Ambulatory Care Residency Program > Emphasis Areas and Site Descriptions > St. Mary's/Duluth Clinic Health System
St. Mary's/Duluth Clinic Health System
Vital Site StatsHome Site: St. Mary's/ Duluth Clinic (SMDC) SITE PROFILE |  |
Organization:
St. Mary's/Duluth Clinic (SMDC) is a regional healthcare system that provides health care services for over 500,000 people in the Duluth area, Northern Minnesota, Northern Wisconsin and Upper Michigan with four hospitals and 17 clinics.
Pharmacy Services:
SMDC pharmacy services include: 10 ambulatory clinic pharmacies, decentralized inpatient pharmacy services, infusion pharmacy, investigational pharmacy, and medication therapy management services. There are currently 58 pharmacists throughout the SMDC system. Medication Therapy Management (MTM) services first were offered at the Duluth Clinic internal medicine department in August of 2004. These services were expanded to include the Duluth Clinic-Hermantown in May 2005. Further expansion of MTM services to other clinic pharmacies is planned.
Resident's Educational Experience:
The resident will be developing clinical skills through extensive direct patient care experiences while receiving feedback on performance. The specific program for each resident may vary in structure based upon the resident's entry-level knowledge base, skill and interest. The resident will receive training and develop competence in managing and improving the medication-use process, providing evidence-based, patient-centered medication therapy management with interdisciplinary teams, exercise leadership and practice-management skills, demonstrate project-management skills, and provide medication and practice-related education/training.
The primary site for the resident will be within the Duluth Clinic internal medicine department. The resident will provide MTM to patients that are referred by providers and pharmacists. There will be many opportunities to interact with providers and impact drug therapy decisions while gaining proficiency in all aspects of MTM. The resident will also have the opportunity to help develop these services at other Duluth Clinic pharmacies.
In addition to the longitudinal patient care opportunities in primary care settings, the resident will be expected to participate in several unique educational opportunities, or rotations. The following three rotations will be required, and other elective rotations may be designed to suit the resident’s needs and career goals:
Hospice Care: The resident will attend hospice care conference meetings a minimum of once weekly for the first 6 months of their residency. After this experience, they may continue this experience if they choose. An optional concentrated rotation in hospice is available, whereby the resident would serve as the primary clinical pharmacist to the hospice program for a predetermined time (likely 4 weeks).
General Inpatient Care: The resident will complete a 4 week rotation in general internal medicine at St. Mary’s Medical Center. This experience will lead to an increased understanding of the continuum of care across inpatient and outpatient settings.
Teaching: The resident will teach at the University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy, Duluth in the pharmaceutical care learning center one day per week. The resident will also provide experiential teaching in their clinical practice environment and serve as a mentor to one pharmacy student per semester.
Other activities will include:
- Participating in weekly journal club
- Attending Pharmacy and Therapeutics committee meetings monthly
- Providing drug information and education to physicians and mid-level providers
- Working two days per month at one of the ambulatory care pharmacies.
- Completing a residency project
Site Coordinator:
Michael Swanoski, Pharm.D., FASCP will be the primary preceptor for the Ambulatory Care resident. He will be responsible for overseeing all of the resident’s practice activities, and ensuring proper and adequate evaluation of the program. He has been with the SMDC health system for 21 years and is currently a Clinical Pharmacy Specialist. His primary practice site is the internal medicine department at the Duluth Clinic where he provides medication therapy management services. He also serves as the Clinical Pharmacist for the hospice program and is an Assistant Professor at the University Of Minnesota College Of Pharmacy, Duluth where his primary focus is geriatrics. Dr. Swanoski serves as a preceptor for Pharm.D. students during their Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experience and is a mentor to first year Pharm.D. students. He received his B.S. Pharm degree from North Dakota State University and his Pharm.D. degree from the University of Minnesota. He has been a long-term care consultant pharmacist for 25 years and is a Fellow of the American Society of Consultant Pharmacists. His interests include improving geriatric drug therapy, improving clinical outcomes for patients with chronic disease, developing and maintaining a viable medication therapy management pharmacy practice, and expanding patient care services in community pharmacies.
Additional Preceptors:
Dianne Witten, R.Ph., MS will serve as preceptor and provide oversight for the resident during the time that the resident spends in the Duluth Clinic pharmacies. As the manager of the outpatient pharmacies, she will coordinate the resident’s activities in those sites, and ensure that the resident successfully completes learning objectives within these pharmacies. Ms Witten received her B.S. Pharm degree from Ferris State University and her M.S. in Health Services Administration from the University of St. Francis. She has been the manager of ambulatory pharmacies at SMDC since 2005. Her responsibilities include: overseeing the operations of the ambulatory pharmacies, financial management, reporting and budgeting. She serves on the P & T Committee, Medication Safety Systems Committee, Chronic Disease Management Committee, and the Duluth Clinic Operations Committee. She is as a preceptor for Pharm.D. students during their Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experience and is a mentor to first year Pharm.D. students.