Pharmacy resident teaching in psychiatry and neurology for pharmacy programs in the United States

INTRODUCTION: The American Society of Health-System Pharmacists' Postgraduate Year 1 and Year 2 Residency Accreditation Standards require that residents demonstrate effective teaching skills. The College of Psychiatric and Neurologic Pharmacists' survey of pharmacy program curricula assessed resident teaching in psychiatry and neurology, however, results were not published. The objective of this article is to describe resident teaching in psychiatry and neurology curricula as reported by responses to the college's survey. METHODS: An electronic survey was sent to a curricular representative from each of 133 US pharmacy programs accredited as of July 2015. Programs were asked to report on psychiatry and neurology curricular content, faculty credentials, and types of teaching activities, including resident teaching. RESULTS: Fifty-six percent (75/133) of programs responded to the survey. Fifty out of 75 (67%) distinct pharmacy programs reported utilizing residents for teaching topics in psychiatry and neurology. Residents were twice as likely to teach didactic topics in psychiatry (n = 44) compared to neurology (n = 22). Three times as many residents were involved in precepting psychiatric Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experiences (n = 37) compared to neurology Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experiences (n = 12). DISCUSSION: Residents are involved in both didactic and experiential teaching with more residents teaching psychiatry content compared to neurology content. Authors recommend utilizing the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists' electronic resident assessment tool, PharmAcademic®, to capture the quantity and quality of resident teaching across accredited programs.