St. Joseph's Health Care London

*Accreditation-Pending*

Note - Once accreditation is gained by a program, it becomes retroactive to the date that the application seeking accreditation was filed with CPRB. Therefore, programs with Accredited or Accreditation-Pending status may confer a credential such as “Accredited Canadian Pharmacy Resident/ACPR” upon their graduates.

Address:
268 Grosvenor St,
London, ON
N6A 4V2

Director:
Andrey Andriets, B.Sc.Phm., R.Ph, MBA
Director, Pharmacy Services,
Email: andrey.andriets@sjhc.london.on.ca
Phone: 519-646-6100 ext. 65526

Coordinator:
Denise Kreutzwiser, BScH, BScPhm, PharmD, ACPR, AAHIVP
Pain Management Program Pharmacist 
Email: denise.kreutzwiser@sjhc.london.on.ca 
Phone: 519-646-6100 ext. 61741

For more information, please visit the program website at: https://www.sjhc.london.on.ca/

Program

Type: Ambulatory and Post-Acute Care

Focus: Chronic disease management with a focus in pain management, rehabilitation, and mental health care

Established In: 2023 

Number of Positions: 1

Application Deadline: As per PRAMS

Starting Date: September 2025 (ideally, the Tuesday after Labour Day weekend, but negotiable)

PRAMS (Additional PRAMS requirements to complete the Pharmacy Residency Application and Matching Service (PRAMS) application should be sent through PRAMS when applying by the application deadline):

  • Please provide a program specific cover letter that includes a 300-word explanation of why you would like to pursue a pharmacy residency at St. Joseph's Health Care London.

Estimated Stipend: $43,000 + 4% in lieu of paid vacation time

Benefits: optional participation in HOOPP (Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan); Employee Assistance Program (EAP)

Vacation/Holiday Leave: 10 days 

Education/Conference Leave:  5 days in total: 2 days for the Pharmacy Residency Forum of Ontario's annual Resident Clinical Conference and 3 days for CSHP's Professional Practice Conference.

Program Highlights:

St. Joseph's Health Care London is one of the most complex health care organizations in Ontario; care is provided through leading teaching hospitals and a unique mix of clinical settings across the community. The research arm, the Lawson Health Research Institute, is focused on the development of new knowledge that is continually being applied directly to patient care.

St. Joseph's Health Care London Pharmacy Services offers a 52-week residency program that aims to prepare graduates with the knowledge and skills necessary to establish a future collaborative interdisciplinary practice in ambulatory care. The emphasis is on developing the skills needed to provide evidence-informed pharmaceutical care to patients in an ambulatory care environment and the confidence to pursue innovative and sustainable pharmacy initiatives rooted in a full-scope practice.

The goal of the program is to give the resident a hands-on approach to learning in an environment where everyone's contribution is recognized and appreciated and in which we all learn from one another. St. Joseph's Health Care London is known for having a "secret sauce" and the recipe is time-tested and steeped in history, tradition and subtleties difficult to define. Keeping the core ingredients, together we add to it, strengthen it, and grow as an enviable place to work, to receive care, provide uncompromising excellence in quality and safety, build purposeful partnerships, as well as deepen our competency in equity, diversity, inclusion and belonging. This "secret sauce" provides the resident with a learning experience that cultivates some of the oft overlooked elements of a pharmacy residency, the compassionate and empathetic lens in which meeting patients where they are at is central to developing practical and sustainable treatment plans and looking at the problems from a systems approach and how the patient travels throughout an integrated health system. As transitions in care represent an important part of a patient’s health journey, we’ve incorporated some inpatient services into this otherwise ambulatory focused residency program to highlight the continuity of care spectrum and demonstrate how pharmacists play an instrumental role in helping patients with chronic conditions navigate care transitions.

Refinement of problem-solving and critical thinking skills is at the forefront of this residency program. The resident will gain experience providing evidence based direct patient care as a member of interprofessional teams under the guidance of model practitioners in a variety of care settings. The resident will participate in patient and staff education, present lectures, case presentations, and journal clubs. The resident will be involved in various teaching activities, including mentoring pharmacy students. The learning environment at St. Joseph's Health Care London also provides the opportunity for interaction with undergraduate and post-graduate students and trainees in a variety of health disciplines. The resident will develop project management, research and writing skills and will be expected to complete a project manuscript suitable for publication at the completion of their training.

A unique feature of the St. Joseph's residency is our resident mentorship program; this initiative pairs the resident with two pharmacist mentors for additional support and wellness purposes.

Core Rotations: 

  • Orientation (2 weeks)
  • Evidence-Based Medicine (1 week)
  • Hospital Outpatient Pharmacy (1 week): The resident will spend a week at Prescription Shop 1 (St. Joseph's Hospital site) to learn about the pharmacist role in the delivery of medication services to patients attending the various ambulatory clinics within our organization.  While Prescription Shop 1 delivers many services, unique features are that it provides a number of ophthalmic medication services for patients of the St. Joseph's Hospital Ivy Eye Institute (the main referral centre for eye disease in western Ontario) and also services the long-term care arm of our organization (Mount Hope). Exposure to the long-term care aspect of pharmacy services will help the resident develop a better understanding of how aging and loss of independence impacts patients and how the pharmacist contributes to the overall management of patient care in this setting. The resident will also develop a better understanding of the complexity of delivering care during transitions of care to and from the long-term care setting.
  • Medication Use Systems Rotation (2 weeks): The resident will receive basic training in a computerized provider order entry system, unit dose and IV additive operations, manufacturing, packaging, narcotic distribution and closed looped medication administration so they are better able to appreciate the complexities of the medication distribution system and the role the inpatient hospital pharmacy plays in the provision of medications for inpatients and select ambulatory procedures/clinics (e.g., outpatient day surgeries, IV infusion clinics, urgent care, allergy testing clinic, etc.).
  • Pharmacy Leadership (2 weeks, longitudinal): During this rotation, the resident will shadow the Director of Pharmacy. While the content of the rotation will vary based on the Director's schedule and issues at hand at the time, this rotation is intended to serve as a window into the oft behind-the-scenes elements of the pharmacy profession. The resident will be invited to attend a Pharmacy and Therapeutics meeting as well as a Quality Council meeting and a Quality Improvement or Accreditation meeting. Through assigned readings, focused discussion, and observational and participative experiences, the resident will gain knowledge and skills related to the key principles utilized in both pharmacy and overall health systems leadership. This rotation will also include the opportunity to interact with individuals who hold various leadership posts within the organization to learn about the implementation of quality improvement and change management strategies. 
  • Teaching (longitudinal, embedded throughout other rotations))
  • Project (8 weeks, longitudinal)

Core Clinical Rotations (27 weeks in total):

  1. Pain Management Program at St. Joseph's Hospital (9 weeks):
    • This rotation serves as the foundational rotation for clinical practice.  The overall aim is to strengthen the resident's therapeutic thought process and set them up for success in subsequent rotations. This rotation will highlight the role of a pharmacist in a large collaborative interdisciplinary team that provides both individual and group-based programming using in-person and virtual delivery methods. One of the unique features of this rotation is that the resident will have the opportunity to learn about the roles of other healthcare providers by participating in the 10-week pain management group program that is co-facilitated by the psychology, social work, and occupational therapy team members and for which the 4th week of this program is delivered by the pharmacy team. In addition, the resident will develop a greater appreciation of how mental health struggles, the social determinants of health, and behavioural change are factors impacting chronic disease management and medication adherence and/or success.  If scheduling permits, the resident will also have the opportunity to deliver the medication component of our 10-week depression treatment group program, as well as any theme based group workshops happening throughout their rotation. Trainees at various levels in their training and from a wide array of disciplines rotate through the pain clinic, which provides an opportunity for the resident to also learn from trainees in other disciplines and to explain what a pharmacist can contribute to the advancement of patient care and team functioning. https://www.sjhc.london.on.ca/areas-of-care/pain-management-program/services 
  2. Rheumatology Centre at St. Joseph's Hospital (4 weeks):
    • This rotation will provide the resident with an opportunity to educate patients about biologic medications and understand the complexities around obtaining funding for high-cost medications.  
  3. Mental Health Rotation (5 weeks):
    • This rotation will provide the resident with the opportunity to build on the mental health knowledge and clinical skills developed during their time at the Pain Management Program.  During this rotation, the resident will be exposed to both inpatient and outpatient mental health pharmacy services via interaction with our inpatient mental health care pharmacists and during time spent at Prescription Shop 2 (the outpatient community pharmacy located at the Finch Family Mental Health Care Building site). During this rotation, the resident will learn about the importance of supporting patients living with mental health challenges as they transition from care in the inpatient setting to acquiring the skills needed for independent living in the community. The resident will learn about the different tools and resources available for assisting patients during these transitions. The resident will come to understand the role of Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) teams in providing specialized intensive community-based services and learn about the various mental health resources used to support patients requiring differing levels or aspects of mental health care.
  4. Inpatient Rehabilitation Rotation at Parkwood Institute Main Building (4 weeks):
    • The resident will have choice in the specific rehabilitation sub-population this rotation will focus on:
      • Stroke rehabilitation
      • Spinal cord injury and acquired brain injury rehabilitation
      • Musculoskeletal and amputee rehabilitation
      • Geriatric rehabilitation
        (If the resident is particularly interested in rehabilitation services, they can select one rehabilitation service for the core rotation and another for an elective rotation)
  5. Palliative Care at Parkwood Institute Main Building (4 weeks):
    • The resident will learn about the final spectrum of a patient's life journey during this rotation and recognize how the goals of therapy change from functional improvement to a comfort and symptom management focus. 

Elective Rotations:

Total of 7-8 weeks for elective rotations (could be 2 blocks each 4 weeks in duration or a combination of one 4 week + one 2 week + one 1 week block depending on the electives selected):

The resident can choose from a diverse range of elective rotation options based on the clinical and/or research program offerings at St. Joseph's Health Care London or other local healthcare institutions (provided an agreement is in place or can be put in place with the institution desired).

  • A particularly unique elective rotation offered during this residency program is forensic mental health at Southwest Centre at St. Thomas.  Patients within Southwest Centre's Forensic Psychiatry Program are individuals who have been declared either unfit to stand trial, have been found not criminally responsible on account of a mental illness or are referred for assessment by the criminal justice system.  While the core mental health rotation introduces the pharmacy resident to the types of knowledge required to develop expertise in the mental health field as well as focuses on ways to promote development of the skills and attitudes needed to deliver quality care to mental health patients, the elective forensic mental health rotation is intended to provide additional opportunity for the resident to refine their acquired mental health care knowledge, skills, and attitudes.  The intention is the pharmacy resident will be exposed to learning activities and patient cases during the forensic mental health rotation that provide increasing complexity (depth) and diversity (breath) or necessitate less guidance and more independence than the resident required during the core mental health rotation.
  • Infectious diseases with a focus on HIV, viral hepatitis, and tuberculosis
  • Antimicrobial stewardship
  • Perioperative care

Minimum Required Credentials: Entry-level PharmD or Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy Degree (or equivalent) from an accredited school of pharmacy.

Other Eligibility Requirements: Licensed or eligible for immediate licensure as an intern or pharmacist with the Ontario College of Pharmacists.  Ability to meet corporate Occupational Health requirements.

 

Organization

Type: Multi-site academic tertiary health care centre delivering acute care, ambulatory care, specialized geriatric care, long-term care, mental healthcare, rehabilitation care and research.

Number of Beds: 

  • 1019 inpatient beds (across 5 sites)
  • 794,091 outpatient/outreach visits annually
  • 51,127 urgent care centre visits annually
  • 22,916 day and short-stay surgeries annually

Site(s):

  • St. Joseph's Hospital (268 Grosvenor Street London, Ontario, N6A 4V2)
  • Parkwood Institute Main Building and Finch Family Mental Health Care Building (550 Wellington Road South, London, Ontario, N6C 0A7)
  • Southwest Centre for Forensic Mental Health Care (401 Sunset Drive, St. Thomas, Ontario, N5R 3C6)
  • Mount Hope Centre for Long Term Care (21 Grosvenor Street, London, Ontario, N6A 1Y6)
  • St. Joseph's Family Medical and Dental Centre  (346 Platts Lane, London, Ontario  N6G 1J1)

Affiliation: Western University & Fanshawe College

 

Graduates

(new program starting September 2023)