Pharmacists don't back compulsory residency programs

A large majority of pharmacists do not think postgraduate residency training should be a requirement for future pharmacists, according to the latest drugtopics.com Instant Poll survey. When asked if residency should be made a requirement for pharmacists with direct patient care by 2020, 79% of respondents said that it should not. Forty-three percent of the respondents felt that residency should be encouraged but not required, while 21% argued instead that residency was more necessary in acute settings than at chain pharmacies. Other pharmacists also worried that requiring residency was not a good idea in light of the pharmacist shortage (8%) and the debt load of many pharmacy students (6%). Most of the respondents who supported requiring residency programs (20%) responded that it would better equip them to provide optimal care to patients. The informal survey garnered 439 responses during June.

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