New Research Project Aims to Assess PGY1 Residency Trends

National data, conversations with colleagues nationwide, and their own observations led University of Georgia (UGA) College of Pharmacy researchers Chelsea Keedy and Beth Phillips to two questions.

What explains increases in postgraduate year one (PGY1) residents who fail to complete their residencies or continue pursuing postgraduate training — and how can programs help reverse those trends?

Finding answers to these questions is a priority for the pharmacy profession as it seeks to address current workplace shortages and increase the number of residency-trained pharmacists, who bring special expertise to healthcare teams.

“We believe the results of this survey will better inform residency programs about motivators and barriers to choosing and completing residency programs,” said Keedy, a clinical assistant professor. “With this information, we hope residency program directors, preceptors, and professional organizations can better support the future of the profession.”

As part of their research, Keedy and Phillips recently launched an initial survey of PGY1 residency program directors and current PGY1 and postgraduate year 2 (PGY2) residents. The questions cover such factors as student loan debt, family commitments, and concerns over salary differences between residency jobs and full-time pharmacist jobs.

The UGA researchers will follow up with a second survey for the PGY1 group toward the end of their residencies to learn how their decisions for additional postgraduate training evolved during that first year.

The project received funding from the ASHP Foundation, with support from the Daniel M. Ashby Fund for Excellence in Pharmacy Residency Training.

“We are pleased to fund this research, which will provide pharmacy leaders with valuable insights on how we can support the next generation of pharmacists to complete advanced training,” said Kelly McCormick-Sullivan, CEO of the ASHP Foundation.

The UGA team notes that theirs will be the first large-scale survey to address concerns over declining completion rates and PGY2 applicants.

“We also hope that a pre- and post-survey approach will help us understand how residents' views about completing a PGY2 may change throughout their PGY1 residency,” said Phillips, assistant department head for residency programs. “Additionally, we want to better understand why some residents are not finishing their programs.”

Samuel Calabrese, vice president of ASHP’s accreditation services office, said the project represents a key step in describing the challenges that students may face in continuing their training. “That in turn will help ASHP and residency programs create plans and develop resources that are tailored toward the challenges we have identified,” he said.

The foundation grant, announced this summer, has helped the researchers refine their project.

“With this support, we will be able to complete a more intricate analysis of the survey results and fund our work group's ongoing efforts to develop and disseminate the follow up survey,” said Keedy, who is also director of the PGY2 ambulatory care residency program at Candler Hospital.

Keedy and Phillips are working on the project as part of the UGA Ambulatory Care Collaborative (AC2) research group. Other team members include Josh Caballero, Devin Lavender, Sharmon Osae, Russ Palmer, and Rebecca Stone.