Perceptions of Medical Residents of Interprofessional Staffing with a Physician and a Clinical Pharmacist in a Primary Care Clinic Setting

University of Nebraska Medical Center

Background: During medical residency, the majority of residents receive interprofessional exposure to pharmacists in an inpatient setting, but fewer get exposure to clinical pharmacists in the outpatient setting. Even with the increase in clinical pharmacist integration into primary care settings in recent years, there is still limited data describing formal engagement and impact of clinical pharmacists in medical residency training. Utilizing a clinical pharmacist within a primary care family practice residency provides the unique opportunity to teach residents about prescribing practices, guideline directed therapy and social determinants of health in relation to medication- and evidence-based care in an interprofessional collaborative environment. It also provides residents experience in working on a collaborative patient care team with other health care professionals that are common following residency training. Objective: The objective of this research is to determine the perceptions of medical residents on interprofessional joint staffing with a physician and clinical pharmacist. Methods: A clinical pharmacist will be assigned to a specific clinic time for four hours per week, where they will work closely with family practice medical residents. Participants will be surveyed over 1 year starting at the beginning of residency (0 months), at 6 months, and again at 12 months regarding their perceptions of staffing with a clinical pharmacist. The surveys will be conducted as a retrospective pretest posttest design in which participants will fill out survey one (T1) and two (T2) from their current knowledge stance. Survey three (T3) will be conducted utilizing the pretest posttest design as well as a retrospective pretest posttest to help account for the often-unknown knowledge gaps present when starting residency. RedCap will be used to collect survey responses and descriptive statistics of the findings will be completed in Stata.