Medication-Use Safety and Policy

The St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital Medication-Use Safety and Policy Residency is a 12-month ASHP-accredited PGY2 residency program that provides advanced training in medication safety and medication-use policy. The complex and high-risk nature of treatment provided at St. Jude provides a unique learning environment for patient safety and medication policy that can be applied later to any health care setting.

The resident will gain experience in medication error and adverse drug event reporting processes, lead medication safety assessment and improvement efforts to prevent future events and work to maximize the patient safety benefits of the electronic health record. Emphasis will be placed on leading and coordinating Cause Analyses, managing a medication use safety team/committee, and participating in methods to improve event detection and event reporting. The resident will also participate in both administrative and patient care aspects of the St. Jude medication-use process. Other activities include coordination of a pharmacy and therapeutics committee, guideline and policy development, regulatory readiness, completion of medication-use evaluations and audits, formulary management and adverse drug reaction analysis.

Along with medication-safety and policy experiences, the resident will acquire experience in teaching through lectures and precepting pharmacy students. The resident will be expected to complete a major project focused on medication safety or policy. Experiences during the residency will enable the resident to seek a career focused on medication safety or medication-use policy.