What Are the Benefits of Pharmacy Residency Training?
Pharmacy residencies allow you to apply the knowledge and skills you've learned in school to real patients, situations, and settings. You will also be exposed to different facets of practice and learn about the many and varied career paths available to pharmacists today. In addition to experience working with a wide range of patients, residency training offers:
A Competitive Advantage in the Job Market - More and more employers recognize the value of residency training. A pharmacist who has completed a residency will have a clear advantage over applicants who have not.
Networking Opportunities - Many opportunities arise for residents to establish or expand their network of professional acquaintances and contacts including preceptors and other residents.
Career Planning - During the course of training, most residents gain a clearer picture of what type of practice best suits them. Residency preceptors are committed to providing personal attention to assist each resident in further defining professional goals.
Professional Vision - Many programs also offer the opportunity to see how pharmacy is practiced in different parts of the country, by arranging for residents to visit other residency programs or by allowing residents to complete a portion of the residency at another site (e.g., acute care, community care, home care, managed care, etc.).”
Why Should I Pursue ASHP-Accredited Residency Programs?
ASHP administers the only process that grants accreditation status to residencies. The accreditation process requires that each of these residencies are conducted in sites that demonstrate compliance with established standards of practice and offer a program that meets the requirements of training.
For prospective residents, this process ensures that accredited programs are peer-reviewed and that they fulfill requirements needed to provide a state-of-the-art practice environment. Likewise, prospective employers routinely seek graduates of ASHP-accredited residency programs since these individuals must obtain proficiency in a set of defined outcomes and training experiences to complete such a program.
What About Programs in Pre-Candidate, Candidate, and Conditional Status?
Residency programs that are in pre-candidate status have submitted an application that notifies the ASD that it intends to begin a residency program and start recruiting for its first resident(s). Depending on when the application is received, the program must also abide by the rules of the National Matching Program to recruit a resident.
Residency programs that are in candidate status have submitted an application that notifies the ASD that it has recruited its first resident and has started its residency program. Once the program has had an onsite survey, and their site report and response has been reviewed and accepted by the ASHP Commission on Credentialing and the ASHP Board of Directors, accreditation can either be granted or it can be withheld. If accreditation is withheld with a resident in the program, the program cannot offer the resident a certificate stating that he or she has graduated from an ASHP accredited program.
Residency programs that are in conditional status have been surveyed and been found not to be in substantial compliance with applicable accreditation standards as usually evidenced by the degree of severity of non-compliance and/or partial compliance findings. Programs must remedy identified problem areas or risk losing accreditation.
