With potential career paths available to today’s pharmacists rapidly expanding, so too are the number of UMKC School of Pharmacy graduates preparing for those opportunities through post-graduate residency training.
The school posted a record number of 66 students from this year’s graduating class who received a residency placement through the American Society of Health-System Pharmacy match program. More than 83 percent of those who participated matched with one of their top-rated residency programs.
Those numbers topped the national match rate of 77 percent. Across the country, more than 6,400 graduating pharmacy students participated in this year’s match program with 4,966 match positions filled.
“This year we had a very successful match rate, which speaks volumes about the skills and capabilities of our students to compete for these highly competitive positions,” said Steve Stoner, Pharm.D., associate dean for student affairs.
Overall, better than 40 percent of the 2022 graduating class from the School of Pharmacy will enter a post-graduate residency.
Increased competition and more specialized roles within the pharmacy job market is prompting the growing number of graduates to view postgraduate residency training as a popular option. The additional years of training to better prepare them for those specialized positions.
“Our students possess an expert level of drug knowledge and are known as critical thinkers and problem solvers,” Stoner said. “We have a long track record of students being very successful in their post-doctoral endeavors.”