PGY1 - any advice?

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ice712

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I am interested in working in a clinic type of setting, so Ambulatory Care would be a good option for me; however, many programs are not only offering Ambulatory care rotations but also internal med, ID etc. Is it bad that I only showed interest in Amb care in my letter of intent? I didn't get any interview in Phase I... so it might have been my letter that was not well written (of course there maybe other reasons too)

Any advice on acing the letter of intent? Honesly, my APPE rotations were not rigorous so I don't even know what to mention ....

I very appreciate any input!

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I am interested in working in a clinic type of setting, so Ambulatory Care would be a good option for me; however, many programs are not only offering Ambulatory care rotations but also internal med, ID etc. Is it bad that I only showed interest in Amb care in my letter of intent? I didn't get any interview in Phase I... so it might have been my letter that was not well written (of course there maybe other reasons too)

Any advice on acing the letter of intent? Honesly, my APPE rotations were not rigorous so I don't even know what to mention ....

I very appreciate any input!
I'm interested in ambulatory care too. I would recommend limiting your search to programs that specialize in ambulatory care or leaving out/minimizing mentions of ambulatory care in your letter of intent. I didn't match, and I think that was partly due to my expressing interest in ambulatory care during my interviews. I even had one program say something along the lines of, "I'm sure our program would more than prepare you for what you want." (not an exact quote, but too close to be paraphrasing).

Someone gave me great advice on my letter of intent. It made a huge difference:
Take the second paragraph of the body of your letter of intent and brag about yourself a bit. The first paragraph of the body can highlight your experience and the value you took from that experience, but the second paragraph should say something about your personality and/or values. Your experiences are already covered in your CV. Don't rehash things.

The advice completely changed how I approached writing my letter, and it made in a million times better.
 
I'm interested in ambulatory care too. I would recommend limiting your search to programs that specialize in ambulatory care or leaving out/minimizing mentions of ambulatory care in your letter of intent. I didn't match, and I think that was partly due to my expressing interest in ambulatory care during my interviews. I even had one program say something along the lines of, "I'm sure our program would more than prepare you for what you want." (not an exact quote, but too close to be paraphrasing).

Someone gave me great advice on my letter of intent. It made a huge difference:
Take the second paragraph of the body of your letter of intent and brag about yourself a bit. The first paragraph of the body can highlight your experience and the value you took from that experience, but the second paragraph should say something about your personality and/or values. Your experiences are already covered in your CV. Don't rehash things.

The advice completely changed how I approached writing my letter, and it made in a million times better.

hmmm... that's a good way to approach, thanks a lot!

BTW I need to write about long term goal (which an amb care pharmacist), should I not write it that specific and say something generic? I am going nuts with this letter !!!
 
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hmmm... that's a good way to approach, thanks a lot!

BTW I need to write about long term goal (which an amb care pharmacist), should I not write it that specific and say something generic? I am going nuts with this letter !!!
I think it depends on the program. If they have good ambulatory care experiences, I think it would be safe to lay it out as a long-term goal. For an eventual focus on ambulatory care, I would pick at least one other thing from the program besides an ambulatory care rotation and discuss the relevance of that to your goal of ambulatory care practice.

I think places look down on ambulatory care goals because they don't see the relevance of understanding a variety of practice settings. They don't think someone interested in ambulatory care could be excited about an ICU rotation or an inpatient ID rotation.

Just speculation on my part :) I'm in phase II so I obviously don't have all or probably any of the answers
 
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I think it depends on the program. If they have good ambulatory care experiences, I think it would be safe to lay it out as a long-term goal. For an eventual focus on ambulatory care, I would pick at least one other thing from the program besides an ambulatory care rotation and discuss the relevance of that to your goal of ambulatory care practice.

I think places look down on ambulatory care goals because they don't see the relevance of understanding a variety of practice settings. They don't think someone interested in ambulatory care could be excited about an ICU rotation or an inpatient ID rotation.

Just speculation on my part :) I'm in phase II so I obviously don't have all or probably any of the answers

Thank you so much!!!! Good luck to both of us! :p
 
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I am interested in working in a clinic type of setting, so Ambulatory Care would be a good option for me; however, many programs are not only offering Ambulatory care rotations but also internal med, ID etc. Is it bad that I only showed interest in Amb care in my letter of intent? I didn't get any interview in Phase I... so it might have been my letter that was not well written (of course there maybe other reasons too)

Any advice on acing the letter of intent? Honesly, my APPE rotations were not rigorous so I don't even know what to mention ....

I very appreciate any input!

Consider diving deeper into your specific interest for ambulatory care too. Do you want to see outpatient anticoag? Focus on diabetes? Maybe you'd like to work with HIV patients. It'd be great to find one of those and if you were lucky, have a rotation you can draw experiences from when writing your letter of intent. As others said, it won't hurt to show some interest in other areas too that may be more inpatient based. You can spin it as "Oh I didn't have much experience in XYZ (let's say transplant) and I really want to get that experience." Obviously you shouldn't lie about that, but hopefully you can find something a residency would offer that might just meet your interest.

This is just me personally, but when I was looking at clinical residency programs last year, I also looked into admin and teaching opportunities. Not saying you would be interested in those specifically, but in case you really can't find a reason to talk about inpatient experiences and wanted a different angle.
 
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I am interested in working in a clinic type of setting, so Ambulatory Care would be a good option for me; however, many programs are not only offering Ambulatory care rotations but also internal med, ID etc. Is it bad that I only showed interest in Amb care in my letter of intent? I didn't get any interview in Phase I... so it might have been my letter that was not well written (of course there maybe other reasons too)

Any advice on acing the letter of intent? Honesly, my APPE rotations were not rigorous so I don't even know what to mention ....

I very appreciate any input!


You want to be a good Am-Care Pharmacist? Be good at internal med and critical care practice first. That's your foundation.
 
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You want to be a good Am-Care Pharmacist? Be good at internal med and critical care practice first. That's your foundation.
Could not agree more, this foundational knowledge will make you better as ambulatory care pharmacist.

I started out as inpatient pharmacist and now I work as ambulatory pharmacist in a clinic setting.
 
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