On-site residency offers professional insight

Hi, fellow pharmacy graduates and pharmacy students! My name is Brittany Mills and I am a PharmD (University of Oklahoma, 2010) and an MBA (Oklahoma Christian University, 2010) currently doing a residency at Walgreens on-site clinic at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago.

At my on-site Walgreens, I manage patients with disease states that require complex pharmacotherapy, including hepatitis, HIV/AIDS, cancer and infertility. I also work with patients who are post-organ transplant to provide patient education, discuss possible side effects and answer their questions. In addition, I spend one day each week in the ambulatory care clinics at the University of Illinois at Chicago where I work with interdisciplinary teams in a clinic setting to recommend and monitor therapies for these disease states. The affiliation with the university provides ample opportunities to develop my teaching skills through precepting students, facilitating small group discussions, and giving lectures. The combination of clinic and community settings gives me a better understanding of not just the disease states of my patients and their treatment options, but also their needs when they come to the community pharmacy.

The longer I am at my residency, the more I believe that community pharmacists are poised to advance the profession of pharmacy; we have the knowledge and the tools necessary to become clinical providers for our patients. The combination of opportunities to foster development of practice management skills, to teach students, and to provide direct patient care through innovative clinical programs made a PGY1 community pharmacy residency the best choice for me.

If you’re interested in learning more about Walgreen's post-graduate residencies, check out careers.walgreens.com.