Residency Advisory Committee News
The Residency Advisory Committee (RAC) provides general oversight and guidance on design and operation of the program. For details regarding the terms of reference and current membership of the RAC committee follow this link: vipharmacy.com/program-accountability. The committee meets a minimum of 3 times per year, in the Fall, Winter and Spring. The Spring meeting(s) will be dedicated to residency project proposal vetting. In the section below is a summary of the RAC committee meetings and discussions for the current residency year.
RAC Committee Meetings Summary
RAC Meeting summary March 16th, 2023
The RAC committee met March 16th 2023. The Residency Coordinator (Reg Smith) brought the meeting to order. The minutes of the previous meeting were circulated and approved. New members of the committee were introduced including Dr. Sean Spina who has taken over as Residency Program Director from David Forbes, and Christina Bui who has taken over from George Nickoloff who recently retired. It was announced that Dr. Marina Simeonova will join the committee in the fall as a new Clinical Coordinator (ID & Antimicrobial Stewardship) .
Reg Smith updated the committee on improvements and updates to the residency website. The current residents for 2022-2023 provided an update to the committee on their progress to date in the residency program and provided a report on residency project progress. After the resident update Reg Smith provided a briefing regarding program expansion and reported that the current expanded program is going well. Reg Smith discussed the current process for granting credit for prior learning. The most common credit requested is for the Med Use Systems rotation (MUS - drug distribution and sterile products). Credit is often sought by incoming residents who have worked as a hospital pharmacist in a grade one pharmacist type role. Reg Smith suggested adding a one45 self assessment form for residents seeking credit for the MUS that confirms and documents that the residents prior work and learning experience meets the educational outcomes for the rotation and also leaves a record in one45 for the rotation. A vote was taken and the motion passed to update the process. The next item that was discussed was the vetting process for residency projects. Adjustments are needed to accommodate a greater number of project proposals due to program expansion. It was agreed that the process be streamlined as recommended by Reg Smith. Lastly the upcoming program accreditation cycle was discussed with the committee. Documents for staff to review (“what to expect”) was posted on the residency website in addition to a draft schedule template. Roxanna Frank is currently building the schedule and sending calendar invites to all who are needed to meet with the surveyors.
RAC Meeting summary October 6th 2022
The RAC committee met on October 6th 2022. The first item discussed was membership rotation. New committee members were welcomed. They were Morgan Patrick, new graduate, Celia Culley, new clinical coordinator and Laura Fraser new interdisciplinary member. The terms of reference of the committee were reviewed for the benefit of the new members. All six new Residents for the 2022-2023 year introduced themselves, updated the committee of their progress and briefed committee members on the progress of their residency projects. Reg Smith then provided the committee with a program update. The updated included program expansion, new rotation sites and rotations and also the expanded number of non-direct patient care rotations such as pharmacy informatics, and medication safety. The committee was also briefed on the return to an in-person Certificate night for graduation that took place in Vancouver on September 22nd 2022. Reg Smith also updated the committee on improvements made to the Residency Website. The next part of the meeting was dedicated to QA and feedback received from last years residents on their exit surveys. Lastly, additional program expansion was discussed as senior executives have offered the department additional resources to further expand the residency program due to our very high vacancy rate for clinical pharmacists within the Health Authority.. After a lengthy discussion of program expansion the committee endorsed program expansion to eight residency positions for the 2023-2024 residency year.
RAC meeting summary February 8th 2022
A RAC meeting was held Tuesday February 8th. Membership rotation was discussed. Dr. Kari McKenzie will be replacing Dr. Alison Walzak as the interdisciplinary representative. The terms of reference was circulated and discussed for the benefit of new members. The current residents, Matt Del Nin, Kelly George and Morgan Patrick updated the committee on their progress and residency projects. Next, Reg Smith announced who our new residents will be for the 2022-2023 program. We now have six incoming residents. There was then further discussion of program expansion by both David Forbes and Reg Smith which included the addition of new sites and PODs including at the Nanaimo Hospital. Lastly, residency projects were discussed including the fact that we will require at least 8 or 9 proposals for six residents next year.
RAC meeting summary September 16th 2021
The RAC committee met on September 16th 2021. The first item discussed was membership rotation. New committee members were welcomed. The terms of reference of the committee were reviewed for the benefit of the new members. All new Residents for the 2021-2022 year introduced themselves, updated the committee of their progress and briefed committee members on the progress of their residency projects. Reg Smith then provided the committee with a program update. Reg Smith also updated the committee on improvements made to the Residency Website. The next part of the meeting was dedicated to QA and feedback received from last years residents on their exit surveys. Possible program expansion was discussed and how we could proceed to expand the program. The committee endorsed the idea of expanding our program to six residents next year. Lastly, the process for project vetting was discussed and the fact that we would need more project proposals for program expansion.
rac meeting summary thursday February 4th 2021
The Residency Advisory Committee held its second meeting for the 2020-2021 residency year on February 4th 2021. The meeting began with the resident’s status report where each resident summarized their progress through the residency rotations, their professional development improvement targets and updated the committee on the progress of their residency projects.
The next item for discussion was the clinical oral assessment, which is a requirement of the BC Residency Standards. The committee discussed the timing and process around the oral assessment. After these discussions the committee decided that our program will continue with our current process of holding mock assessments at the discretion of the program coordinator early in the year (usually starting after the completion of the clinical orientation rotation). The final assessment will be held in the final 3 months of the program. There will be an academic half day topic devoted to preparing for the clinical oral assessment.
The next agenda item was the introduction to the committee of our new residents for the 2021-2022 residency year (Matthew Del Nin, Kelly George and Morgan Patrick) which will start on June 7th. Reg Smith presented the committee with the new residents responses to the pre-residency survey which summarized the residents long term and short term career goals, learning styles, plans for post PGY1 residency training and their selection and ranking of available elective rotations.
The RAC committee then discussed the “Mandatory Rotation” status of the Emergency Medicine (EMERG) rotation. The EMERG rotation is the only mandatory rotation that has a single preceptor (Dr. Richard Wanbon), which can put unreasonable pressure on this preceptor and can also cause scheduling difficulties . Reg Smith recommended that we increase the number of elective rotations from 3 to four by changing the EMERG rotation to an elective rotation. After discussion the committee unanimously approved this change in the program curriculum.
Reg Smith then discussed the current progress on the development of residency projects for 2021-2022. Brainstorming sessions were held for some of the sites and a few project ideas were put forward. More project ideas are needed and Reg Smith will continue to work with the staff to develop residency projects.
Marina Simeonova then discussed her idea for a revised Residency Research Project poster template. The main idea of this revised poster template is to simplify the poster to highlight the results and increase the readability. A QR code could be placed on the poster for viewers to get more project details if they are interested in the project. After discussion the RAC approved the use of the new poster template presented at this meeting. During this discussion Reg Smith reminded the committee that Residency Research night (were residents present their project) will be held virtually on June 17th 2021, beyond the last rotation date for the current residents. The current residents will still produce a project poster even though the Residency Research event this year will be virtual.
RAC Meeting summary September 24th 2020
The Residency Advisory Committee held its first meeting for the 2020-2021 residency year on September 24th. The meeting began with an introduction of new committee members: Naa Adjin-Tettey (new graduate), Dr. Rich Wanbon (preceptor), Dr. Mary-Lyn Fyfe (senior administrative delegate) and the new residents Julia Calder, Mark McGinnis and Baldeep Dulku. The residency coordinator then outlined the RAC Terms of reference and the description of the committees function under the 2018 Canadian Pharmacy Residency Board (CPRB) standards. Following this discussion the three current residents delivered a status report where they discussed their progress in the current residency year (completed and upcoming rotations) and discussed their progress on their residency project progress.
The next topic for discussion during the meeting was the impact of the COVID-19 virus and restrictions on the residency program. Currently, many residency activities, such as BC wide case presentations and summer didactics were conducted as virtual events rather than the traditional in person events. In the 2019-2020 residency year Residency Research Night at UBC was cancelled along with the Residency Certificate Night which normally would be held this September.
The next item on the agenda presented was “Program Update” where Reg Smith discussed the implementation of the “Determination of Pass or Fail Status” for both direct patient care and non-direct patient care rotations. Furthermore, the progress of updating of assessment forms were discussed as recommended in the June 2019 accreditation survey our program underwent last year. Residency Coordinator Reg Smith then updated the committee on the improvements that have been made to the Residency Program website and on-line residency manual.
The next item on the agenda was presented by committee member Dr. Marinana Simeonova (2 yr graduate) regarding an improved format for residency project posters. This new poster format will increase readability of posters and will include a QR code with a link to more detailed information regarding the projects. There was unanimous agreement that we adopt this new poster format in our program.
David Forbes then discussed the Management-Leadership project of the resident’s organization of the annual pharmacy conference. It was decided that the residents will continue to organize our conference, but due to COVID virus containment actions the conference will be virtual in format for 2021 rather than the traditional in-person event.
The last item discussed at the meeting was quality assurance feedback received from our 2019-2020 program graduates. Exit interview feedback was reviewed and discussed by the committee.