New residency program will groom the next generation of pharmacist healthcare leaders

WVU Medicine recently launched its PGY-1/PGY-2 Health System Pharmacy Administration and Leadership Residency to address growing leadership gaps and groom the next generation of pharmacy healthcare administrators. The goal of the two-year program, one of 66 nationwide, is to provide residents with the skills to assume high-level leadership and managerial responsibilities.

Leadership gaps are among the top challenges facing the healthcare industry, and the pharmacy department at WVU Medicine-WVU Hospitals is not immune to this trend, Todd Karpinski, PharmD, residency director and chief pharmacy officer for WVU Medicine, said.

“I think most people who choose pharmacy as a career are interested in patient care or other pharmacy-related activities, Karpinski said. “When you think about a pool of pharmacy graduates, probably two-thirds of them will go into retail pharmacy, and one-third of them will go into health system pharmacy. Only a small chunk of the latter group will actually want to do leadership in health systems, so I think it’s important that we train them well.”

Other leaders echo Karpinski’s observations.

“There’s no program like this in West Virginia, and we felt it was important to look within the state to develop our future leaders,” Daniel O’Neil, PharmD, director of pharmacy for WVU Hospitals, said. “We posted a leadership position that was vacant for two years. We had some qualified applicants, and we had some offers out there, but it wasn’t as competitive as we would have liked. For us, it illustrated the need to develop future leaders who are either from here or who can see themselves calling West Virginia home.”

Said William Petros, PharmD, dean of the WVU School of Pharmacy, “Over the WVU School of Pharmacy’s 106-year history we have produced a number alumni who became strong national leaders, however, it took them many years to gain the skills to accomplish such. This new residency will provide the trainees with an accelerated degree of leadership experience in one of the fastest growing and highly rated rural health systems in the U.S.”

Bradley Gutta and Calvin Parmiter, both WVU PharmD 2020 graduates, are the program’s first residents. During their initial year, they will focus on developing their clinical skills. In the second year, they will spend time with pharmacy and hospital leaders, work on high-level projects, and manage technicians. They will also have rotational opportunities in operations, finance, specialty pharmacy, supply chain, retail pharmacy, and clinical pharmacy.

“We want to arm our residents with tools they can apply to a wide variety of positions,” Karpinski said. “We want to give them a broad experience, so no matter what pharmacy area they choose to practice in, they’ll be the number one person for that job.”

Gutta, a native of Elkins, W.Va., and Parmiter, a native of Caldwell, Ohio, are familiar with WVU Hospitals, having both completed their Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experience rotations there during their fourth year at the WVU School of Pharmacy.

“I’m excited about being one of the first two residents in this new program,” Gutta said. “My co-resident and I have met a lot of the preceptors and management already. I feel this will give us a head start and help us build the program from the ground up with our residency program director. It’s true what they say: Mountaineers do go first.”

Karpinski agrees. “We don’t want a plug-and-play canvas model here,” he said. “It’s going to be what works for us. We will allow our residents, especially these first two, to help shape the program. We want to learn from them -- what works, what we can do better -- so that we continually evolve this program to be the best that it can be.”

Karpinski says there are discussions to expand the program to include an MHA (Master of Health Administration) cohort through the WVU School of Public Health.