This specialty residency is a 12-month post-graduate program offered jointly by the USC School of Pharmacy and an affiliated clinical site, Huntington Hospital in Pasadena. This program centers on developing the competencies necessary to provide pharmaceutical care to patients with infectious diseases by providing balanced training in patient care, teaching, and clinical research in the area of infectious diseases pharmacotherapy.

Clinical Practice

The resident provides clinical services with a focus on anti-infective therapy through participation in medical system committees and patient care rounds on the:

• Infectious Disease Consult Service
• Critical Care Service
• Outpatient HIV/AIDS clinic

Huntington Hospital serves as the primary training site for the resident. The hospital is a 525-bed community teaching hospital affiliated with the USC School of Pharmacy and the Keck School of Medicine of USC.

Clinical services include drug therapy monitoring and consultation to pharmacy and medical staff, and patient and staff education with an emphasis on anti-infective therapy. In addition, the resident conducts an ongoing antimicrobial-use surveillance program. This links microbiology laboratory data with pharmacy profile to identify trends in anti-infective use and therapy optimization. Results from the antimicrobial-use surveillance program are reported. Recommendations for policy changes are made as part of the effort for continuous quality improvement in anti-infective use. The resident partakes in formulary management through the development and implementation of policies and procedures related to antimicrobial utilization.

Teaching

The resident is actively involved in:

• Leading conference sessions
• Providing didactic lectures
• Developing infectious disease case studies with preceptor supervision
• Serving as a role model for the students and pharmacy practice residents during their clinical clerkships in Infectious Diseases
• Presenting regular staff development lectures to pharmacy and medical staff at the clinical site on related topics

Education

The resident receives training via coursework and seminars in the following areas:

• Microbiology laboratory techniques
• Analytical methods
• Biostatistics/research methodology in preparation for participation in clinical investigations

The resident also attends one national infectious disease conference.

Research

The resident actively participates in all aspects of an infectious disease clinical investigation which include:

• Research study design
• IRB submission, data collection
• Data analysis
• Submission of manuscript for publication
• Presentation of findings at a national meeting of a professional organization

Contact Us

If you have questions or need additional information, please contact:

Annie Wong-Beringer, Pharm.D.
Program Preceptor, Residency in Infectious Diseases
Telephone: (323) 442-1356
FAX: (626) 628-3024
Email: anniew@usc.edu