Joanne Burgess, Pharmacy Director at Arbour-Fuller Hospital was recently presented with The University of Rhode Island (URI) College of Pharmacy 2010 Advanced Pharmacy Practice Preceptor of the Year Award for ex-cellence in teaching.

Ms. Burgess has been a preceptor for URI students at Arbour-Fuller Hospital for the last eight years. Most recently, she has been providing practical experience and training to sixth year Doctory of Pharmacy students as part of a school credit requirement. Each year, URI students vote one out of the six preceptors they have throughout the year as the recipient of the award.

“One of the reasons this program is so successful is because of the hospi¬tal itself. Everyone is very welcoming of the students and really appreciate the help they provide on the units,” Burgess explained.

Last year, Bur¬gess conducted 12 six week rotations consisting of two students per rota¬tion. Next year, she’s thinking about add¬ing four students to the rotation so they can help out in more areas of the hospital.
“This is really an honor,” Burgess said about receiving the award. “There are some preceptors out there doing amazing things so I was sur¬prised and honored.”

The hospital and staff really benefit from the students as well. While in the program, students provide medication education groups to the patients, they sit in on treat¬ment team, they assist with clari¬fying a patient’s medication and performing medication reconcilia¬tion, as well as provide inservices to staff on medication manage¬ment and work on other various projects throughout the hospital.

“The students we have at the facility are a tremendous resource to us and assist our nursing, medi¬cal and case management staff,” said Lisa Pappone, Interim CEO at Arbour-Fuller Hospital. “It is a great program that has been very beneficial to the facility and Joanne does a great job mentoring them and allowing them to work on some important projects within the hospital.”