Training and recruiting future pharmacists through a hospital-based student internship program

Abstract

A hospital-based pharmacy internship program is described. The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) is a 19-hospital partnership affiliated with the University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences, serving over 4 million patients per year through its community and teaching hospitals, community care programs, and managed care insurance product. UPMC created a structured pharmacy internship program that provides students with the skills to prepare them for future employment in a hospital or institutional pharmacy setting and creates a hiring and benefits infrastructure focused on student retention after graduation. During the first year of the internship, the training for the student pharmacist focuses on hands-on learning in hospital pharmacy operations. Subsequent years provide the opportunity to learn from pharmacists in a variety of practice sites, training side by side and working on a project with a pharmacist in a specialty area of the student's choice. A pathway of sequential job classifications with increasing salary and the advantage of accruing years of service with UPMC was established through administrative approval. Additional financial incentives offer encouragement for students to accept pharmacist positions at UPMC after graduation. Since the internship's inception in 2004, eight interns have completed the program. Of these, four are employed by UPMC as hospital pharmacists, and another is completing a postgraduate year 1 residency at UPMC. A four-year, structured pharmacy internship program at UPMC provided students with early experience in hospital pharmacy practice and resulted in successful training and retention of the interns as pharmacists at UPMC.