Required Rotations

In order to ensure that our residents are qualified across a wide range of clinical practice settings Southwest General’s residency program requires that all residents complete the following rotational experiences.

Internal Medicine I

This rotation provides the resident hands-on experience across many common disease states such as diabetes, hypertension, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and infectious disease. Residents are involved in the day to day care of their patients, rounding with internal medicine physicians, and patient interaction and education. This rotation forms the foundation for drug and disease knowledge that other rotations will build on.

Transitions of Care

Nowhere else is a pharmacist more valuable than in the Transitions of Care process. Southwest has multiple pharmacists devoted specifically towards this important specialty practice. The residents will work collaboratively with patients, families, social workers, physicians, and extended care facilities to ensure optimal care for patients across the whole medical care continuum.

Infectious Disease

With the adaptation of the Joint Commission Antimicrobial Stewardship Standard, a pharmacist’s skills in infectious disease have never been more important. In this rotation, our residents will work directly with Southwest’s antimicrobial stewardship pharmacists, physicians, and other clinical providers to monitor and improve antibiotic utilization across our hospital. They will learn through reviewing culture reports, making therapy recommendations, as well as gain valuable experience in pharmacokinetics and patient-specific dosing recommendations.

Critical Care

This rotation requires the resident to synthesize and apply drug therapy knowledge to medically complicated patient cases, making clinical recommendations based on patient specific changes in pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics. The resident will be integrated into the daily function of the medical team, including intensivists, nursing, and case management as well as participating fully in code blue and stroke alert responses.

Emergency Medicine

The Emergency department is a unique practice site due to the wide variety of clinical experiences and the necessity of quick, independent decision making. The residents in the emergency department participate in code response, stroke alerts, rapid sequence intubation, and many other unique and time sensitive scenarios and are challenged to take on more responsibility as an independent practitioner. Despite these challenges, many previous residents have found this rotation to be instrumental to their development as a pharmacist.

Ambulatory Care (Longitudinal)

Direct patient care is an important part of any residency program, and our residents experience that through the longitudinal ambulatory care rotation. In addition to routine staffing in our Coumadin clinic, our residents also work with our chronic care management and population health pharmacists to improve holistic patient care across a wide variety of practice settings and disease states.