ROCKFORD, RESIDENCY MILESTONES HIGHLIGHT UNIQUE UIC PROGRAMS

ROCKFORD, RESIDENCY MILESTONES HIGHLIGHT UNIQUE UIC PROGRAMS

by Michael Dhar

As the UIC College of Pharmacy commemorates 165 years, two vital components of the school have their own anniversaries: The residency program marks 55 years of training some of the nation’s most promising new pharmacists, while the Rockford pharmacy campus celebrates the 10-year anniversary of its first graduating class.

“They’re both really important milestones and, I think, especially in combination with the 165th, show the long-term success of the College of Pharmacy,” Dr. Glen Schumock, dean of the college, said.

A HALF-CENTURY TRAINING RESIDENTS

UIC’s pharmacy residency program, one of the first in the nation, graduated its initial cohort in 1969. Since then, UIC has also had one of the country’s largest and most comprehensive postgraduate pharmacy training programs, consisting of first- and second-year (PGY1 and PGY2) residencies and research-focused fellowships.

After launching with four residents, the program has hosted 893 total residents and fellows, granting 1,027 certificates as of 2023. The PGY1 program includes 12 residents at UI Health (with more in community-based, international, and other residencies), making it “one of the bigger programs in the country,” said Dr. Kirsten Ohler, PGY1 Director. “Most have maybe two to six residents.”

Beyond size, the program boasts a record of success, matching 98% of PGY1 residents seeking PGY2 or fellowship opportunities from 2020 to 2022. Professional and academic worlds recognize the quality of UIC residents, too, Ohler said. “Our residents, when they hit the job market, are highly sought after by academic institutions [and] pharmaceutical companies into leadership roles fairly early in their careers.”

As it’s grown, the program has also diversified. Hospital or clinical residencies remain the largest “and probably best known” aspect of UIC’s program, but it has expanded into ambulatory care and other areas, Schumock said. Recent PGY1

additions include residencies at Rockford (first graduates, 2021). Specialized (now called PGY2) residencies graduated their first cohort in 1983; starting with emergency medicine, that program has added oncology, infectious diseases pharmacy, emergency medicine at Rockford (first graduates, 2023), and more.

After launching with 4 residents, the program has hosted 893 total residents and fellows, granting 1,027 certificates as of 2023.

The first research fellowships were halfspecialty pharmacy/half-research and started with cardiology (first graduates, 1983). Longer, two- to three-year research fellowships started just afterward, with the first graduates in 1984. The fellowship program has grown to include specialties

from infectious diseases (the largest) to academia/family medicine.

Today’s residency program owes its clinical focus to the vision of Dr. Richard Hutchinson, former director of pharmacy and head of pharmacy practice, said Dr. Frank Paloucek, residency program director, 1999–2019. Hutchinson wanted to help spur the discipline’s evolution toward clinical pharmacy, and “he thought the key was to train as many young people as you could into believing that’s what it should be,” Paloucek said. Hutchinson “put an enormous commitment” into the residency program, supporting 12 residents at a “time

[when] there were like 200 total residency positions in the country.”

Perhaps the residency program’s biggest innovation came in 1980 with on-call and resident-report requirements. (In these components, residents stay overnight at the hospital to respond to emergencies and provide drug information, then gather with other residents and preceptors to discuss lessons.) Residents have proven themselves invaluable at the hospital. “Physicians and nurses at the highest levels of the medical center said you cannot get rid of the residency program,” Paloucek said. “That, to me, is the enduring legacy for the UIC College of Pharmacy.”

Residency alumni name the on-call program as a highlight, too. “Not a lot of pharmacy residency programs have an in-house on-call program where you have an experience like a medical resident where you sleep in the hospital, carry a pager,” said Dr. Karen Berger, critical care resident in 2010–2011. The experience of “being responsible to go to a cardiac arrest or a stroke or an emergency in the ED or answer some complicated drug information questions . . . is very helpful,” said Berger, now an assistant professor of pharmacy practice at Nova Southeastern University and a trauma and medical ICU pharmacist at Broward Health Medical Center in Florida.

The on-call program stands out, too, for alumni from the program’s earlier days. “That on-call program was probably the most valuable experience I had,” said Dr. Robert Parker, who completed a fellowship with a clinical pharmacy component in

1987–1989. He credits his fellowship experience under former dean Dr. Jerry Bauman with underpinning his research career at the University of Tennessee College of Pharmacy in Memphis. Parker’s fellowship studies on reversing cocaine toxicity (still cited in treatment guidelines) “set the foundation for what I’ve done as a faculty member here,” he said.

An alumnus of the program himself, Bauman started his residency in 1976, just as Hutchinson was transforming the focus toward clinical pharmacy. “To this day, it was a great experience,” Bauman said. “It made me want to pursue clinical pharmacy as a career.”

A DECADE OF ROCKFORD GRADS

In 2010, UIC Pharmacy joined the UIC health-sciences campus in Rockford (itself celebrating 50 years of the medical school this year). The first pharmacy class graduated four years later. Created “to meet the needs of the state in improving recruitment and eventual graduation of pharmacists into rural communities and beyond,” the Rockford campus has proven its value, said Dr. Kevin Rynn, dean of the Rockford campus. “Marking the 10 years, it’s been important as a college and as a campus for us to meet those needs.”

UIC Rockford Pharmacy has grown from a faculty of three to four professors to 35 faculty and staff members, graduating 338 PharmD students, as well as six pharmacy PhD students.

For Dr. Chris Schriever, PharmD ’99, among the first Rockford Pharmacy faculty members and a Rockford native, the campus’s first 14 years have meant maturing from a newcomer to a known commodity. “Rockford was trying in the beginning to find its foothold within the city, to let the Rockford region know that we’re here,” he said. “And I think we’ve advanced . . . we’re going out throughout the region, throughout the state, and nationally now.”

One of the major contributions of Rockford Pharmacy comes from its Rural Pharmacy Education (RPHARM) Program, designed to train grads for service-oriented careers in rural areas. The program, one of few in the nation, helps address a critical shortage in rural areas in Illinois and beyond. “To be able to supply high-quality pharmacists to rural communities that might otherwise have to close pharmacies or hospitals because they don’t have health care professionals . . . that’s been a real benefit,” Schumock said.

A total of 61 UIC Rockford graduates have earned the RPHARM concentration with 75% taking their first job in an area with a shortage of health professionals and 44% in rural areas. As of 2023, 62% still had jobs in shortage areas and 43% in rural locations, “which I think is a huge win,” said Dr. Heidi Olson, RPHARM director. “And we know that over half of our graduates from the rural program are practicing within 50 miles of their hometown.”

UIC Pharmacy has also helped improve medical care in Rockford and surrounding areas through partnerships with local health care institutions, including via the new Rockford residencies, Schumock said. “The impact that we’ve had by placing faculty in and creating collaborations with those health systems has elevated the care that is provided to people that live in Rockford.” Partner institutions include providers like OSF HealthCare and Crusader Community Health.

Rockford Pharmacy staff and students also stay active in the community in other ways. “At health fairs, immunization events, and volunteer activities, I see the college wellrepresented,” Schriever said. In particular, during the COVID-19 pandemic, UIC partnered with the Winnebago County Health Department to deliver vaccinations on campus and at local clinics. “Without our help, efforts for the county likely would not have been as smooth,” Rynn said.

The Rural Pharmacy Education program, one of few in the nation, helps address a critical shortage in rural areas in Illinois and beyond.

UIC Pharmacy’s presence in Rockford has created opportunities for potential future pharmacists in the area, as well. Outreach efforts include the Summer Pharmacy

Institute (SPI), a weeklong immersion program for college students, and similar, half-day programs for area high schoolers. These programs are made possible by generous funding from the Community Foundation of Northern Illinois, another great local partnership, Rynn said.

These pipeline programs aim to bring young people to UIC but also the pharmacy profession in general. Since SPI began in 2015, the program has welcomed 310 students to the campus—with 34% of 2015–2022 attendees applying to the college and 20% enrolling.

Simply the presence of UIC Pharmacy in Rockford had made a tremendous difference

for some area students. Dr. Annette Carmichael, PharmD ’16, grew up in Rockford, and life circumstances prevented her from leaving the area for grad school.

The Rockford campus made a pharmacy career possible for her, she said.

“When the campus actually came to fruition and opened, it really opened the possibility for me to go to graduate school,” said Carmichael, now a clinical assistant professor and director of the Rockford PGY1 residency program. “And the best part of all of it, I love the area. This is home for me, and I got to stay home and pursue my dreams.”