The clinical rotation at Saanich Peninsula Hospital and Comox Valley Hospital provides the Pharmacy Resident with training and experience in a variety of medical conditions in a community hospital setting, including but not limited to: pain management, diabetes, anemia, common infections, cardiovascular diseases, geriatric medicine, polypharmacy, and palliative care. The rotation will occur at Saanich Peninsula Hospital and the resident will cover patients in the Emergency Department, Medical / Surgical wards, South ward, and the Palliative care ward. There is capacity for approximately 50 – 60 patients presenting with various medical and surgical issues of variable acuity / complexity. The medical / surgical wards offer telemetry beds for continuous cardiac monitoring.

The general medicine team consists of house physicians (rotating weekly), specialist physicians such as internists, infectious diseases, geriatrics, general surgery, and geriatric psychiatry, as well as registered nurses, licensed practical nurses (LPN), registered care aides, physiotherapists, social workers, dieticians, occupational therapists, nurse liaisons, and clinical pharmacists. Multidisciplinary students and residents are regular participants in both of the units. A majority of rotation time is spent on direct patient care activities, including but not limited to:

• active participation in daily patient care rounds

• developing and implementing care and monitoring plans

• interviewing and counselling patients

• assisting with medication reconciliation

• obtaining patient’s own medications

• proposing interventions and discussing care plans with physicians and team members

• documenting interventions and recommendations in the patient’s chart

• answering drug information questions (DIRs) from patients, physicians, and nurses

• assisting in acquiring special authority

• monitoring and adjusting medications using therapeutic drug monitoring and application of pharmacokinetics

The remainder of the time is comprised of working on assigned projects and presentations for the interdisciplinary team or pharmacy department and participating in therapeutic discussions on relevant medical conditions. The resident is provided with informal feedback on a daily basis and is formally evaluated at the rotation midpoint and at the end of rotation by their preceptor(s).