writing measureable objectives, and creating evaluation questions. The latter portion of the workshop includes case-based vignettes that focus on difficult or challenging scenarios that young preceptors may encounter.

Formal presentations

As a pharmacy resident, you are required to provide continuing education presentations at various venues throughout the academic year. One such venue is Mayo Clinic Pharmacy Grand Rounds, where residents showcase pharmacology expertise to an interdisciplinary audience comprised of pharmacists, physicians, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, certified nurse specialists, and nurses. Mayo Clinic Pharmacy Grand Rounds is accredited for ACPE, AMA, ANCC, and AAPA continuing education credit and broadcast to all Mayo Clinic and Mayo Clinic Health System sites across the United States. Regardless of location, learners can actively participate in assessment questions using state-of-the-art polling software on mobile devices. Formal evaluations on presentation skills are provided to the resident for continued public speaking development.

Informal presentations

Given the role of pharmacists serving as medication experts, you are required to deliver informal presentations to the interdisciplinary team that focus on succinct education pearls related to a patient the team is caring for. Audiences include medical staff, nurses, and patients. You may have additional presentation requests by the interdisciplinary team while on specific learning experiences.

Precepting and classroom teaching

As pharmacy residents transition to future preceptor, it is imperative that residency programs provide adequate training, opportunities and support to refine precepting skills. By learning and working alongside an experienced preceptor, residents are guided through a precepting experience for an Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experience (APPE) student. Residents interested in a future faculty position may elect to complete additional teaching experiences that focus on preceptor skill development.  

Beginning early 2021, pharmacy residents will also have the opportunity to provide didactic clinical pharmacology lectures to students enrolled in the Mayo Clinic School of Health Sciences Physician Assistant Program.