An opinion paper of the Cardiology Practice and Research Network of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy: Recommendations for training of cardiovascular pharmacy specialists in postgraduate year 2 residency programs

Pharmacists in direct patient care settings are expanding their roles and responsibilities. These changes mandate a deeper and broader understanding of disease states, as well as influencing social, behavioral, and environmental factors. Existing guidelines and accreditation standards related to the training of graduate or cardiovascular pharmacist specialists (ie, Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, American College of Clinical Pharmacy [ACCP]) provide some guidance on essential competencies. However, they stop short of providing recommendations for how to achieve all the objectives. The purpose of this paper is to build upon existing guidelines/standards, describing our recommendations for pharmacy residency training of a cardiovascular clinical specialist. The paper is broken down into the following sections: (1) Skills and Competencies (Building Clinical Skills, Application of Clinical Knowledge and Skills, Drug Information, Research and Scholarship, Teaching Skills, Interpersonal, Communication, and Presentation Skills), (2) Personal and Professional Growth (Growing Interpersonal Skills, Engaging with the Profession), (3) Program Design (Resident Selection, Preceptors and Mentoring, Expectations for Progress/Milestones, Program and Learning Experience Structure), and (4) Clinical and Therapeutic Content Expertise or Medical Knowledge. After each recommendation, specific details are provided to aid in conceptualizing how each can be achieved. Some recommendations are considered essential whereas others are designated as optional. This paper represents the opinion of the Cardiology Practice and Research Network of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy. It does not necessarily represent an official ACCP commentary, guideline, or statement of policy or position.