PGY2 Solid Organ Transplant Pharmacy

Our program has completed recruitment and filled our PGY2 Solid Organ Transplant Pharmacy Resident position for the 2024-2025 residency year.

Purpose

This PGY2 pharmacy residency program builds on Doctor of Pharmacy (Pharm.D.) education and PGY1 pharmacy residency programs to contribute to the development of clinical pharmacists in specialized areas of practice. This PGY2 residency provides residents with opportunities to function independently as practitioners by conceptualizing and integrating accumulated experience and knowledge and incorporating both into provision of patient care or other advanced practice settings. Residents who successfully complete an accredited PGY2 pharmacy residency are prepared for advanced patient care, academic, or other specialized positions, along with board certification, if available.

Description

The Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) PGY2 Solid Organ Transplant Pharmacy Residency Program provides an intellectually stimulating environment where the resident will care for transplant recipients while acquiring knowledge and skills that will prepare them to become a transplant pharmacotherapy specialist. The transplant pharmacy resident is viewed as an essential member of the multidisciplinary care team where they provide medication education and drug information to various health care professionals, patients and family members as part of their daily activities. Opportunities are available for precepting pharmacy students and PGY1 residents and leading lectures at the various colleges of pharmacy in the area. The addition of an optional teaching certificate program at Northeastern University School of Pharmacy allows the resident to refine their skills as a pharmacy educator who can progress into an academic role in the area of transplant pharmacotherapy. A flipped research model provides the transplant resident the opportunity to complete a research project that can be submitted for presentation at a national transplant meeting in addition to developing their own research idea during the second half of the year. Through this process the resident will learn foundational skills that can be applied as a clinical researcher in a transplant pharmacy practice setting. Finally, the resident will participate in numerous MGH Transplant Center committees and activities, where they will be exposed to the regulatory and accreditation standards by which a transplant program must abide.

The transplant program at Massachusetts General Hospital is the largest in New England. The transplant pharmacy resident will gain exposure to adult and pediatric transplantation and will care for heart, lung, liver, kidney, pancreas, islet and vascular composite allograft transplant recipients.

We currently offer one position for the PGY2 Solid Organ Transplant Pharmacy Residency.

Program Goals

• Optimize outcomes in transplant recipients by providing evidence-based medication therapy as an integral member of the interdisciplinary team
• Conduct and take ownership of a transplant focused research and quality improvement project
• Demonstrate leadership and practice management skills and exhibit essential personal skills of a practice leader
• Participate in the health-system formulary process for pharmacotherapeutic agents used in solid organ transplant recipients
• Demonstrate excellence in the provision of training, preceptorship, or educational activities for health care professionals and health care professionals in training
• Develop an evidence-based approach when providing transplant medication-related information
• Demonstrate the ability to provide appropriate evidence-based recommendations for both donors and transplant recipients in both the acute care and ambulatory settings
• Display attributes required to function in an academic setting and exercise teaching skills essential to pharmacy faculty

Learning Experiences

The first month of residency is an orientation to the Department of Pharmacy, after a 1.5-day hospital orientation. Activities include competency lectures on basic clinical skills, electronic health record (Epic®) training, and side-by-side decentralized training with clinical pharmacy preceptors. Additionally, residents will understand the structure of the Residency Learning System, which is the backbone of how residency training is put into action.

Core Learning Experiences:

• Abdominal Transplant – Acute Care
• Heart Transplant – Acute Care
• Lung Transplant – Acute Care
• Abdominal Transplant – Ambulatory Care

Elective Learning Experiences:

• Transplant Infectious Diseases
• Surgical Intensive Care Unit
• Cardiac Surgery Intensive Care Unit
• Cardiac Intensive Care Unit
• Transplant Nephrology
• Advanced Acute Care Transplant (choice of organ)
• Hepatology
• HLA Laboratory
• Other experiences based on the resident’s interest

Longitudinal Experiences:

• Longitudinal Transplant Practice Leadership
• Pharmacy Practice Experience: Transplant weekday activities, decentralized weekend staffing and emergency response
• Longitudinal Project Management
• Resident officer positions and committees
• Residents teaching seminar / teaching certificate at Northeastern University School of Pharmacy (optional)

Contact Information

Jacqueline Clark, PharmD, BCPS, BCTXP
Clinical Pharmacy Specialist – Cardiothoracic Transplant
Program Director, Solid Organ Transplant Pharmacy PGY2 Residency
Massachusetts General Hospital
jclark28@mgh.harvard.edu

Riley Scalzo, PharmD, BCTXP
Clinical Pharmacy Specialist – Abdominal Transplant
Program Coordinator, Solid Organ Transplant Pharmacy PGY2 Residency
Massachusetts General Hospital
rscalzo@mgh.harvard.edu