Objectives

Residents who successfully complete the UW Health Critical Care Specialty Residency Program will be able to provide integrated pharmaceutical critical care at a patient-specific level.

This residency will provide residents with opportunities to conceptualize, integrate and transform accumulated experiences and knowledge into skills, competence and confidence in providing patient care to critically ill patients through clinical experience. The residency will also provide an opportunity to develop teaching and clinical research skills.

Residents will acquire a philosophy of practice that includes:

• Pharmacists’ responsibility and accountability for pursuing optimal drug therapy outcomes in the provision of patient care to critically ill patients
• Education and training of other health professionals
• A program of self-learning
• A commitment to the profession

Qualifications

In order to recruit high-quality residents, every potential pharmacy resident candidate will be evaluated using defined criteria. Those meeting the criteria will be actively pursued, with the current critical care pharmacy resident acting as that individual’s liaison to the University of Wisconsin and its pharmacy residency program.

Although high academic achievements are important for success in this program, other experiences of professional practice are also taken into consideration, keeping in mind that a correlation between grades and professional practice does not always exist.

The Department of Pharmacy at UW Health has established the following criteria for the selection of residents:

• Completion of a prior residency
• Graduation from an accredited college of pharmacy
• Official transcripts must demonstrate a GPA > 3.0 with no cause for concern in upper-level pharmacy courses such as therapeutics, pharmacology, pharmacotherapy lab, etc.
• Pharmacy Online Residency Centralized Application Service (PhORCAS) completion
• See Applying to pharmacy residency programs

Critical Care Residency applicants will interview with the program director, the manager of Acute Care, rotation preceptors, critical care pharmacists and the current resident in the program. This does not preclude input and suggestions from any other member of the staff. Other aspects considered are knowledge of professional practice, ability to communicate, practical application of theoretical knowledge, interest in the program and the ability to show leadership, confidence and maturity.