PGY2 Psychiatry Specialty Pharmacy Residency

On behalf of UC San Diego Health, thank you for your interest in our PGY2 Psychiatric Pharmacy residency program. We offer an enriching residency with diverse core and elective rotations at numerous mental health facilities. Our program is designed to provide you with a variety of learning environments, patient populations, disease states, acuity, teaching opportunities and projects to prepare you to be an excellent clinical psychiatric specialist. Our program goal is to provide you with skills, knowledge and professional development opportunities that maximize your marketability for employment in any mental health setting including academic or community hospital settings and academic/management endeavors. We also prepare our residents to become board-certified in psychiatric pharmacy (BCPP) upon completion of the residency program. We encourage our residents to become active in the profession so that they can be future leaders and advocates for those with mental illness.

Application Requirements

All applicants must be enrolled in the Resident Matching Program. To facilitate this enrollment process and for further information, please visit the following website: natmatch.com/ashprmp. Applications will be accepted when PhORCAS opens and are due by January 2.

Applications should include the following:

• Letter of intent. Please address the following items in your letter of intent. Your letter of intent should be no more than two pages long.
• Our program seeks to train clinical pharmacists who strive to promote cultural competency in their practice by connecting with diverse patient populations, with whom they may not share a similar background. Please discuss a life experience in which you believe you demonstrated cultural competence and what you learned from the experience.
• Please describe what non-clinical skills you hope to gain from the PGY2 residency in psychiatric pharmacy at UC San Diego Health.
• A Current Curriculum Vitae with all completed and anticipated experiential learning experiences, pharmacy work experience and research experience.
• Three electronic references are required. At least 1 of the references should be from preceptors or supervisors who can directly comment on your clinical and practice skills.

Note: Please have recommendation writers complete the electronic reference form within PhORCAS with detailed characteristics and narrative comments. One to two areas of improvement or constructive feedback that the recommender feels the candidate should continue to work on as a PGY2 resident should be identified. No separate letter of recommendation is required.

Program Contact

Kelly Lee, PharmD, MAS, BCPP, FCCP, FASHP
PGY2 Psychiatric Pharmacy Residency Director
(858) 822-3462
kellylee@health.ucsd.edu

Overview of the Psychiatric Pharmacy Residency

Program Overview

Residency Program Purpose

Pharmacy residents completing the UC San Diego Postgraduate Year Two (PGY2) Psychiatric Pharmacy Practice Residency will be described as advanced mental health practitioners who will be able to make complex medication recommendations in a variety of psychiatric practice settings. This program is also designed to facilitate growth in areas of effective communication, critical assessment and management of psychopharmacology drug treatment, and leadership. Graduates of this PGY2 residency will possess intense, focused and marketable job skills that should prepare them for career opportunities in any mental health practice setting and be eligible to sit for the board certification examination in psychiatric pharmacy.