In general, Resident candidates are early career pharmacists, likely one to three years post full registration. However, this does not exclude pharmacists with more years of practice experience, especially those pharmacists who are new to hospital or community pharmacy practice after working as a pharmacist in a different practice setting.

Registrar candidates are pharmacists with three to seven years of hospital experience who may have prior experience in a defined practice area and are seeking to specialise or advance their practice, or have been recently recruited to a senior pharmacist/leadership role without significant experience in the area and are undertaking a Registrar Training Program to support their professional practice and development in their new role. Pharmacists with more than seven years of experience may also be suitable for a Registrar Training Program if they are moving into a defined or specialised area of practice.

No. Pharmacy residency programs have existed in the United States for more than 50 years with the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists first establishing an accreditation process and standards for residencies in hospital pharmacy in 1962.

In addition to the United States, pharmacy residency programs are commonplace in other countries such as Canada, the United Kingdom and Singapore. The International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP) highlights the importance of foundation training infrastructures such as residency training as well as advanced and specialist expert development in Goals 2 and 4 of its Workforce Development Goals (International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP). Pharmaceutical workforce development goals. The Hague: International Pharmaceutical Federation; November 2016. Available from www.fip.org/educationreports)

Hospital pharmacy departments, community pharmacies or other pharmacy service providers who have been accredited by AdPha to offer a training program have demonstrated their compliance with the relevant AdPha Accreditation Standards for Pharmacy Training Programs. This means AdPha has verified the pharmacy service’s support for Resident and/or Registrar candidates and their development, the skills and experience of pharmacy staff, their breadth of pharmacy services, and the pharmacy service’s overall commitment to professional development.

Resident Training Programs – accredited hospital sites

Resident Training Programs - accredited community pharmacy sites

Registrar Training Programs - accredited hospital sites

For details about the relevant Training Programs, please follow the links below:

Resident Training Program – Hospital Pharmacy →

Resident Training Program – Community Pharmacy →

Registrar Training Program - Hospital Pharmacy →

All Resident and Registrar candidates undertaking an AdPha Training Program must be AdPha members for the period of the residency. Candidates are also required to register with AdPha.

All Training Program Leads and Registrar Training Mentors are also required to maintain AdPha membership for the period of the program.

The requirement to have AdPha membership does not apply to non-member Resident candidates who joined the AdPha Resident Training Program (previously referred to as the Foundation Residency Program) prior to January 2020.

Pharmacy Training Program candidates are recognised as a pharmacy service team member with core responsibilities and defined workload and service expectations, but with additional learning and development requirements. This means Resident and Registrar candidates are expected to commit to extra learning as part of the program to support their own professional development.

Compulsory attendance at an annual seminar will incur a fee. Some accredited pharmacy services may provide financial support for their candidates to attend; others may expect the candidate to cover their own costs. There may be other expenses associated with undertaking a training program.

Accredited training programs may have different recruitment processes for their Resident and/or Registrar candidates. Not all training programs may advertise externally for recruitment of candidates. Pharmacists interested in a training program may wish to discuss opportunities for joining directly with an accredited site (see What is an accredited training site for more information). AdPha is responsible for overseeing the quality of training programs and the pharmacy service compliance with the Accreditation Standards, but is not involved in recruitment of candidates.