BELLEVILLE – Hospice of Southern Illinois is very proud to have the honor of hosting the only PGY-2 (post-graduate, year 2) in Pain and Palliative Care Pharmacy Residency Program housed in a hospice, in the United States. We are pleased to introduce and welcome the full-time, on-staff, PGY-2 Pharmacy Resident, Brad Rea, PharmD. Our patients, families and organization will directly benefit from this very special program, which is 1 of 15 in the country and the only 1 fully funded by a hospice. Dr. Rea will play a critical role in delivering the highest quality end-of-life care to patients and families we serve. He will also help us grow and continue providing top-notch, end-of-life care as your local, not-for-profit hospice.
Brad shares in our excitement, “I am so fortunate to be the first pharmacist employed by Hospice of Southern Illinois. Passion and empathy are two words I have found to be excellent descriptors of the employees at this organization. This innovative position, in addition to Hospice of Southern Illinois’ mission, to enhance the quality of life of individuals and their loved ones touched by a terminal illness, helps to ensure patients are treated with the highest level of care. Hospice is a program that changes the lives for all parties involved and I am ecstatic to be a part of the hospice family.”
“We have collaborated with Southern Illinois University of Edwardsville’s School of Pharmacy to implement a niched program to benefit Hospice of Southern Illinois’ patients and organization; additionally, the experience, knowledge and education our Pharmacist will receive has been customized to provide a genuine learning experience and specific end-of-life care training to implement into future programs or settings,” shares Dr. Ellen Middendorf, Medical Director of Hospice of Southern Illinois.
The specialized support this program offers to Hospice of Southern Illinois includes direct patient benefits by ensuring safe and effective medication use, cost containment and education to our staff, patients, and families. Our pharmacist will help manage patient profiles for streamlined symptom management to reduce side effects and control medication interactions; offer expertise from the pharmacy field to improve our ability to reduce medication costs, including monitoring regulation changes and determining “related” and “unrelated” medications; and finally, the access to one-on-one education for staff, patients and families, and healthcare professionals is invaluable.
Chris Herndon, PharmD., associate professor at the SIUE School of Pharmacy, and PGY-2 Residency Program Director added, “this novel training program will prepare pharmacists to integrate seamlessly into the hospice interdisciplinary team and directly impact the care of those at the end of life. As medication regimens become more complex, it makes perfect sense to add the pharmacist to the hospice clinical team.”
Hospice of Southern Illinois is your community not-for-profit hospice program serving 27 counties in southern Illinois since 1981. Our commitment at Hospice of Southern Illinois is to be with our patients and their loved ones through the changing needs of the end-of-life process and the grief experience. For more information about Hospice of Southern Illinois, visit our website, www.hospice.org, or contact Lisa Phillipson, 618-235-1703 or lphillipson@hospice.org.
