The Royal Melbourne Hospital
Website: The Royal Melbourne Hospital (thermh.org.au)
As one of Victoria largest public health services, the Royal Melbourne Hospital (RMH) provides a comprehensive range of specialist medical, surgical, and mental health services; as well as rehabilitation, aged care, outpatient and community programs. We are a designated state-wide provider for services including trauma, and we lead centres of excellence for tertiary services in several key specialties including neurosciences, nephrology, oncology, cardiology and virtual health.
We are surrounded by a Parkville Precinct of brilliant thinkers, and we are constantly collaborating to set new benchmarks in health excellence - benchmarks that impact across the globe. While the work we do takes us in inspiring new directions; caring for each other, our patients and consumers is as essential to who we are, as any scientific breakthrough we make.
Our people of more than 10,000 strong, embody who we are and what we stand for. We're here for when it matters most, and we'll continue to be the first to speak out for our diverse community's wellbeing and for delivering excellence together, always.
Our purpose
Advancing health for everyone, everyday.
Our community promise
Always there when it matters most.
Our values
People First. Lead with Kindness. Excellence Together.
The Melbourne Way
At The RMH we’re inspired by our vision of Advancing health for everyone, every day. While we’re each going about our different roles, we’re united by a shared understanding of the way we do things around here. We call it The Melbourne Way. We put people first — leading with kindness and working together, we excel as one Royal Melbourne Hospital.
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People are at the heart of everything we do. We take the time to understand how we can make the most positive difference for them. |
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Our care and compassion sets us apart. We lead the way with a respectful, inclusive spirit — embracing the things that make us all unique. |
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True excellence is only possible when we work as one Royal Melbourne Hospital community. Through collaboration, we set the highest of standards and achieve our goals. |
Pharmacy Department
Head of service
Paul Toner, Pharmacy Director
RMH Pharmacy Department Campuses
City Campus: 300 Grattan Street Parkville 3050
Royal Park Campus: 34 -54 Poplar Road, Parkville 3052
What we do
Pharmacy provides medication management services to all areas of the hospital. These are delivered by teams of pharmacists and pharmacy technicians who are here to make sure patients are provided with the correct medication and information.
Our clinical pharmacists visit wards and departments to review and discuss patient’s medications, doses, side effects and any allergies that patients might have. They also provide advice and support to doctors, nurses and other members of the interdisciplinary heath care team about medication to optimise your care. Our pharmacists also counsel patients on their medications and answer any questions or concerns that might arise.
Team Pharmacy
Clinical Pharmacy
The clinical pharmacy service is led by the Deputy Director (Clinical). Each of the six clinical teams are led by Team Leaders who are specialist pharmacists in their field:
- Royal Park (Aged Care & Rehabilitation)
- CHIPS (Cancer Services, RMH@Home, Infectious Diseases, Palliative Care)
- Critical Care (Intensive Care & Emergency Services)
- Medicine (General Medicine, Respiratory, Gastroenterology & Mental Health)
- Medical Specialties (Cardiovascular, Endocrinology, Neurosciences, Renal)
- Surgical (Cardiothoracics, Colorectal, Vascular, Urology, Orthopedics, Trauma, Peri-operative, Theatres)
Clinical pharmacist rotations are 6 to 12 month intervals depending on their experience, and longer and permanent roles are also offered. The clinical service operates as a unit-based service, where each pharmacist is aligned with one or more specialty units, and they are responsible for all their unit patients irrespective of their location. This is a rewarding model for our staff, which promotes continuity of care and integrated interdisciplinary care and ultimately results in better patient outcomes.
Pharmacy Operations
Pharmacy operations are led by the Deputy Director (Operations). Operations services are comprised of several services that are essential to core pharmacy business.
Manufacturing & Aseptic Services are responsible for preparing and compounding a large number of rare and specialised products. Products include parenteral nutrition, complex IV mixtures and certain hazardous medicines. This service is continuously growing as we are being exposed to more and more innovative therapies.
Day Infusion Medical Services provides care and ongoing management to support patients living with chronic conditions that require regular infusions or blood transfusion. Our pharmacists provide their clinical expertise to support the safe and quality use of various infusions and injections in these ambulatory settings.
Dispensary Team & Outpatient Services remain an essential role of pharmacy, servicing the supply needs for RMH inpatients and outpatients. Medication supply clinics and departments are also facilitated by this team.
Our outpatient team are experienced in reviewing, supplying and counselling on highly specialised drugs, such as immunosuppressants, cytotoxic and antiretrovirals. In addition, highly specialised Outpatient Clinic Pharmacists with expertise in Inflammatory Bowel Disease and Renal Transplant work collaboratively with the multidisciplinary treating teams to manage complex medication regimens that are commonly seen in these populations.
Clinical Trials services are responsible for the administration and dispensing of investigational drugs across RMH. They are involved more than three hundred clinical trials annually.
Procurement services are essential for the ordering and distribution of medicines, fluids and consumables to meet the needs of the organisation. They work closely with the pharmacists to navigate challenging and dynamic situations to manage supply chain disruptions. They liaise with a range of stakeholders including suppliers, manufacturers, Special Access Scheme and Compassionate Use programs to ensure medicines are available in a timely manner.
Business & Strategy team reports to the Pharmacy Director and manages relationships with a range of key internal and external stakeholders. They participate in the Drug & Therapeutics Committee and to promote the quality and rational use of medicines throughout RMH. This is achieved by maintaining the Medication Formulary, managing Individual Patient Usage requests, monitor and forecast medication expenditure and provide strategies to address stock shortages.
Quality Team
Quality Team is led by Deputy Director (Quality) and its purpose is to improve the safety and quality of medication use and services.
Medication Safety team lead initiatives across the organisation by taking a systems approach to reduce the occurrence of medication incidents. They may conduct audit activities, manage the medication procedures and guidelines to ensure we meet the National Safety and Quality Health Service Standards.
Antimicrobial Stewardship (AMS) Team monitors the use of antimicrobials at RMH and provides timely prescribing advice to ensure rational use of antimicrobials. Rational use of antimicrobials will contribute to reduced antimicrobial resistance worldwide. Clinical pharmacists are equipped to reinforce good antimicrobial stewardship practices in their role and AMS services support them in their roles by providing their expertise.
Medicines Information team respond to individual medicines information queries, provide evidence based recommendations to support guideline development and assist with sourcing medicines or recommending suitable alternatives. They also program the intravenous pumps and maintain the drug library.
The Research Team leads and provides expertise on all aspects of research including design, methodology and publications occurring within the pharmacy department. The Lead Research Pharmacist also chairs the Practice Research Committee, where Committee members possessing research or subject matter expertise assist to provide a robust in-house peer review and feedback process.
Workforce Development team oversees education and development for all staff across the pharmacy department, including technicians and pharmacist pathways. Intern Pharmacists report into the Workforce Development Team, and a Senior Pharmacist member of the Workforce Development will be appointed the AHPRA approved preceptor.
Digital Health Team
The Digital Health team is led by the Deputy Director (Digital Health) and oversee the digital systems within the Pharmacy Department including the dispensing software, automatic dispensing cabinets (ADCs) and the application of the Electronic Medical Record (EMR). The team is currently focused on the implementation of ADCs throughout the organisation as part of RMH’s strategic goal to advance as a digital health service.
Intern Training Program
Intern Pharmacists are integrated members of the Team Pharmacy and they work alongside supervisors and the multidisciplinary teams for 12 months to develop the knowledge and skills necessary to become a registered clinical pharmacist. In 2026, the Royal Melbourne Hospital will offer 8 government funded intern positions.
The Royal Melbourne Hospital supports the Monash University Intern Foundation (IFP) Program to recognise workplace learning.
The RMH Intern Training Program
Supervised practice & hours
The RMH intern program typically commences in early January. The regular weekday hours are 8:30am – 5:15pm Monday to Friday. Some rotations may require that you start earlier or later to align with that of your supervisor. You will be rostered to our extended hours dispensary service for 1 week during the program.
As per award wages, interns are entitled to an Accrued Day Off (ADO) approximately one day in every 4 weeks. These are accounted for in your rostering to ensure that these are distributed evenly across the year. You are also strongly encouraged to apply for one week of annual leave to ensure you can decompress before the exam period.
Interns will also be allocated to the weekend & public holiday roster at an approximate frequency of 1 x 8 hour shift every four weeks, and some public holidays. Intern Pharmacists primarily assist with handing out discharges and providing discharge counselling. The weekend hours are in addition to normal working hours and are paid as overtime. These overtime hours are handy and contribute to the total number of supervised practice hours, thereby potentially achieving the minimum supervised practice hours sooner than you otherwise would.
Orientation
Onboarding and orientation to the Pharmacy Department and the Royal Melbourne Hospital takes place in the first week of your internship. The orientation checklist is incorporated into your rotations to ensure development of essential skills in the basic clinical pharmacy processes, whilst also becoming familiar with the workplace environment. Orientation is led by the Workforce Development team members and uses an adult learning approach, including a blend of self-directed learning, online modules, case-based learning and practical sessions in pairs on the ward.
Rotation checklists
Each rotation is guided by a checklist that outlines the goals for each rotation and interns are encouraged to contribute to their learning plans and goals as part of the checklist. The checklist also ensures you receive regular verbal and documented feedback. In addition, intern progress is guided by ongoing and regular in-the-moment feedback conversations. Entrustable Professional Activities (EPA) are used to provide a practical indicator of the interns’ progress to independent practice and registration.
Milestone meetings
At a minimum, the AHPRA preceptor will meet each intern for a formal progress discussion at 13 weeks, 26 weeks and at the conclusion of the intern year or earlier whenever the intern is ready for registration.
Dispensary & manufacturing rotations
Dispensing is considered a core pharmacist’ skill. Thus dispensary rotations (8 weeks) are distributed across the training program. A 1 week manufacturing rotation is rostered to meet the Pharmacy Board’s compounding requirements and includes the opportunity to learn about the pharmacists’ outside of cabinet role is integrated into the manufacturing program.
Quality rotations
Interns are allocated to a (4 week) project rotation, and a (2 week) medicines information rotation. A medication safety activity is integrated into the research rotation as a separate activity from the research project.
Clinical Rotations
Most intern rotations are based at City Campus. Clinical rotations vary between 2 to 6 weeks depending on the learning objectives of the rotations. Rotations for the purposes of exposure are for 2 weeks, and core clinical rotations increase from 4 weeks, up to 6 weeks in the latter part of the year. Approximately 70% of the intern year is allocated to clinical rotations.
Core clinical rotations include:
- Cardiology OR Neurology
- General Medicine
- General Surgery, including theatres/peri-operative medicine
- Aged Care
Core exposure rotations include:
- Emergency Medicine
- Renal Medicine
- Mental Health
Possible elective rotation include:
- Gastroenterology/inflammatory bowel diseases outpatient clinic
- Cardiothoracic Surgery
- Neurosurgery
- Intensive Care Unit
- Endocrinology
- Infectious Diseases
- Haematology/Bone Marrow Transplant
We also collaborate with our Parkville Precinct partners to offer intern exchange opportunities:
- Peter MacCallum Exchange (oncology)
- Royal Women’s Hospital Exchange (antenatal care unit)
Supporting our Interns
Mentors
Interns are paired with their own mentor; an early career pharmacist who has completed their intern year within the last three years. Mentors provide invaluable support and insight throughout the year, drawing on their knowledge and own recent experiences. They help navigate the intern year, provide advice, guidance and help to develop & test interns’ knowledge and skills. Mentors will also assist with providing Exam Practice in the lead up to the Pharmacy Board Oral exam.
Tutorial Programs
Our tailored Intern Education program consists clinical tutorials and primary healthcare tutorials.
Clinical tutorials are scheduled once each week and our expert clinical pharmacists present in a topic of their interest. There are six selected topics where the interns across the Parkville Precinct combine, to tap into experts in their field (cancer treatments and women’s health).
Primary healthcare sessions (OTC) are facilitated by interns once a week with each intern presenting on two or three topics throughout the year. The timetable is coordinated around the intern training programs (ITP/IFP) to ensure you have adequate knowledge to comfortably meet the necessary assessment requirements. A senior pharmacist is allocated to supervise those tutorials to share insights as needed.
Ward visits
Workforce development team members will be allocated to conduct regular ward visits to provide interns with dedicated education time during clinical rotations. This ensures that interns receive specific feedback and are progressing as anticipated throughout the year, in addition to the usual supports from the day to day supervisor. More time can be arranged for interns on an individual basis as needed or desired.
Exam preparation & revision
Our department hosts Law Study Afternoons to support interns’ exam preparations. Mentors will drop in to facilitate some teaching to ensure you have a good overview on this vast area of study. Learning together in a team environment helps to achieve a sense of accountability to each other and incorporates a social element into the study.
We also integrate exam revision sessions into the weekly tutorial program. Revision topics are a balance of legal/ethical practice and primary health care.
In preparation for the Pharmacy Board Oral Examination, we support up to 5 full practice exams during working hours, of which at least 2 will be conducted with senior pharmacists. We encourage interns to engage with their mentors, peers and colleagues to support further exam practice.
Contact us
Please don’t hesitate to direct any general enquiries about the RMH Pharmacy Intern Training Program to:
Workforce Development Pharmacists – Rhiannon Froude, Jenny Lau & Viki Lui
Intern positions
8 total (DHHS funded)