Clinical Pharmacist Faculty Contribution to Evidence-Based Medicine and Milestones

Family medicine residency programs (FMRPs) endeavor to meet evidence-based medicine (EBM) subcompetencies through the milestones project. Comprehensive descriptions of clinical pharmacists' contributions in teaching EBM within the context of residency are limited.

Over a study period of 2 months, clinical pharmacists across five FMRPs in four states were invited to track their interactions with physician residents. EBM resources, skills, and targeted milestone data were collected. Pharmacists also quantified their nonpatient care contributions to EBM.

Of the 16 clinical pharmacists invited, 16 (100%) participated in the October and 12 (75.0%) in the March collection period. A total of 598.9 half days over 2 months (42 working days) of available teaching time were reported. The tracking tool captured 1,253 EBM teaching encounters with a total average of 2.1 encounters per half day. Of those encounters, point-of-care references were most commonly used (63.7%) and "apply" was the most common EBM skill taught (83.8%). The most commonly tracked milestone was Medical Knowledge 2 (75.3%) at Level 2. Nine out of 10 faculty pharmacists included in this study reported performing the following roles: preceptor (100%), lecturer (89.9%), provider (77.8%), expert/consultant (77.8%), health care team (66.7%), and other (11.1%). Faculty pharmacists also reported directly evaluating milestones for physician residents through: committee work (44.4%), resident evaluations (77.8%), and rotation evaluations (77.8%).

As FMRPs strive to meet ACGME EBM-related competencies, clinical pharmacists across multiple sites demonstrated contributions to teaching EBM in medical resident education. Using a nonphysician faculty for this purpose may provide an example for other FMRPs.