The student society sends its officers and most active member to the Midyear Clinical Meeting each year.  This year's attendees (l-r: NgocHanh Le '07, Rand Mary '07, Deepmala Patel '07, Lindsay Garris '07) attended the meeting and the New York State Council of Health-system Pharmacists reception that followed.  The reception gave the students a chance to thank the Council's executive director, Debra Feinberg (r), for speaking at one of the student society's meetings.  Ms. Feinberg and David Lormes of ASHP spoke to students at the College of Pharmacy about the importance of involvement in professional organizations at the local, state, and national levels on October 31, 2006. 

The Midyear Clinical Meeting offered a number of programs specifically for students. This included activities such as lectures on CV/Resume writing and interviewing tips, interactive career workshops, onsite job interviews, Residency showcase, and PharmPrep Live (a full day workshop to help prepare for the board examination). In addition, there was the Clinical Skills Competition and a student reception to honor the winners of the competition.

There was an interesting talk about different career options for pharmacy graduates. This talk included four pharmacists with jobs in academia, geriatric care, industry, and inpatient care. Each pharmacist spoke about why they chose their career path and their daily activities. After this talk, there was a roundtable session with these pharmacists and others including pharmacists in home infusion care, investigational drug research, pharmacy administration, and various clinical specialties such as transplant, anticoagulation, and diabetes. This was an interesting session because it included 12 different tables, each one with pharmacists from different career path. These pharmacists explained their career interests and answered questions about their schooling and postgraduate training, how they got their job, and various other questions related to their unique career path. Students were able to move from table to table exploring different career options at each table.

One important part of the schedule of a student attending ASHP Midyear Clinical Meeting is the Residency Showcase. Because there are so many residency programs, for organizational purposes and space, there are three time slots that the residency showcase is displayed, for three hours each time. Each residency program display is assigned to one timeslot only.

The student has to be very organized to take advantage of the Residency showcase. Before Midyear, I drew up a list of the various states and residency programs in that I was even remotely interested in. Then I logged onto the Midyear Clinical Meeting section of the ASHP website to check the schedule and booth location of each residency program that I was looking into. I also did preliminary research into each program so I could learn some basic background information. I then composed a few general questions to ask and also left room on my list of interesting residency programs to jot down notes so that I could refer back to them after I returned. This helped me narrow down my list to the programs that were more applicable to me.

Armed with this preparation (my grand list), I entered the large registration hall and proceeded to where the residency showcase was held. Proud residents discussed their daily schedules, various rotations, and responsibilities. Each site had a brochure or folder ready to hand to any interested students. There are also free giveaways, like sweets, stickers, or office supplies. An encounter with a resident or program director is not at all like an interview. It's a very informal, very brief meeting, just for you as a student to collect information and to get a clearer picture as to what each program entails. I began an encounter with a handshake and by introducing myself and what pharmacy school i'm from, and then asked my questions that were prepared before I arrived.

It was a warm feeling to attend the residency showcase with thousands of other pharmacy students who also have a quest for furthering their education, along with pharmacy residents and preceptors who are involved in making our dreams into a reality.

This past December I was privileged to attend the ASHP Midyear Clinical Meeting and paritcipate in the national clinical skills competition. My husband, Elliot '05, and I had been planning on attending midyear to learn more about residencies and careers in clinical pharmacy when we heard about the competition from Dr Landau. We both thought it would be an interesting experience and to our excitement we were chosen as the team that prepared the best care plan. Elliot and I spent the weekend planning our strategies and how to work on the case in the most efficient way.

Saturday night we arrived at the Orange County Convention Center. It was huge! We finally found the room and met the proctors. They explained to us that in this preliminary round we would only prepare the care plan in writing. Based on these care plans they would choose ten teams out of 85 to continue to the final round where they would present the care plans orally to a panel of judges. The case we received was very complicated and challenging and involved a patient with serious cardiovascular problems. We had 2 hours to work on it and when it was over we were exhausted but happy.

Unfortunately, we didn't make it to the final round, which was a little disappointing, but it meant we would be able to enjoy the rest of the conference and spend time at the programs that were prepared especially for pharmacy students. Elliot and I went to sit in on some of the oral presentations of the finalists. They were really well done and we saw that we got a lot of things right but we also missed some key interventions.

Elliot and I learned our strengths and weaknesses from the competition and we also learned a lot from the lectures we attended. I highly recommend that every pharmacy student should attend Midyear, even if they aren't pursuing a career in clinical pharmacy.

If you are interested in applying to a residency or a fellowship program, it is highly recommended that you participate in CareerPharm's Personal Placement Service (PPS), which offers services from late August to early December. PPS is a program that brings together applicants and employers for on-site interviews at the Midyear Meeting. If you register for this service, you can post your resume and access employers' job listings. Moreover, it allows you to find out more about the programs and to schedule interviews so you can be more prepared for the Midyear Meeting. At the meeting, PPS has three main features: a computer area to access employers' listing; a mailbox area where interested organizations and candidates set up their interview appointments; and a table-booth-suite area where interviews are conducted and scheduled.

If you decide to participate in PPS, you should do the following prior to the meeting: schedule interviews with some of your programs of interest (you could still schedule interviews at the Midyear); practice answering the most likely asked interview questions; print at least 25 copies of your CV (50 copies for the Rutgers program); and bring business cards (optional), a list of questions for your interviewers, and a business-folder notepad to take notes and to keep your CVs.

Now you are ready for the interviews. Three types of interviews to expect are the situational (what would you do in this situation), behavioral (how do you handle the situation), and team interviews (2-3 interviewers). The types of questions asked can pertain to your personal life, clerkship experience, and work/internship experiences. Depending on which type of program you apply to you will get more of one type of questions. For example, expect clerkship experience type of questions if you are applying for residency; and work/internship experiences type of questions if you are applying for fellowship.

Here are some tips to help optimize your candidacy. Although you could schedule as many interviews as you like, since PPS is opened from 7:30 am to 5:00 pm, I recommend five to seven interviews a day to allow yourself time to refresh and to prepare for the next interview. Schedule the interviews as soon as you can before slots are filled up but do not schedule an interview with your highest preference first, schedule it some where in the middle. This will allow you to become more familiar with the interview process while not getting too burned out at the end. Know your CV inside and out because they will ask you about it and act professional at all times because prospective employers can be anywhere. This includes not bringing bags of free stuffs from the Exposition to the interviews. Wear comfortable shoes because you will be on your feet all day and most importantly, be yourself and enjoy the experience!