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dd a postgraduate residency to the ongoing maturation of the UIC College of Pharmacy’s Rockford regional campus.
“We’re confident our PGY1 residents will leave us well positioned for a PGY2 residency or prepared to be independent practitioners,” Hays says.
Since the Rockford campus’s founding in 2010, the campus has consistently expanded its academic offerings, faculty roster, and community partnerships. With the launch of the campus’s first postgraduate residency this summer, the campus now celebrates yet another important step in its lively development.
Beyond preparing capable pharmacists for their next career steps, residency program director Dr. Chris Schriever (PharmD ’99, RES ’00, FEL ’02) sees additional benefits to the program’s debut. He believes the presence of a postgraduate residency heightens the credibility of the Rockford campus and will drive faculty development in practice, leadership, and management. Yet more, it lays the foundation for additional postgraduate training opportunities in Rockford.
“Our first PGY1 residency program represents the exciting growth of our Rockford campus and shows we’re eager to offer the high-quality advanced training opportunities needed in our profession and so valued at the UIC College of Pharmacy,” says Dr. Kevin Rynn (PharmD, RES ’93, FEL ’94), Rockford’s vice dean and an ardent champion of postgraduate training. Leveraging affiliations with local hospitals, community health partners, and ambulatory care sites in both urban and rural settings across northern Illinois, the one-year PGY1 residency carries a decidedly ambulatory-based flavor. Residents will complete six required rotations in areas such as psychiatry, internal medicine, drug information, and family medicine in addition to five elective rotations aligned with their professional interests and career goals. Residency program coordinator Dr. Annette Hays (PharmD ’16) says the PGY1 program, which includes exposure to numerous teaching opportunities and research experiences, was thoughtfully designed to develop clinical pharmacists prepared to offer medication-related care on multidisciplinary teams.
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“There’s so much good that can come from this, and that’s why we’re excited to have this PGY1 program in place,” Schriever says. For a first-time residency program, Schriever and Hays say they were “exceptionally pleased” with the size and diversity of the applicant pool, which included prospects from multiple states in addition to those affiliated with UIC. “We received more applicants than we ever envisioned,” Hays says, adding that she and Schriever sought “an independent, fast thinker” eager to learn and lead. “We looked for someone we felt could leave this residency and put their mark on the profession.” On March 13, Rockford was matched with Dr. Alex Thorp. A recent graduate of the Medical College of Wisconsin, where he was a member of that institution’s first graduating class in pharmacy,
