Experiences of the first PGY2 Emergency Medicine Resident at Memorial Medical Center (MMC)

By Courtney Makens, Pharm.D.

The MMC emergency department is a fast-paced environment that displays a multitude of disease states, and a level IV trauma center. The ED pharmacist is an integral part of the team dynamic in the emergency department. The pharmacist will answer drug information questions, which include dosing, IV compatibility, and antibiotic selection. In addition, the pharmacist will assist in medications for procedural sedations, rapid responses, code blues, and code hearts. What makes MMC's Emergency Medicine PGY2 stand out from other residency programs is that pharmacists can choose to be more hands-on and are able to assist the team by setting up waveform capnography, priming IV medication drips, setting up IV drip smart pumps, and time keeping on code blues. MMC residents will not only gain comfort in responding to codes but learn to find comfort in being an integral member of the team during these codes.

As an emergency medicine pharmacy resident at MMC, I interacted with and worked alongside a variety of different healthcare professionals, including ER doctors and nurses, nephrologists, cardiologists, oncologists, infectious disease specialists, and pediatric specialists. The infectious disease and nephrology rotations are a hybrid of outpatient clinic and inpatient work, which give residents the ability to see chronic vs. acute patient care problems in each specialty and how we can make an impact in both. For example, you may see more community acquire pneumonia, skin and soft tissue infections, and intraabdominal infections in the inpatient side of infectious disease vs. seeing more HIV, Hepatitis C, and chronic wound care on the outpatient side of infectious disease.

We also have the opportunity to work alongside the toxicologists in Albuquerque, New Mexico at the Poison Control Center by rounding on patients in the mornings and having in depth discussions in the afternoons as a didactic-type session. This solidifies resident’s knowledge in clinical toxicology and gives the resident a chance to pick up skills from specialists in the field of toxicology.

MMC Emergency Medicine residents are prepared to work as clinical ED pharmacists in small to medium-sized community teaching hospitals after the end of the program.