This specialty residency program is designed to provide our residents with the skills necessary to become a competent and confident practitioner of pharmaceutical care in a variety of infectious diseases practice settings. After program completion, residents will possess the skills needed to work in ambulatory care, inpatient clinical positions, academia, and pharmaceutical industry.
Learning Objectives:
Promote health improvement, wellness, and the prevention of infectious diseases
Optimize patient outcomes by providing evidence-based, patient-centered medication therapy as an integral member of an interdisciplinary infectious diseases team
Manage and improve the medication-use process in infectious diseases patient care
Demonstrate excellence in the provision of educational activities on optimizing anti-infective pharmacotherapy for health care professionals and trainees
Serve as an authoritative resource on the optimal use of medications used to treat individuals with an infectious disease
Demonstrate leadership and practice management skills
Conduct infectious diseases pharmacy practice research
Demonstrate skills required for managing and improving anti-infective-use processes
Program Structure:
Required Rotations
Activities
Inpatient Infectious Disease Consult
Precepting students and residents
Antimicrobial Stewardship
Research suitable for presentation at MAD-ID/ Southwest VA Conference Research meetings
Microbiology Laboratory
Grand Rounds Presentation
Bioinformatics
Journal Club
Longitudinal HIV and Hep C Clinic
Case Conferences
Elective Rotations:
Our site offers hematology/oncology and academic detailing rotations. Off-site rotations at the University of California, San Diego are available in bone marrow transplant and HIV clinics.
Facilities:
The resident office will be located at the VA Medical Center in La Jolla, California and most activities will be coordinated from this site. The resident will also have the option to rotate off-site to experience other infectious diseases practice settings.
Participation in the ASHP Resident Matching Program
United States citizenship with proof of naturalization if naturalized
Possess a Doctor of Pharmacy degree from an accredited School or College of Pharmacy
Completion of or be in the process of completing an ASHP-accredited PGY1 residency
Eligible for licensure to practice as a pharmacist at VA San Diego within 120 days from the beginning of the residency program
Must be able to show documented proof for each requirement and maintain eligibility for the duration of the VA appointment via the Am I Eligible? Checklist for Health Professional Trainees (HPTs) Training at VA Facilities: Am I Eligible? Checklist for VA Health Professional Trainees
APPLICATION PROCESS
All application materials must be submitted through Pharmacy Online Residency Centralized Application (PhORCAS):
PHASE I DEADLINE for PGY2 Programs is January 1, 2023
PHASE II DEADLINE for Programs with Available Positions is March 20, 2023
Submitted Materials must include:
Basic Demographics
Verified Transcripts for Schools or Colleges of Pharmacy Only
Personal Statement / Letter of Intent
Curriculum Vitae
Three letters of recommendation using the standardized reference template in PhORCAS
Extracurricular Information
Selected applicants will be invited to a personal interview occurring in February. Candidates who are not invited for an on-site interview will be notified via e-mail
VA San Diego Healthcare System
KEY FACTS
Provided high quality health care to 116,500+ Veterans in the San Diego and Imperial Valley counties in Fiscal Year 2022
Offers a wide range of inpatient and outpatient health services at the medical center in La Jolla, seven community-based outpatient clinics located in Chula Vista, Escondido, Imperial Valley, Kearny Mesa, Rio, Oceanside, and Sorrento Valley and a residential rehabilitation treatment program
Provides medical, surgical, mental health, geriatric, spinal cord injury, and advanced rehabilitation services
Training site for 1,441 medical interns, residents and fellows, as well as 368 other health professionals from pharmacy, nursing, dental, and dietetics
PROVISION OF CARE – PHARMACY SERVICE
Pharmacy services provided 24 hours a day, seven days a week
Decentralized unit-dose service with Barcode Medication Administration, IV Additive Service, Automated Dispensing Systems, Physician Order Entry and Automated Prescription Filling
Our Ambulatory Care Clinical Pharmacists, Inpatient Clinical Pharmacists, and Clinical Specialists provide a wide range of pharmaceutical care services to veterans in the inpatient a...nd outpatient settings.
OUR STAFF AND PRECEPTORS
75 pharmacists serve as preceptors to our resident trainees
Most have greater than 5 years of experience with serving as a preceptor to residents
Many are Board Certified as Pharmacotherapy Specialists (BCPS), Oncology Pharmacists (BCOP), Psychiatric Pharmacists (BCPP), Ambulatory Care Pharmacists (BCACP), Critical Care Pharmacists (BCCCP), Infectious Diseases Pharmacists (BCIDP) and Geriatric Pharmacists (BCGP)
More than half possess Scopes of Practices which allow for prescriptive authority
OUR TEACHING PROGRAM
Multiple PGY1 and PGY2 residency training programs
Have academic relationships with two Schools of Pharmacy – University of the Pacific (UOP) and University of California, San Diego (UCSD)
Annually provide APPEs to approximately 30 students