Pharmacy Practice Residency Programs
The Lt. Col. Luke Weathers, Jr. VA Medical Center, located at 116 N Pauline St, in Memphis Tennessee, capital of blues and barbeque, is part of the VISN 9 VA Healthcare Network. It is a 250-bed facility with an additional 60-bed Spinal Cord Injury Unit, numerous specialty clinics, with primary care services located at the main facility and nine community-based outpatient clinics. The facility is accredited by the Joint Commission and is classified as a complex, Level I Facility.
The Lt. Col. Luke Weathers, Jr. VA Medical Center (VA Memphis) is a teaching hospital, providing a full range of patient care services, state-of-the-art technology and many educational and research opportunities. Comprehensive health care is provided through primary, secondary, and tertiary care, in areas of medicine, surgery, psychiatry, physical medicine and rehabilitation, spinal cord injury, neurology, oncology, dentistry, and geriatrics. Specialized outpatient services are provided through general, specialty, and subspecialty outpatient clinics including a women's health center. Services are available to more than 196,000 veterans living in a 53-county tristate area (Tennessee, Arkansas, and Mississippi).
VA Memphis long-standing tradition of providing clinical pharmacy services to the medical center and training highly qualified pharmacy residents. The program was first accredited in 1963 and over 260 residents have completed training. Pharmacy residency training programs at VA Memphis have allowed residents to train at an advanced level of practice in a progressive pharmacy environment. Clinical pharmacy specialists contribute to clinical services throughout the medical center and provide a wide variety of clinical pharmacy experiences including medical ICU, surgical ICU, cardiology ICU, nutrition support, internal medicine, geriatrics, palliative care, spinal cord injury, hematology/oncology, emergency medicine, practice management, pharmacoeconomics, psychiatry, primary care and home based primary care. Longitudinal clinic experiences include hypertension, hyperlipidemia, pain management, heart failure, emergency medicine, neurology, rheumatology, hematology/oncology, polypharmacy/transitions of care, geriatrics, HIV, and Hepatitis C.
Pharmacy residents are provided the opportunity to accelerate their growth beyond entry-level professional competence in patient-centered care, pharmacy operational services, and leadership skills that can be applied in any position and in any practice setting. Residents acquire substantial knowledge required for skillful problem solving, refine their problem-solving strategies, strengthen their professional values and attitudes, and advance the growth of their clinical judgment. The instructional emphasis is on the progressive development of clinical judgment, a process begun in the advanced pharmacy practice experiences (APPE or clerkships) of the professional school years but requiring further extensive practice, self-reflection, and shaping of decision-making skills fostered by feedback on performance. The residency year provides a productive environment for accelerating growth beyond entry-level professional competence through supervised practice under the guidance of model practitioners. Specifically, residents will acquire these skills and competencies: managing and improving the medication-use process; providing evidence-based, patient-centered medication therapy management with interdisciplinary teams; exercising leadership and practice management; demonstrating project management skills; providing medication and practice-related education/training; and utilizing medical informatics.
VA Memphis offers four ASHP accredited residency programs, a PGY1 Pharmacy Practice Residency as well as two PGY-2 programs in Internal Medicine, Ambulatory Care, and Psychiatry.