UF Family Medicine Pharmacy Fellowship

Overview

This individualized fellowship is a 2-year program for pharmacists desiring to develop advanced skills in clinical practice, independent research, and teaching in the area of Primary Care pharmacotherapy.

Program Dates

The fellowship is 2 years in length, beginning July 1 and ending June 30. The current fellowship cycle begins and ends on odd-numbered years (i.e., July 2021 to June 2023).

Program Stipend

The fellowship annual stipend is benchmarked on NIH stipend levels (i.e., $52,704 in 2020). Additional benefits are available to fellows, including health insurance and retirement savings plans. Details can be found here and here (fellows in this program are administratively classified as “Postdoctoral Associates”).

Training Site

This fellowship program is housed at the UF Family Medicine at Main clinic in north central Gainesville, FL, approximately two miles from UF’s main campus. Approximately 23,500 patients/year are treated at this practice site, which is the fellow’s primary clinic, teaching, and research site. The Main Street clinic serves as a primary location at UF for education of pharmacy students (~2-3 APPE students/6-week rotations), medical students (variable number per year) and Family Medicine physician residents (~10 each of PGY1, PGY2, and PGY3s). Additional clinical opportunities may be available in other affiliated clinics and in the Family Medicine inpatient service at UF Health. Additional research opportunities may be available through the local Ambulatory Care Research (ACR) network.

Training Opportunities

The fellow serves as co-director of the Family Medicine pharmacotherapy and anticoagulation clinics. These clinics provide opportunities for both direct patient care by the fellow, and oversight of APPE students in direct patient care. Additional opportunities include transitions of care; high-risk diabetes clinic; inpatient Family Medicine; and, Equal-access after-hours clinic.

The fellow will have opportunities in the Doctor of Pharmacy curriculum to create and deliver lectures, lead case discussions, and develop test questions; develop and deliver topic discussions to ambulatory care rotation students; and, participate in the Academic Teaching Certificate Program. Additional opportunities include lectures and leading case discussions in the Physician Assistant (PA) Program and lectures and case discussions in Family Medicine Resident didactic sessions.

The fellow also will design, initiate, and conduct new research pertinent to ambulatory care and in line with their own research interests. Opportunities include: participation in ongoing prospective, multi-center clinical trials; retrospective observational studies using UF’s Integrated Data Repository, the OneFlorida Data Trust, or other large administrative datasets (Medicare, Medicaid, Marketscan commercial claims, etc.); and, cross-sectional analyses using large national survey datasets (e.g., NHANES).

Publishing in peer-reviewed journals is an expectation of all fellows. A list of peer-reviewed publications written by fellows during their time in the program can be found here. In addition, most fellows work on one or more book chapters during their tenure in the program.

Fellows are also eligible for tuition waivers for coursework through the UF Employee Education Program as well as a variety of other professional development programs available to UF and Health Science Center employees.

Applicant Requirements

Minimum Requirements:

  • Doctor of Pharmacy degree from an ACPE-accredited institution
  • Florida Pharmacist license in good standing; or eligibility for such licensure (the fellow must be licensed prior to the start date of the program)

Preferred Qualifications:

  • PGY1 or PGY2 pharmacy residency

Application Process

Interested applicants should contact the fellowship directors prior to submission of application materials.

Required Application Materials:

  • Letter of Intent (describing reasons for pursuing a fellowship, as well as clinical and research interests)
  • Current Curriculum Vitae
  • Three Letters of Reference

No final application submission deadline exists, but an offer may be extended as soon as an ideal candidate has been found. Thus, application materials should be submitted as early as possible in the year prior to the start of a fellowship cycle; typically this means the Fall prior to the expected start date. An interview will be required.

Faculty

John Gums

John Gums Pharm.D., FCCP

Executive Associate Dean
Mailing Address:
PO Box 100484
GAINESVILLE FL 32610
Physical Address:
PO Box 100484
GAINESVILLE FL 32610

Dr. Gums is the Executive Associate Dean in the University of Florida College of Pharmacy. He also serves as a Professor of Pharmacy and Medicine in the Departments of Pharmacotherapy and Translational Research and Community Health and Family Medicine at UF. Gums received his undergraduate degree in pharmacy from the University of Wisconsin and his Doctor of Pharmacy degree from the Medical University of South Carolina. Subsequently, he completed a fellowship in Family Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina. Dr. Gums joined the faculty at the University of Florida in 1985, and is actively involved in teaching in the colleges of Pharmacy and Medicine. He has received the Faculty Recognition Award from the College of Pharmacy and twice was selected as Teacher of the Year by the University of Florida, Department of Family Medicine.

Steven M Smith

Steven M Smith PharmD, MPH, FCCP, FAHA

Assistant Professor; Interim Chair Of Pharmaceutical Outcomes And Policy; Co-Director Of The Center For Integrative Cardiovascular And Metabolic Disease
Mailing Address:
PO Box 100496
GAINESVILLE FL 32610
Physical Address:
1225 CENTER DR
HPNP BLDG
GAINESVILLE FL 32610

Steven Smith is an Assistant Professor and Interim Chair of the Department of Pharmaceutical Outcomes and Policy, with a joint appointment in the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine (College of Medicine). He also serves as Co-Director for the UF Center for Integrative Cardiovascular and Metabolic Diseases.

He received his PharmD degree from the University of Florida College of Pharmacy. He then completed a PGY-1 residency at the North Florida/South Georgia Veterans Health System in Gainesville, FL. After his residency, Dr. Smith completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Family Medicine during which time he participated in the Advanced Postgraduate Program in Clinical Investigation (APPCI) and concurrently completed the requirements for a Master of Public Health. Dr. Smith joined the faculty at the University of Colorado in 2011. He returned to the University of Florida in 2014.

Dr. Smith’s research is in the area of cardiovascular pharmacotherapy, in particular hypertension and cardiometabolic disease, and is funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Defense. He is an elected Fellow in the American Heart Association and the American College of Clinical Pharmacy, as well as a member of the American College of Cardiology, American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy and the International Society for Pharmacoepidemiology. He also has served in several leadership roles nationally, including on the Examination Committee for the American Society of Hypertension Specialists’ Program (ASHSP) Certified Hypertension Clinician program, in several initiatives through the American Heart Association Hypertension Council, on the Board of Directors for the Consortium for Southeastern Hypertension Control (2019-2023 term), and as a founding member of the CDC’s National Hypertension Control Roundtable.

Dr. Smith teaches a course on Pharmacoepidemiology & Drug Safety in the 3rd year of the PharmD program, and co-coordinates a graduate course on Measurement in Pharmaceutical Outcomes Research.

From 2014 to 2023, Dr. Smith also co-directed the UF Family Medicine Pharmacy Fellowship.

Current & Past Fellows

YearsNameCurrent Position
2019 – 2021Christopher Piszczatoski, PharmD, BCPSCurrent Fellow
2017 – 2019Scott Garland, PharmDClinical Assistant Professor, Florida State University
2015 – 2017Andrew Hwang, PharmDAssistant Professor, High Point University
2013 – 2015Nicholas Carris, PharmDClinical Assistant Professor, University of South Florida College of Pharmacy
2011 – 2013Eric Dietrich, PharmDClinical Associate Professor of Pharmacy and Medicine, University of Florida
2008 – 2011Steven M. Smith, PharmD, MPHAssistant Professor of Pharmacy and Associate Director for the Center for Integrative Cardiovascular and Metabolic Disease, University of Florida
2006 – 2008Shawn Anderson, PharmDClinical Specialist, NF/SG Veterans Affairs Health System
2004 – 2006Benjamin J. Epstein, PharmDCEO, ECIR Medical Communications
2002 – 2004John Tovar, PharmDAssociate Professor & Chair, Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine
1999 – 2001Chris Terpening, PharmD, PhDClinical Associate Professor of Pharmacy & Medicine, West Virginia University
1997 – 1999Billie Nguyen, PharmDClinical Assistant Professor of Pharmacy, UFHealth Jacksonville
1996 – 1998Jim Lewis, PharmD Willow Build Coordinator and Analyst (consultant), University of Washington Medical Center
1996 – 1998Jerry D. Smith, PharmDRegional Director of Pharmacy, Sacred Heart Health System
1995 – 1997Jacintha S. Cauffield, PharmDAssociate Professor of Pharmacy, Palm Beach Atlantic University
1991 – 1992Anne C. Wells, PharmDSystem Manager, 340B Program at Catholic Health Initiatives
1989 – 1991Aixa M. Rey, PharmDDirector of Pharmacy Informatics & Pharmacy Manager, Baptist Health South Florida