The mission of the Department of Pharmacy is to provide high value, patient-centered care. We will promote best practices that drive safe, effective, and timely medication therapy through all transitions of care. We will cultivate collaboration, innovation, education and career growth through employee engagement and practice advancement initiatives.
The PGY-1 Residency at Bridgeport Hospital consists of a series of learning experiences that span a 52-week period. Specific learning experiences and goals will be accomplished in discrete blocks of time, while others will occur longitudinally throughout the duration of the residency. Residency time will generally be structured as follows:
| Orientation/Training |
4 weeks |
| Residency Learning Experiences |
44 weeks |
| Conferences |
1 week |
| Holidays/Time Off |
14 days, not contiguous |
| Interview Time Off |
3 days |
| Project Days |
5 days, not contiguous, and 2 hours weekly |
Required Rotational Experiences
| Health System Administration and Leadership |
4 weeks |
| Emergency Medicine |
4 weeks |
| General Medicine |
4 weeks |
| Hospital Pharmacy Practice |
6 weeks |
| Infectious Disease |
4 weeks |
| Critical Care |
4 weeks |
| Transitions of Care |
4 weeks |
Longitudinal Rotations
| Pharmacy Staffing |
52 weeks |
| Project Management |
52 weeks |
| Teaching and Precepting |
52 weeks |
| Formulary Stewardship |
52 weeks |
| Longitudinal Ambulatory Care |
18 weeks |
| Longitudinal Medication Safety |
16 weeks |
Elective Rotational Experiences (13-15 Weeks)
- Critical Care 2
- General Medicine 2
- Independent Practice Experience – Bridgeport Hospital
- Inpatient/Outpatient Infusion and Chemotherapy
- Investigational Drug Services
- Oncology
- Perioperative Pharmacy
- Pediatrics
- Psychiatry
- Solid Organ Transplant – Inpatient and Ambulatory Care
- Sterile Products
- Other**/Repeat/Remediation (With RPD Approval/Discussion)
**Each elective rotation can be 2 or 4 weeks in length based on resident interest. Additional electives at YNHH may be considered based on availability and RPD approval***
Longitudinal Experiences
- Project Management:
- Longitudinal project and research/cost management project that involves identification of a need, development of a plan and implementation and assessment of changes to improve patient care. This experience will consist of weekly to biweekly team meetings.
- Poster presentation at ASHP Midyear Clinical Meeting or equivalent
- Platform presentation at the New England Residency Conference or equivalent
- Formal Drug Monograph and Medication Use Evaluation with recommendations and presentation to the Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee
- Pharmacy Staffing:
- Allows the resident to utilize leadership and problem-solving skills to ensure optimal patient care and operations on weekend shifts every third weekend (12
day stretches required) and any shift, including night shift (typically 3 per year), may be scheduled at the discretion of residency director
- One major holiday (Christmas, Thanksgiving, or New Year’s) and one minor holiday (Labor Day, Memorial Day, Martin Luther King Day) is also required
- Teaching and Precepting:
- Education: provide education to patients, health care providers and the pharmacy department. Activities occur according to scheduled presentations and
student rotations rather than a fixed weekly commitment
- Precepting: apply the four preceptor roles when interacting with pharmacy students on rotations
- Teaching Certificate Program: opportunity to develop preceptor teaching skills and graduate with a teaching certificate
- Formulary Stewardship:
- Residents participate in formulary management and on-call antimicrobial stewardship activities, with potential future expansion to other disease states, up to
once biweekly, averaged over the residency year.
- Medication Safety:
- Residents participate in a 16-week longitudinal medication safety experience focused on medication event reporting, investigation, safety trend analysis, and
interdisciplinary quality improvement initiatives to promote a culture of patient safety. Residents participate in weekly medication safety activities, monthly
safety committee meetings, and ongoing medication event review throughout the 16-week experience.
- Ambulatory Care:
- Residents complete an 18-week longitudinal ambulatory care experience consisting of a two-week intensive clinic immersion followed by one clinic day weekly for the remaining 16 weeks. This experience focuses on anticoagulation management, chronic disease optimization, comprehensive medication management, and progressive independence in primary care pharmacy practice.
The learning experiences will include a series of learning activities designed to expose the resident to many facets of pharmacy practice with guidance from the preceptor. An individual resident plan and calendar will be developed for each resident. This residency site agrees that no person at this site will solicit, accept, or use any ranking-related information from any residency applicant.
Joseph Goncalves, PharmD
Emily Huntley, PharmD
Alexa Smeriglio, PharmD
2025 – 2026 Program Graduate
Bhojranie Brahmanand, PharmD - PGY2 Pharmacy Practice Resident, Ambulatory Care - Boston Medical Center
Alexis Hemstock, PharmD - PGY2 Pharmacy Practice Resident, Investigational Drug Services - Yale New Haven Hospital
Tessa Huelsman, PharmD - PGY2 Pharmacy Practice Resident, Psychiatry - Yale New Haven Hospital
2024 – 2025 Program Graduates
Kelly Cheng, PharmD - Oncology Infusion Center Pharmacist - Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Christie Hurteau, PharmD - Emergency Medicine/Critical Care Clinical Pharmacist - Yale New Haven Hospital
Avani Topiwala, PharmD - Hematology Clinical Pharmacist - Yale New Haven Hospital
2023 - 2024 Program Graduates
Meghan Mcnulty, PharmD - Clinical Pharmacist - Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center
Kevin Rivera, PharmD - Multispecialty Pharmacist - Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Yujin Hong PharmD, BCPS - Clinical Pharmacist - St.Vincent’s Medical Center
2022 - 2023 Program Graduates
Christian Rohach, PharmD, BCPS, BCEMP - Multispecialty Clinical Pharmacist - Bridgeport Hospital
Matthew Caltagirone, PharmD, BCCCP - Internal Medicine Pharmacist - Naples Comprehensive Health
Lucas Clari, PharmD - Clinical Oncology Specialist - Northside Hospital
2021-2022 Program Graduates
Kendall Szulimowski, PharmD, BCPS - Cardiology Clinical Pharmacist - Bridgeport Hospital
Kalie Berry, PharmD, BCPPS - Multispecialty Clinical Pharmacist (NICU) - UVA
Samuel Breiner, PharmD - Hematology Oncology Pharmacist - Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center
2020-2021 Program Graduates
Christie Costello, PharmD, BCPS, BCPP - Psychiatry Clinical Pharmacist - McLean Hospital
Joshua Russell, PharmD, BCGP - Clinical Pharmacist, Pharmacogenomics - Tabula Rasa HealthCare
2019-2020 Program Graduates
Lena Evangelista (DeVietro), PharmD, BCPS - Senior Pharmacy Specialist, Regulatory and Medication Safety - Yale New Haven Health
Emily Mai, PharmD, MPH, BCPS - Transitions of Care Pharmacist - Cedars Sinai
2018-2019 Program Graduates
Nicole Del Toro Pagan, PharmD, BCPS, BCGP - Clinical Pharmacist, Pharmacogenomics - Tabula Rasa HealthCare
Vera Malkhasyan, RPh, BCPS, DPLA - Clinical Pharmacist, Pharmacy Project Management - Yale New Haven Hospital
2017-2018 Program Graduates
Scott Collins, PharmD, BCPS, BCSCP - Pharmacist Supervisor - Atlantic Health System
Alia Mahmood, PharmD, MBA - Associate Director of US Medical Communications - Takeda
