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Pharmacy Residency Match Days were held Wednesday, March 15, and Friday, April 14, with 96% (24 of 25) of ��������’s School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences (SOPPS) students matched — the highest Phase I match rate in the nation.

“This is wonderful news,” said Wesley Kufel, clinical associate professor of pharmacy practice, who, along with many other SOPPS faculty and preceptors, helps students prepare to apply for and interview with programs throughout the application process.

“One of the main reasons our students did so well in the PGY-1 residency match is due to their capstone research projects that are mandatory in our curriculum,” said Dean Kanneboyina Nagaraju. “They were able to articulate their research and interview better than other students.”

The Pharmacy Residency Match Program is administered by the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP).

The application process is rigorous, but straightforward: Residency programs register online to participate and fourth-year students apply to the programs they are interested in.

Katherine “Katie” Bradley and Deanna Forella are two of the 24 School of Pharmacy students who matched with residencies on Match Day 23 and begin their residencies in early July; Bradley begins her PGY-1 residency at SUNY Upstate University Hospital in Syracuse, and Forella begins her PGY-1 residency at Yale New Haven Hospital in Connecticut. They both attest to the demands of applying for a residency.

Bradley started six months before applications were due, making a list of what she wanted in location, type of rotations, and research and teaching opportunities. Forella added that the process actually started much earlier for them as they worked to build their curricula vitae (CV) to showcase their involvement with SOPPS and volunteer activities, which programs look for in applicants.

“Our pharmacy school didactic curriculum prepares students to be successful applicants to PGY1 residencies in several ways,” said Sarah Spinler, professor and co-chair of the Department of Pharmacy Practice. “One of the key pieces of a residency application is a CV of the applicants’ professional education, work, presentations and professional association involvement. They start a CV in their P1 year and add to them every year, with faculty advisors providing suggestions on items to include to showcase their work.”

Students also collect artifacts of their work such as presentations in their ePortfolios throughout their four years that they can share with prospective residency program directors, she added. Students practice their interviewing skills in the fall semester of their fourth year, doing “mock” interviews with faculty in PHRM 587.

“Students interested in pursuing a residency can also take an elective course in the fall of their third year titled Jump Start into Residency, which is designed to reinforce and build upon skills necessary for them to excel as PGY1 residents,” Spinler said. “The course includes giving a journal club presentation, group and individual interview practice as well as writing a drug monograph and presenting it in a “mock” Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee presentation.”

“It shows how much effort the students, faculty and staff have put into making this residency process what it is,”Kufel added. “We also have alumni share their experiences, which is very valuable insight for our students.

“We are thrilled to see our Phase I match rate be the highest in the nation among approximately 140 Schools or Colleges of Pharmacy,” Kufel said. “Our students matched in seven different states as well. This is a great next step for our graduates to further their education and training and help expand our school’s network and reputation.”

After waiting for a congratulatory email notification on Match Day, both Bradley and Forella were quickly texting and calling their classmates with the good news.

Bradley already knows a number of the pharmacists at SUNY Upstate . “I did about half of my rotations at SUNY Upstate, so I know a lot of the pharmacists there and I’m excited about working with them,” she said. “The residency is a general one with a strong focus on internal medicine, so I will rotate through a different specialty each month, and every other month I’ll be on an internal medicine rotation.”

She will earn a research credential and a teaching certificate as well, and at this point believes she will apply for a PGY-2 residency in ambulatory care. “But I’ll see if my interests change this year,” she said. “I have an interest in psych and that’s what I’m doing my elective in. They don’t actually have a psych elective, but they’re working on it so I can have one.

“Being at SUNY Upstate already is a nice transition,” Bradley added. “I’m a bit nervous for something new and the start of a job, but it will be a really good year and I will learn a lot.”

Forella, who wanted to work in a large hospital system with lots of electives and the opportunity for a PGY-2 residency, will also gain research and teaching experience, learn about Code Blue response and be assigned to an on-call program at some point. “I’ve heard it’s one of the best ways to learn, having to deal with things overnight that you might not see otherwise,” she said.

Forella, who also plans on applying for a PGY-2 residency, has two passions: oncology and critical care. “I’m hoping this residency will help me figure out what is best for my career,” she said. “For me, a PGY-2 residency allows me to gain more experience in a specialization. And I could have the opportunity to teach PGY-1s, and teaching is something I’m interested in as well. All of it is to make me a better pharmacist.”

Faculty and preceptors play an important role

Pharmacy residencies are not required, as they are for physicians, but they provide advanced clinical training above what students complete during their Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experiences (APPEs). In addition, some students pursue fellowships in industry, rather than clinical residencies. This year, four SOPPS students earned fellowships through a process as rigorous as the residency application process.

Once applications are received, residency programs review them and invite the students they are interested in for interviews. After that, both the students and the programs rank each other and a third-party service — the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists National Matching Service — does the actual matching using the rankings.

“We prepare them for how to prepare a residency application including writing a letter of intent, requesting letters of recommendation and updating their CV,” Kufel said. “We do mock interviews with the Fleishman Center as well as a SOPPS faculty member to further enhance their interview skills. Most of the faculty interviewers are residency trained and it gives the students more experience with that. We also talk about the application timeline, process and steps to apply.”

Kufel credits all of the SOPPS faculty for their work preparing the applicants. “It’s our faculty who teach and model both the clinical and professionalism skills that are necessary to achieve a residency,” he said. “Many of our faculty once completed residencies themselves and understand how rigorous and important the process is.”

The role preceptors play during student APPEs is also crucial to the process — and success — of the students, said Nicholas Schwier, assistant dean for experiential education and clinical associate professor. “Throughout their APPEs, our students are learning from practicing pharmacists who model expertise, patient care skills, clinical reasoning and professionalism, which set them up to be competitive candidates for residencies,” Schwier said.

“Preceptors also offer our students opportunities at their practice sites, which expose the students to patient-care related activities, ultimately helping them on their journey to selecting the residency program with the best ‘fit’ for them,” Schwier added. “Our preceptors also write letters of recommendations for our students, which are a critical part of the residency application process.”

Students applying for residencies also have the opportunity to meet with representatives from programs at the American Society of Health System Pharmacists (ASHP) Midyear Clinical Meeting, which was held in Las Vegas, Nev., in December. “They can learn more about the programs, meet current residents and program directors, and learn about each other,” Kufel said.

Applications are typically due around the first of the year. The programs then review the application materials and conduct interviews with students they are interested in between mid-January and early March.

Twenty-five �������� students applied this year, and 24 were matched in the first phase announced March 16; four alumni matched for PGY2 residency programs.

After Phase I, unmatched students still interested were able to apply to the programs that remained available in Phase II.

“When looking at available programs, students can sort by state and learn more about the size of the hospital and other characteristics,” Kufel said. “The second phase still uses the third-party matching process, so students applied to where they were interested and went through another interview and ranking process.”

Students who matched for PGY-1 residencies:

• Katherine Bradley: SUNY Upstate University Hospital, Syracuse, N.Y.
• Celina Chow: SUNY Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn, N.Y.
• Jeffrey Cole: Cleveland Clinic Akron General, Akron, Ohio
• Joseph D’Antonio: Peconic Bay Medical Center, Riverhead, N.Y.
• Alexis DelBalso:SUNY Upstate University Hospital, Syracuse, N.Y.
• Yingsi Fang: UPMC Presbyterian Shadyside, Pittsburgh, Pa.
• Shannon Fitzpatrick: Lehigh Valley Health Network, Allentown, Pa.
• Deanna Forella: Yale New Haven Hospital, New Haven, Conn.
• Heather Garr: Mount Saint Mary’s Hospital, Lewiston, N.Y.
• Anthony Germano: Montefiore Nyack Hospital, Nyack, N.Y.
• Tyler Hecox: Guthrie Robert Packer Hospital, Sayre, Pa.
• Keith Hughes Jr.: Guthrie Robert Packer Hospital, Sayre, Pa.
• Leah Kowalsky: Stony Brook University Hospital, Stony Brook, N.Y.
• Patricia Lorquet: Saint Vincent Hospital, Erie, Pa.
• David Mastro: Guthrie Robert Packer Hospital, Sayre, Pa.
• Michael O’Shea: WMCHealth/Westchester Medical Center, Valhalla, N.Y.
• Dominick Patafio Jr.: Geisinger Medical Center, Danville, Pa.
• Nikil Patel: VA Ann Arbor HCS-LTC Kettles, Ann Arbor, Mich.
• Haseeb Rahman: SUNY Upstate University Hospital, Syracuse, N.Y.
• Cassondra Raymond: UHS Hospitals, Johnson City, N.Y.
• Breanna Sellaouti: UHS Hospitals, Johnson City, N.Y.
• Jenna Stasko: SUNY Upstate University Hospital, Syracuse, N.Y.
• Hanna Surdi: UHS Hospitals, Johnson City, N.Y.
• Taylor Warner: Geisinger Clinic Northeast, Scranton, Pa.

Class of 2022 alumni who matched for PGY2 residencies:

• Brian Kam: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, N.Y.
• Diana Kwiatkowski: NYU Langone Hospital - Long Island, Mineola, N.Y.
• Hoda Mahvish: New York-Presbyterian Hospital, Brooklyn, N.Y.
• Corrine Stahura: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, N.Y.
• Timothy Stock: Wyckoff Heights Medical Center, Brooklin, N.Y.

Students who garnered fellowships:

• Victor Gazdoiu, Companion Diagnostics for Daiichi Danko, Basking Ridge, N.J.
• Eric Kelly,Global Regulatory Affairs for Sanofi, Cambridge, Mass.
• Stephanie Kovnat, Global Vaccines Marketing for Merck, North Wales, Pa.
• Oluwateniayo Sopitan, Pharmaceutical Marketing for RevHeath, Morristown, N.J.