VA NY Harbor Healthcare System

Pharmacy Residency Program

The summer month of July heralds the start of the new residency year for education, and the training of two pharmacists selected to the highly competitive New York Harbor Healthcare System Pharmacy Postgraduate Year One (PGY 1) Residency program. As the pharmacists begin this intense, year- long training program, they will transition into advanced care pharmacy practitioners. Their learning experiences are all taught by New York Harbor Pharmacy staff that will cover such diverse areas ranging from Oncology to Internal Medicine. Each of these pharmacists will gain increased practical skills and be able to apply their knowledge to the different disease specific needs of their patients. The pharmacists will also practice in longitudinal learning experiences in anticoagulation, smoking cessation, and diabetes management.

“Residents who train with us learn advanced skills such as administering Influenza and pneumococcal immunizations, using Point of Care (POC) machines for blood monitoring of warfarin patients, and how to more effectively teach and educate patients, and staff alike,” noted Charles Sharkey, Pharmacy Site Manager/Residency Coordinator at the Brooklyn Campus. Each pharmacy resident is also required to conduct independent research on a topic of interest with presentation at a major Pharmacy Clinical Conference.

“Pharmacy residents are constantly serving the educational needs of our patients, and our community,” said Joe Aprile, Chief of Pharmacy Service. They participate in special programs such as World AIDS Day, Antibiotic Stewardship, Talk about Prescription Week, and in health education awareness programs. Of particular noteworthiness is the fact that over 95 percent of our graduates continue their advanced training in Pharmacy Postgraduate Year Two (PGY 2) programs at many healthcare institutions across the country. Graduates from our program hold VA Pharmacy positions, teach in academia, or practice advanced pharmaceutical care in our local area. The common thread amongst all our resident trainees, graduates, and alumni was that the foundation for all their advanced pharmacy practice work is found here at New York Harbor in the completion of this PGY 1 Residency and in the experiences they took with them from the program.