ACCP’s Member Spotlight serves to highlight and provide visibility to ACCP members with regards to their career path, contributions, and experience with ACCP.
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March 2023
Irwin
Adriane N. Irwin, Pharm.D., M.S., FCCP, BCACP, CDCES, is an associate professor (clinical) at the Oregon State University (OSU) College of Pharmacy, where she also serves as chair of the Department of Pharmacy Practice. Irwin earned her Pharm.D. degree from the University of New Mexico College of Pharmacy in 2010 and then completed a PGY1 residency at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. She proceeded to do a research fellowship in ambulatory care and pharmacy practice–based research with Kaiser Permanente Colorado. After practicing as an ambulatory care pharmacist in a rural health center for 7 years, Irwin transitioned to Salem Health Hospitals & Clinics, where she currently provides data analytic support to department initiatives primarily focused on quality and medication safety.
Outside her clinical and administrative responsibilities, Irwin maintains an active research program focused on safe practices for opioid prescribing and improving care for persons with substance use disorder. Her work has been funded by multiple organizations, and she has contributed over 50 peer-reviewed publications to the literature. Finally, she is the pharmacist representative to the Oregon Health Authority Health Evidence Review Commission, which is charged with prioritizing spending for the state’s Medicaid program using evidence-based practices.
Irwin started with a traditional ambulatory care practice in a rural setting; however, she continually found herself gravitating to opportunities that influence care and outcomes on a system level. This ultimately led to her decision to step away from direct patient care. She saw the value that data can bring to a health system and evolved this interest into the clinical service component of her academic position. Reflecting on her path today, she realizes it is somewhat nontraditional and unique to have the opportunity to influence health systems on a greater scale. However, she sees the value in taking “the road less traveled” and advises her trainees to do the same. For Irwin, if a path does not currently exist, it can be forged; hence, it is always important to be flexible and open to new opportunities and to follow one’s passions.
An initiative she is particularly proud of is the Medicare counseling service built in her previous rural ambulatory care practice site. This was an underserved area, where patients had substantial challenges with Medicaid to Medicare transitions. As a result, Irwin became a certified Medicare counselor with the Oregon Senior & Disability Services and provided free Medicare counseling in the community. The ability to help patients and community members make better-informed decisions on their insurance coverage and navigate financial assistance programs was transformative for many in that community. This experience left a profound impression on her to this day, and she still volunteers regularly as a Medicare counselor. She also teaches a course on the U.S. health care system, where she integrates cases on navigating Medicare insurance. These cases are inspired by situations encountered as a Medicare counselor and often focus on how structural issues within our health care system create and perpetuate inequities.
Irwin also values advocacy and building on the success of past leaders. She has served as president for one of Oregon’s state pharmacy associations and has actively addressed legislative issues, particularly around the dynamics affecting community pharmacy. She advises that active membership in at least one state and one national organization is important. Pharmacy practice is heavily regulated at the state level, so she recommends that those hoping to increase their advocacy efforts begin by understanding the issues in their state and connecting with their local elected officials because it helps leaders to hear from their constituents on important issues.
ACCP is one of Irwin’s professional homes. She appreciates how ACCP brings together students, practitioners, and researchers who are interested in a wide range of clinical areas. Over her career, her involvement has evolved from the Ambulatory Care Practice and Research Network (PRN) to include the Clinical Administration PRN (chair-elect), Health Outcomes PRN, and Community-Based PRN. She is also chair of the ACCP Clinical Practice Affairs Committee this year. She particularly enjoys the ability to quickly network and connect with others who have similar interests within ACCP. In addition to her own involvement with ACCP, she is the faculty adviser for the ACCP student chapter at OSU and supports student engagement in the ACCP Clinical Research Challenge. She chooses to give her time and energy to ACCP because the organization has created a passionate community striving to achieve the same goals. Involvement helps her feel part of the pharmacy community and professionally fulfilled.
In addition to her professional pursuits, Irwin has been an avid rock climber for 20 years. She began climbing even before its recently gained popularity and, over the years, has climbed in Mexico, Europe, and Southeast Asia.
2022 ACCP Member Spotlight
October 2022
Madison Irwin, Pharm.D., BCPS, is a clinical and translational sciences postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan College of Pharmacy. She graduated with a B.S. degree in biology from the University of Dayton in 2015 and a Pharm.D. degree from the Ohio State University College of Pharmacy in 2019. She subsequently completed PGY1 pharmacy practice and PGY2 pain management and palliative care residencies at University of Michigan Health (UMH). Irwin is now in her second year of fellowship under the supervision of Dr. Michael Smith at the University of Michigan College of Pharmacy.
Irwin divides job responsibilities between research, direct patient care, and teaching. Her research interests center on optimizing insomnia management in vulnerable populations, including older adults and palliative care patients, and expanding innovative models of clinical pharmacy practice. During her first year of fellowship, she obtained funding for her own work and significantly contributed to other successful grant applications led by Dr. Smith. She practices as an ambulatory palliative care pharmacist, providing support to UMH outpatient palliative care clinics through a partnership with the institution’s Pharmacy Innovations & Partnerships group. Through collaboration with ambulatory palliative care providers, Irwin and Smith have grown outpatient palliative care pharmacy services as well as implemented transitions-of-care services for palliative care patients in the health system. As an educator, Irwin serves as a preceptor for pharmacy residents on research and clinical rotations. At the college, she teaches and coordinates multiple courses, including a required experiential course for third-year pharmacy students and pain management electives offered to undergraduate and professional students.
Irwin developed an interest in clinical pharmacy as a career during her sophomore year of college. Her aspirations as a freshman in college included a career as a neuroscientist; however, these plans evolved into an interest in a pharmacy career after taking organic chemistry her sophomore year. As she progressed through school and prepared to apply to pharmacy school, she came to appreciate the many paths, including those based in academia, that were available to her as a pharmacist. She became interested in palliative care during her first year of residency. Although she finds many practice areas in pharmacy interesting, palliative care pharmacy allows her to center on patients and their families and is a much-needed, ever-growing area of pharmacy practice. Her overarching career goal has always been to find a job that she loves on the best of days and can still find meaningful on the worst of days. She is thankful for a practice area and career path that allow her to achieve this goal.
Irwin’s mentors have been some of the most influential forces in her career. Within the pharmacy world, Dr. Molly Thompson encouraged Irwin’s early interest in clinical research as a student pharmacist at the Ohio State University College of Pharmacy. Irwin credits the influence of Dr. Kyle Quirk for her decision to explore palliative care pharmacy during her first year of residency. Dr. Kate Starosta has taught her invaluable lessons about mentorship and leadership. Finally, as mentioned earlier, she owes much in her career so far to Dr. Michael Smith. She has grown immensely as a clinician, researcher, and educator under his tutelage. He has advocated for her from day 1 as his mentee and, in doing so, taught her to advocate for herself and her patients. Due in no small part to all of those mentioned, she firmly believes in high-quality mentorship as a tool to improve health care by advancing clinical pharmacy practice.
In her clinical responsibilities, Irwin encounters complex health challenges. It is important to her that her patients recognize that medications are only one of the tools used to manage their symptoms. To put this into practice, she needs to be mindful of all treatment options, both pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic. Building relationships with interprofessional team members and realizing the various patient resources offered within her organization allow her to connect patients with health care professionals across disciplines to optimize patient care.
With respect to advocacy, Irwin recognizes that getting involved can be daunting, especially for trainees. She believes a good place to start is by tapping into the advocacy efforts of professional organizations. Most organizations outline ways to get involved, including writing letters, joining advocacy committees, and spreading the word about different legislative efforts through social media. She believes it important that all pharmacists engage in these very intentional, direct, legislative advocacy efforts. However, she recognizes that other activities like health services or implementation science research, local patient and health care professional education about pharmacist roles, and community outreach also play a vital role in advancing clinical pharmacy practice.
Finally, Irwin’s advice to other ACCP trainees is to surround themselves with colleagues who challenge them. She says that being told you are doing “a good job” is nice but that the most valuable feedback pushes you to grow. Find those who respect you enough to provide meaningful feedback, she says, even if it is sometimes hard to hear, and hang onto them. They will become invaluable mentors and sometimes friends.
August 2022
Khalid Eljaaly, Pharm.D., M.S., FCCP, BCPS, BCIDP, graduated with a Pharm.D. degree from King Abdulaziz University (KAU) in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. He completed an ASHP-accredited PGY2 infectious disease (ID) pharmacy residency at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, a Harvard Medical School–affiliated hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. He then went on to complete an ID/antibiotic stewardship pharmacy postdoctoral fellowship and an M.S. degree in clinical translational science at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
Eljaaly is currently an associate professor in the college of pharmacy and head of the Health Interprofessional Research Branch in the university vice presidency for development at KAU. He is a consultant ID pharmacist and ID pharmacy residency program director at KAU hospital. He was elected as the first chair of the ID Pharmacy Specialty Network (PSN) of the Saudi Society of Clinical Pharmacy (SSCP). Eljaaly also serves as an honorary research fellow in the college of pharmacy at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
Eljaaly has enjoyed attending and presenting posters at ACCP conferences in addition to participating in the networking and educational opportunities in the ACCP Infectious Diseases (ID) PRN group. He has served as an active member of the ID PRN Social Media Committee for 3 years and was an administrator of the PRN’s Facebook page. He then served on the ACCP Research Affairs Committee. Currently, he is serving on the PRN’s Awards Committee and the Programming Committee of the 2022 ACCP Global Conference on Clinical Pharmacy. At the Global Conference, Eljaaly will moderate the session titled “Global Antimicrobial Stewardship Forum: Current Controversies and Future Pathways.” He is currently a mentor in the ACCP ID PRN/Society of Infectious Diseases Pharmacists Research Mentorship Program. Eljaaly cowrote a paper titled “Global Contributions of Pharmacists During the COVID-19 Pandemic,” led by Debra Goff, which won the 2021 Editor’s Choice Award for the Journal of American College of Clinical Pharmacy (JACCP).
Eljaaly’s interest in clinical pharmacy and ID pharmacotherapy began during pharmacy school. He found the ID pharmacy topics challenging; however, his true passion for ID pharmacy came after investing more time and effort to master the area during his internship and residency years. With time, he specifically became interested in antimicrobial stewardship and global infectious diseases.
Eljaaly believes that advocacy is highly important for pharmacists. “Through advocacy, we can understand the processes and improve our leadership skills,” he states, adding that “advocacy includes communicating with local, national, and international representatives.” Eljaaly feels strongly that pharmacists should specifically advocate for their expanded scope of practice as health care providers. When Eljaaly was a student, clinical pharmacy was far less advanced in Saudi Arabia than it is today. Therefore, he traveled to the United States, where clinical pharmacy was established, so that he could advocate for expanding clinical pharmacy in Saudi Arabia and globally.
Eljaaly was a member of the Saudi Antibiotic Stewardship Implementation Team. He remembers a letter sent from the national committee to recommend the enforcement of prohibiting antimicrobial dispensing without a prescription. Many people pushed and advocated for this. Recently, it was approved that a prescription is now required to dispense antimicrobials in Saudi Arabia. Eljaaly is very pleased about the establishment of SSCP because it will advocate for growth and on behalf of the profession in Saudi Arabia. He expects the SSCP ID PSN will advocate well for the profession and ID field in Saudi Arabia, as does the ACCP ID PRN in the United States.
Eljaaly was invited by the International Pharmaceutical Federation as one of three antimicrobial resistance advocates for the Eastern Mediterranean region. In 2021, he received the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America International Scholarship Award for his contribution to infection prevention and antibiotic stewardship. This was the first time a pharmacist had been a recipient of this annual award, which began in 2007. Eljaaly considers research an important area of focus for advocacy efforts for the profession and antibiotic stewardship. His PGY1 residency project regarding a new antibiotic stewardship intervention won the ASHP Foundation Award for Innovation in Pharmacy Practice. Eljaaly also believes that social media should be targeted, and he is an antimicrobial stewardship advocate through frequent posts on his verified Twitter account “Antibiotic Tweets” @khalideljaaly.
People would be surprised to learn that both Eljaaly’s father and aunt died the same year with multidrug-resistant gram-negative bacteria (MDR-GNB). As a pharmacist and antibiotic steward, Eljaaly knows all pharmacists can protect people from MDR-GNB by reducing the emergence of resistance and optimizing antimicrobial therapy. He strongly believes in what Alexander Fleming said in 1945:
The thoughtless person playing with penicillin treatment is morally responsible for the death of the man who finally succumbs to infection with the penicillin-resistant organism. I hope the evil can be averted.
June 2022
Margie E. Snyder, Pharm.D., MPH, FCCP, FAPhA, completed her Pharm.D. degree, PGY1 community pharmacy residency, MPH degree, and community practice research fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh. She currently serves as an associate professor of pharmacy practice at the Purdue University College of Pharmacy and has been the project management preceptor for Purdue-affiliated PGY1 community pharmacy residency programs since 2011. Through her efforts focused on community pharmacist practice advancement, Snyder has received numerous research grants, with total extramural funding support to date of $2.5 million as a principal investigator. Her research is routinely multidisciplinary because of its innovative nature and the complex challenges it is trying to address, such as medication adherence/optimization.
Snyder’s expertise is in collaborating with practice-based research networks (PBRNs) and applying qualitative and mixed-methods research. She founded and currently directs a community pharmacy PBRN (Rx-SafeNet). In 2021, she was appointed a standing member to the NIH Organization and Delivery of Health Services study section for a 4-year term. She has also served as an ad hoc reviewer on several study sections for the NIH and AHRQ.
Snyder has been active in ACCP for over 10 years and was recognized as a Fellow in 2017. Her roles past and present include serving as the chair of the ACCP PBRN Community Advisory Panel and the Health Outcomes PRN, the founding chair of the Community-Based PRN, and a long-time faculty member of the Research and Scholarship Academy. Snyder also founded and directs an ACCP peer-reviewed research fellowship. In 2016, she was honored with the American Pharmacists Association Community Pharmacy Residency Excellence in Precepting Award and, in 2018, received the inaugural Mentor of the Year Award from the Department of Pharmacy Practice at Purdue.
Snyder credits three University of Pittsburgh faculty for making the greatest impact on her career: the late Dr. Scott Drab, who helped Snyder realize pharmacy was the right path for her; Dr. Melissa Somma McGivney, whose passion for and ability to lead others in the advancement of community pharmacy practice continues to inspire Snyder; and Dr. Randy Smith, who has encouraged Snyder to always think big and step outside her comfort zone. As a mentor, Snyder recognizes she has a responsibility to use her voice and place of privilege to empower and advocate for others. She aspires to foster transparency and communication in all settings and works to be an approachable figure.
Snyder’s advice to other ACCP members is to have confidence in themselves and put themselves out there. She reminds members that ACCP is a great place to get started because it offers many opportunities to get involved, including PRNs, student chapters, and professional development programs.
Outside pharmacy, Snyder enjoys distance running, which she began later in life, and hopes to qualify for each of the Abbott World Marathon Majors hosted in the United States. She is looking forward to ramping up her training soon to prepare for the Chicago October 2022 race.
April 2022
Andrew Webb, Pharm.D., BCCCP, is a neurocritical care clinical pharmacist at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). Webb earned his Pharm.D. degree at the University of Rhode Island and completed his PGY1 residency training at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and his PGY2 training in critical care at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, Oregon. His clinical and research interests include traumatic brain injury, infectious diseases, and optimizing the medical management of neurocritically ill patients. His current research focuses on quantifying risk and prognostic factors for poor outcomes after a traumatic brain injury. In addition to his practice in the neurocritical care unit at MGH, Webb serves as a PGY1 and PGY2 neurocritical care preceptor. He is also an active member of the Neurocritical Care Society and serves on the Research Committee of the ACCP Critical Care PRN.
Webb’s interest in neurology began during pharmacy school. Originally, he believed his neurology interest would lead him to a career in ambulatory care clinical pharmacy. However, he discovered his love for critical care after a medical ICU rotation as an APPE student. As a result, Webb’s interest in neurology continued to grow and matched well with his newfound interest in critical care. His interest in neurocritically ill patients was solidified after his first experience in a neuro-ICU.
Webb has been an active member of ACCP throughout his pharmacy career. As a student, he used the ACCP CV and Letter of Intent review services, in addition to the Emerge from the Crowd session at the Annual Meeting. These services helped him become a successful residency candidate. As a resident, Webb joined PRN groups to take advantage of the professional networking and educational materials offered by ACCP. Now, as a practitioner, he uses the CCSAPs and the ACCP Annual Meeting to stay up to date with the latest practice guidelines.
Outside pharmacy, Webb hopes to travel internationally in the future, with the goal of visiting all seven continents. Pharmacy school and residency have not allowed him to travel much, though he has often used Google Earth to daydream about where he wants to visit someday. He is excited about the prospect of seeing the world, trying different cuisines, and becoming immersed in local cultures.
February 2022
Brian Hemstreet, Pharm.D., FCCP, BCPS, received both his B.S. degree in pharmacy and his Pharm.D. degree from the Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences in Albany, New York. He then completed residencies in pharmacy practice and adult internal medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, South Carolina. From 2000 to 2013, he was a member of the faculty at the University of Colorado Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. During this time, he maintained a clinical practice as a member of an interdisciplinary inpatient adult medicine team at the University of Colorado Hospital in Aurora, Colorado. From 2008 to 2013, he also directed the school’s Pharmaceutical Care Learning Center, an active learning laboratory used to simulate and assess clinical pharmacy practice scenarios. In January 2014, he then joined the faculty at the Regis University School of Pharmacy, where he served as assistant dean for student affairs until June 2018. The following month, he rejoined the faculty at Skaggs School of Pharmacy, where he currently serves as professor and associate dean for student affairs.
Hemstreet has always been passionate about the sciences and helping others. While growing up in rural Upstate New York, he had draft horses and lived in a farming community, with plans to pursue veterinary medicine. However, his plans changed when he shadowed an older cousin in a community pharmacy and learned of the pharmacist’s role on the health care team. Later, as a student pharmacist, he became passionate about clinical pharmacy in the acute care setting, as well as teaching after serving as a teaching assistant for the school’s pharmaceutics course. During residency, he focused on inpatient adult medicine, which ultimately led to his first position as a clinical faculty member at the University of Colorado.
Now as associate dean for student affairs, Hemstreet oversees the Office of Student Services at the Skaggs School of Pharmacy. The office includes nine staff members devoted to a variety of areas, including outreach and recruitment, admissions, career services, student wellness, and student academic and professional support. He works extensively with the school’s student leadership and oversees the school’s student council and other student organizations. In addition, he collaborates with the other health care training programs at the Anschutz Medical Campus on various interprofessional initiatives. Moreover, he continues to teach in the area of GI therapeutics in the school’s on-campus and online programs.
Hemstreet uses several strategies to create an inclusive and cohesive work environment. For instance, he ensures every member of the team clearly understands their roles and responsibilities and how their efforts fit into the goals of the team. Furthermore, he ensures that team members are familiar with other team member roles, thus allowing everyone to know the individuals they can go to for specific questions and limiting confusion. Meeting with his team regularly one-on-one and as part of a group promotes good lines of communication and allows for frequent team building and development. Team members always have permission to speak constructively about concerns and to seek help from the team in managing any challenging situation that might arise.
Hemstreet also sees advocacy as an often-overlooked, intimidating, but important area to get involved with.
I believe getting directly involved in local advocacy efforts is a great way to gain some experience and learn about the processes involved. In most instances, your local or state pharmacy association is involved with legislative efforts that impact various aspects of pharmacy practice.
He highlights multiple ways to get involved in advocacy, including writing letters to your local and national representatives, participating in your state’s Legislative Day to speak directly with legislators on current issues, and testifying on state boards on behalf of the profession. Moreover,
If you can couple these efforts with an area of pharmacy that you are passionate about, that only makes the outcomes more rewarding. Overall, any form of advocacy that directly showcases the impact that pharmacists have on patient care serves the greater good of the profession.
Besides advocating for the profession and supporting pharmacy students, Hemstreet can be seen riding his bicycle throughout the Denver area with his Masters Cycling Team or skiing the slopes with his two high school–aged children. Since the COVID pandemic began, he has also been learning to play the guitar. What’s more, he and his wife share a love of science fiction, as evidenced by the names of their dogs: Riddick and Ripley.
Hemstreet’s advice to trainees and pharmacists is “to get involved early with ACCP organizational service,” which, he notes, “may be as simple as volunteering for a committee, serving as a mentor to others, or contributing to a PRN newsletter or social media post.” Showing the willingness to serve “will often lead to other larger opportunities within the organization.” Also, he writes,
Attend national meetings. Networking at meetings is an invaluable aspect of participating in national organizations and has benefited me greatly in building long-lasting relationships with colleagues across the country and around the world.
2021 ACCP Member Spotlight
November 2021
John Allen, Pharm.D., is the inaugural associate dean for the University of Florida (UF) Office of Diversity, Inclusion, and Health Equity (DIHE) and a clinical associate professor at the UF College of Pharmacy. A native of Philadelphia, Allen joined UF in 2018. His professional areas of interest include medication use disparities, faculty and student diversity efforts, and strategies to optimize antibiotic use in patients with sepsis, and was the Founding Chair of the ACCP Health Equity Practice Research Network (PRN).
Allen graduated with his Pharm.D. degree from Florida A&M University (FAMU) in Tallahassee, Florida. He then completed multiple postgraduate residency training programs at Tampa General Hospital, specializing in critical care pharmacotherapy under the tutelage of Dr. Earnest Alexander. Allen is a dual board-certified pharmacist in critical care and pharmacotherapy as well as an elected Fellow of both the American College of Clinical Pharmacy and the American College of Critical Care Medicine.
In his current role, Allen leads the UF College of Pharmacy in becoming a recognized national leader in DIHE. Allen’s work centers on four pillars: (1) recruitment and retention of a diverse student body and workforce, (2) cultivation of an inclusive environment where everyone is respected and valued, (3) development of culturally intelligent pharmacy professionals to meet the needs of a diverse patient population, and (4) facilitation of novel research and practices to eliminate health disparities and promote health equity. Allen works with a team of faculty, staff, and students dedicated to these goals using evidence-based approaches and illustrating that the pursuits of DIHE excellence and institutional excellence are interdependent and achievable goals. Allen has received NIH funding as a coinvestigator for the tri-university U54 partnership between UF, FAMU, and the University of Southern California Cancer Research, Education, and Engagement (CaRE2) Health Equity Center, where he leads UF’s efforts on the Research Education Core. Before his current role, Allen was a trauma critical care pharmacist, health-system pharmacy administrator, researcher, and pharmacy educator.
Allen believes that the important work of DIHE is an “everyone” responsibility and does not rest on one person or one office. Because of this belief, the UF Office of DIHE interfaces with internal and external parties to make progress. The DIHE team works with key stakeholders to develop innovative strategies to achieve shared goals. The Office of DIHE strives to cultivate an environment that is grounded in collaboration, respect, and excellence. The team has worked to normalize respectful discussions that acknowledge and honor differences but also embrace commonalities.
In addition, UF endeavors to have a student body that reflects the community it serves. Underrepresented minority student enrollment at UF is 41%, which is similar to the state’s demographics. Moreover, to prepare its students to care for diverse patient populations and promote health equity, UF has increased discussions within the curriculum on the recognition of health disparities and root causes, including social and structural determinants of health, the pharmacist’s role in reducing disparities, and available resources to assist patients with social needs. Combined, these activities illustrate a commitment to promoting health equity.
As an African American man raised in inner-city Philadelphia, Allen is familiar with the challenges often faced by people from underserved communities. For him and those who grow up in medically underserved communities, health disparities are a vivid reality, and these experiences have shaped his professional identity. In the community where he was raised, life expectancy is 10 years less than in the more affluent community just 2 miles away. Allen believes that, based purely on statistics, his professional story should not be possible. However, he has been successful because of the lessons instilled by his parents, mentors, and community elders. He believes he has an obligation and responsibility to be a role model for trainees and junior colleagues. He strives to use his position of influence to advocate for increased pathways to becoming a clinical pharmacist and be a positive influence on future pharmacists to reduce health disparities in their own practice settings.
The COVID-19 pandemic has made evident many longstanding factors that contribute to health disparities in communities of color, including access to care, health literacy, and low levels of trust in the health care system. Allen felt honored to participate on a COVID-19 Vaccine Access Task Force with leaders from various disciplines, including civic, faith, and health-system leaders, to develop strategies for enhancing access to the COVID vaccine and delivery methods. Task force members included leaders from rural and urban settings to ensure all communities had access to vaccination and accurate information on the associated benefits. As the only pharmacist on the task force, Allen found it humbling to see people from all walks of life come together to work toward a common purpose and build trust within their communities, and he hopes the goodwill gained from their partnership can foster long-lasting relationships to combat chronic disease states with known disparities such as hypertension, diabetes, and COPD.
For Allen, one of the most important actions of the pharmacy profession in efforts to reduce the impact of health disparities is to increase diversity within the pharmacy workforce. Clinical pharmacists are well positioned to help reduce the health disparities present in multiple specialties. Evidence notes that racially concordant interactions between patients and providers are associated with better patient communication, which has several theoretical downstream benefits. Data on racial concordance and clinical outcomes are in their infancy, but emerging data such as improved infant mortality indicate the potential clinical benefit. More research is needed to determine how clinical pharmacists can create better and more equitable patient outcomes across specialties.
September 2021
Joanna Ferraro, Pharm.D., BCACP, currently serves as the director of pharmacy at the Cass Lake Indian Health Service in Cass Lake, Minnesota. She earned her Pharm.D. degree from the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities in 2004 and is currently working toward an MBA in rural health care from the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth, Minnesota. She was introduced to federal pharmacy practice, the Indian Health Service (IHS), and the United States Public Health Service (USPHS) as a pharmacy student. These experiences, coupled with her interests in promoting public health and providing care in underserved communities, encouraged her to begin her pharmacy career with the USPHS as a staff pharmacist working with the IHS on the Leech Lake Indian Reservation in Northern Minnesota. Since starting with the IHS, she has served in various roles, including clinical pharmacist, assistant pharmacy director, and pharmacy director.
Captain Ferraro strives to improve patient health outcomes through clinical pharmacy practice and relationship building. Her current practice, like many rural practices, is often affected by long-standing provider vacancies that limit patient access to care. Ferraro realizes the value of clinical pharmacy as a resource to support providers working through these situations to increase patient access to health care. She has worked to develop a clinical pharmacy practice where clinical pharmacists are integrated into multidisciplinary primary care teams providing chronic disease state management through patient-centered care models that continue to expand in scope of practice, supporting public health initiatives and helping patients achieve better health.
Providing specialty care in an otherwise underserved rural community is particularly challenging. Ferraro continues to work toward maximizing resources and thinking outside the box to bring vital health care resources to the community she serves. As director of pharmacy, building partnerships has been a major focus in creating solutions that improve access to care for her patients. She has worked to build collaborations with larger health care systems to expand access to care and close some of the gaps in care the community currently faces. These collaborations provide much-needed surgical consults and bring in support for nephrology and OB/GYN services. She has also established telebehavioral health services and hired a shared audiologist. She has facilitated the development of an interprofessional hepatitis C treatment program, where pharmacists present patient cases to GI or ID specialists through Project ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes) and gain medication access for patients through existing patient assistance programs.
Project ECHO is a learning practice model that revolutionizes medical education and access to specialty consultation. Project ECHO exponentially increases health workforce capacity to provide best practice specialty care and reduce health disparities. At the heart of the ECHO model are its hub-and-spoke knowledge-sharing networks. Led by expert teams at the hub, Project ECHO uses videoconferencing to conduct virtual clinics with community providers who are often thousands of miles away. In this way, primary care physicians, nurses, and other clinicians learn to provide state-of-the-art specialty care to patients in their communities.
Ferraro feels strongly that establishing multidisciplinary care teams to partner with the patient through patient-centered care models is an essential aspect of care in these settings in order to meet patient needs in nontraditional ways. These teams and collaborations, where members practice at the top of their license, provide more efficient and accessible patient care. Health care that focuses on preventing and identifying the resources that can most influence the social determinants of health is critical, especially in rural, underserved communities. Moreover, addressing the basic social determinants of health (housing, food, safety, employment) can positively affect overall health outcomes.
One strategy to reduce health disparities, according to Ferraro, is to increase awareness of the health disparities that affect the community:
I seek opportunities to respectfully bring awareness to the issues that impact the community I serve so that it may bring about conversations in others. I cannot speak for the community, but I can share what I know to address disparities and the impacts these disparities have on patient outcomes.
July 2021
Joseph M. LaRochelle, Pharm.D., FCCP, BCPPS, is the Coleman Endowed Professor of Pharmacy Practice and vice chair of the Division of Clinical and Administrative Sciences at Xavier University of Louisiana. He serves as a clinical professor of pediatrics at the Louisiana State University New Orleans School of Medicine and practices as a clinical specialist in the pediatric ICU at Children’s Hospital of New Orleans. He earned his Pharm.D. degree from the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy in Baltimore, Maryland, followed by a pharmacy practice residency at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and a PGY2 residency in pediatrics at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy and the University of Maryland Medical System Hospital for Women and Children in Baltimore, Maryland. In addition, he completed a Docere fellowship in health professions education at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in New Orleans.
As a Fellow of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy (ACCP), LaRochelle is active on many committees. He serves as co-editor of the Pediatric Pharmacy Preparatory Review and Recertification Course and is past chair of the Pediatrics PRN. He has received awards for his service to the profession, including the Selfless Servant award from the Phi Delta Chi pharmacy fraternity and the Chair’s Award from ACCP’s Pediatrics PRN. LaRochelle has also attained board certification as a pediatric pharmacy specialist.
Through his experience as a pharmacy technician at a trauma center, LaRochelle realized the impact of pharmacy on direct patient care. Further, he realized that his impact on patients would be broadened if he became a pharmacist. His interests grew to include pediatrics, trauma, emergency medicine, and critical care. During his advanced practice rotation in the pediatric ICU, he was drawn to caring for this critically ill patient population and knew this would be the career path that would satisfy his professional interests.
LaRochelle has considered ACCP his professional home for his entire career and realized the value of becoming involved early on. ACCP played a significant role in his own mentorship as a new practitioner and in his development throughout his career. Beginning with his service on PRN committees, he has worked alongside colleagues to develop as a new practitioner and leader, eventually becoming chair of the Pediatrics PRN. LaRochelle describes ACCP as an organization that builds people up to take on new roles throughout their career. He appreciates the professional network he has created through ACCP and, more importantly, the friendships he has made.
LaRochelle’s advice to new practitioners is simply to “SAY YES.” Regardless of the nature of an opportunity or one’s level of comfort, all experiences offer learning and growth. Without practicing this himself, LaRochelle feels he wouldn’t be where he is today. In fact, if he could go back in time, he would have said yes to ACCP earlier in his own career and become involved as a student pharmacist.
Personally, LaRochelle says yes to opportunities to engage with his community and lend his clinical expertise. He serves as the head pharmacist for the Louisiana Lions Camp, an overnight summer camp for children with disabilities. Through this, he helps children overcome the obstacles encountered with their disease so that they can realize their potential. Some of these children eventually become counselors themselves. LaRochelle’s students are also involved in this camp, and the opportunity to serve patients and students simultaneously makes it a rewarding experience that reflects his investment and impact on the population he serves.
March 2021
Madison L. Adams graduated from the University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy with a Pharm.D. degree in 2017, after which she entered the U.S. Public Health Service and pursued a PGY1 pharmacy practice residency with the Indian Health Service (IHS) at the Northern Navajo Medical Center (NNMC). Adams obtained conditional acceptance to pharmacy school as an undergraduate because she had known she wanted to pursue a career in pharmacy since high school. Her aunt had dealt with symptoms of multiple sclerosis her entire life and died of complications/sepsis when Adams was 15. She was very close to her aunt, whose death prompted Adams to learn about and understand diseases and the medications that can treat them. This became her motivation throughout pharmacy school and is ultimately why she was drawn to the area of infectious disease (ID). She became a BCPS in the fall after finishing her PGY1 residency.
After her residency, Adams transitioned into the role of clinical pharmacist at NNMC, where she works in all realms of pharmacy practice: pharmacist-run clinics, inpatient pharmacy, and outpatient pharmacy. Soon, staffing requirements had her working almost exclusively in the inpatient setting, where there was an overnight inpatient pharmacist vacancy. Because she was already mostly an inpatient provider, she moved into the overnight slot. She is also her facility’s antimicrobial stewardship program chair/pharmacist and precepts incoming PGY1 and PGY2 residents on ID rotations.
Adams was drawn to the IHS and NNMC partly because of her passion for working with underserved patient populations. During her residency, she was part of a women’s health interprofessional committee for the Shiprock Service Unit (three facilities). Since 2015, the pharmacists there have collectively been able to dispense OTC Plan B to any patient who requests it through an emergency contraception (EC) policy. However, many women in the patient population exceeded the manufacturer-recommended weight limit for Plan B, which in turn increased the risk for reduced efficacy. In contrast to Plan B, Ella is a schedule VI medication, meaning that it requires a prescription from a medical provider and that patients cannot purchase it OTC, which are often barriers to quick and efficient care. Moreover, Ella works slightly differently than Plan B for EC and is more effective in women with obesity. Adams identified this gap in optimal patient care – an area of need within the facility’s patient population – and created an updated EC policy whereby pharmacists could use objective data and perform a questionnaire to determine whether a patient was a better candidate for Ella or for Plan B. Ella could then be dispensed per policy under the head of OB-GYN. Indeed, Adams drafted the policy, trained over 40 pharmacists to perform the clinical assessment, created a template for the EHR to document the patient encounter, and tracked the number of hours saved based on 15-minute provider appointments. Creation of this policy has since saved the facility more than 60.0 provider contact hours while increasing access to care and advancing the clinical skills of pharmacists.
At IHS, every member of the health care team is transcending the traditional roles and norms of health care to meet the day-to-day challenges of their underserved patients in remote locations. Recently, Adams’ team admitted a woman who is over 6 weeks post-COVID diagnosis but who, because of morbid obesity from lack of access to healthy and nutritious foods, has residual hypoxia requiring oxygen. Fortunately, the patient’s small trailer is one of the few homes with electricity on the reservation where she lives; however, it was not strong enough to support the needs of her oxygen concentrator. She had therefore been without supplemental oxygen for days. She was admitted to the hospital to receive supplemental oxygen until the team could coordinate someone delivering a different setup to her remote residence.
Adams’ team also gives children multiple vaccines at a time and refills patients’ medications early because it is unknown when the children might be able to return to the facility. Every day since COVID, her team has called each patient with a positive diagnosis who went home to quarantine in order to check their pulse oximeters and oxygen requirements so that patients can be directed to return to the ED when they need care. The team has completed mass-vaccination “clinics” in the community to stop the spread of COVID and has already vaccinated thousands of patients. While working as a clinical pharmacist, Adams has impaneled patients who need more focused attention on a certain disease state (e.g., diabetes, asthma, hypertension, and seizure disorders) as well as patients deemed well enough not to have a designated care provider. This is understandably frustrating to patients, but her team addresses it with them on their first visit to the pharmacist-run clinic. She faces unique access-to-care challenges and adapts the care provided to meet the substantial needs of her patients.
January 2021
Karina Esquivel, Pharm.D., BCPS, is an inpatient clinical pharmacist in Seattle, Washington. After graduating from the University of Florida College of Pharmacy, Esquivel completed a PGY1 pharmacy practice residency at Lee Health in Fort Myers, Florida. Her interest in pharmacy began while growing up in Lima, Peru. Similar to the United States, pharmacists in Peru are often the most accessible health care providers. Esquivel learned about clinical pharmacy while shadowing inpatient pharmacists and through her involvement with the Florida Society of Health-System Pharmacists student chapter during pharmacy school. As both a student and a resident, Esquivel experienced firsthand the impact of multidisciplinary collaboration. Through these encounters, she recognized pharmacists’ unique position in optimizing patient care and outcomes, which in turn motivated her to pursue a career as an inpatient clinical pharmacist.
Esquivel feels fortunate to practice at an institution where pharmacy is deeply integrated into the health care team. She knows that developing relationships with other disciplines is important to demonstrate the value and contributions of clinical pharmacists. After completing PGY1 residency training, she began working as an overnight pharmacist, primarily from a central pharmacy. Esquivel worked as one of two pharmacists on a nightshift team that included nurses and physicians. Through her opportunity to interact with the overnight team in person, Esquivel collaborated and developed meaningful relationships with the team, which continued even when she transitioned to a day shift.
In her current position at Swedish Medical Center-Cherry Hill, Esquivel works in several inpatient areas, including the cardiac ICU, where she serves as a team leader for the department and as the cardiac ICU rotation preceptor for both pharmacy students and residents. Esquivel participates in multidisciplinary rounds and cares for post-cardiac surgery patients, including those requiring mechanical circulatory support. In addition to precepting, the complexity and the unique challenges posed by this population motivate her to further her learning and drive her practice. Esquivel is actively engaged in departmental projects, having recently completed a renal dosing protocol and provided pharmacist education for intravenous antiplatelet agents. Esquivel is a member of the campus Code Blue Committee and has provided pharmacy education for Cardiac Advanced Life Support for Surgical Patients (CALS-S) and coordinated pharmacist attendance at the simulations.
Through her involvement with pharmacy department projects, Esquivel has sought to help create resources that pharmacists can use to optimize patient care.. Education and development of these resources has allowed pharmacists to be more comfortable and better equipped to provide the most appropriate patient care when the need arises. In addition, she is involved in a resident project to develop an antibiotic dosing guide for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, which will serve as a valuable tool for pharmacists when treating these complex patients. In creating resources for her colleagues, she also helps ensure that her patients receive the care they need.
Esquivel believes that building trust and establishing mutual respect with team members create a safe and welcoming health care environment. In her role as a cardiac ICU team leader, her promotion of open communication has helped foster a collaborative environment for team members to support and encourage one another. In addition, team members are comfortable discussing feedback and sharing ideas. Esquivel feels strongly that the ability to recognize each team member’s unique perspective and value encourages honesty and respect.
2020 ACCP Member Spotlight
October 2020
Aeryana Beaudrie-Nunn is a fourth-year student pharmacist at the University of Arizona College of Pharmacy in Phoenix, where she is completing her advanced pharmacy practice experience (APPE) rotations. Her commitment to the pursuit of clinical pharmacy began before pharmacy school with her observation of pharmacists’ roles in three key settings: hospice care, emergency medicine, and solid organ transplantation. These experiences helped her realize her passion for collaborating with an interprofessional team to provide comprehensive, patient-centered care for the critically ill patient population. Beaudrie-Nunn, whose clinical interests are in critical care, emergency medicine, and infectious disease, is excited about the potential opportunity to broaden her clinical knowledge by completing a postgraduate year one (PGY1) pharmacy residency.
Beaudrie-Nunn’s professional development as a student pharmacist has largely been influenced by mentors Hanna Phan, Pharm.D., FCCP, FPPA; Brian Erstad, Pharm.D., MCCM, FCCP, FASHP, BCPS; and Terri Warholak, Ph.D., RPh, FAPhA, CPHQ. Phan, Erstad, and Warholak collectively encouraged Beaudrie-Nunn to pursue local and national pharmacy organization involvement for opportunities in professional service and personal growth. As excellent examples of pharmacy leadership and service to the profession, they directly contributed to Beaudrie-Nunn’s active student membership in ACCP.
As a student member of ACCP, Beaudrie-Nunn has had the privilege of serving on the Critical Care Practice and Research Network (PRN) Recognition Committee for the past 3 years, where she has collaborated with other committee members in recognizing critical care pharmacists for their achievements of excellence in patient care, research, and education. Her role on the Recognition Committee has allowed her to serve under excellent and engaging leadership, network with colleagues, begin developing skills for professional success, and foster an understanding of her current and future roles in advancing clinical pharmacy. Serving on the committee was such an invaluable educational experience that it inspired Beaudrie-Nunn to pursue additional opportunities for serving within ACCP. Beaudrie-Nunn has since been appointed to serve as secretary on the 2020–2021 ACCP National Student Network Advisory Committee and looks forward to partnering with her colleagues to make meaningful contributions for ACCP student members.
Beaudrie-Nunn’s advice for her student pharmacist colleagues is to pursue the various leadership, professional development, and advocacy opportunities provided by ACCP for student members. She finds in ACCP an active community of clinical pharmacy leaders who are passionate about advancing clinical pharmacy practice, research, and education. She comments that the unique opportunity to collaborate with ACCP pharmacists in these efforts and learn from their expertise inspires her in the pursuit of personal excellence.
July 2020
Ting-Ting Wu, Pharm.D., BCPS, earned her Pharm.D. degree from the University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy and subsequently completed a PGY1 pharmacy practice residency at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Presbyterian.
After her residency, Wu moved to Taiwan and is currently a critical care pharmacist at Taipei Medical University - Taipei Municipal Wanfang Hospital (WFH). She is involved in critical care clinical research and quality improvement projects and serves as a preceptor to both pharmacy students and residents. She also holds an appointment as a clinical instructor at the Taipei Medical University College of Pharmacy. Previously at WFH, Wu collaborated with other critical care pharmacists to initiate a three-phase program to help the multidisciplinary team employ the clinical practice guidelines for pain, agitation/sedation, delirium, immobility, and sleep disruption in adult patients in the ICU (PADIS guidelines). Subsequently, in cooperation with the medical staff, Wu and other pharmacists have developed and integrated several evidence-based protocols and facility-specific guidelines into ICU daily practice to facilitate change.
In September 2020, Wu will start her critical care pharmacy research fellowship and Ph.D. degree in population health at Northeastern University under John Devlin, Pharm.D., FCCP, FCCM. Her program and research will focus on pharmacologic therapy for analgesia, sedation, and delirium in critically ill patients. After completing the fellowship and Ph.D. program, Wu hopes to obtain a clinical faculty position.
Wu is an active and dedicated member of ACCP as well as the Society of Critical Care Medicine and the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists. Last year, she traveled three times from Taiwan to the United States to attend the 48th Critical Care Congress, the 2019 ACCP Annual Meeting, and the 2019 ASHP Midyear Clinical Meeting.
Wu firmly believes that studying and working in clinical pharmacies in both the United States and Taiwan have greatly influenced her throughout her career. In the United States, she has learned that postgraduate training and specialized credentialing are critical to fostering career growth and advancing the level of expertise to optimize and provide patient care. In Taiwan, she notes that pharmacy practice is evolving and that there are opportunities to expand and improve the clinical pharmacy program. She strives to advance pharmacy education and practice in Taiwan and expects the country’s pharmacy profession to move forward in the near future.
May 2020
Scott Smorra, Pharm.D., BCPS, is a clinical pharmacy specialist for investigational drug service/research at Providence Portland Medical Center. He received his Pharm.D. degree in 2003 from the University of Arizona and completed a PGY1 residency in pharmacy practice at Providence Health & Services in Portland, Oregon. He continued his profession at Providence Health & Services as a clinical pharmacist and then as a clinical specialist in internal medicine. In 2018, he transitioned into his current position.
Smorra is responsible for managing drug therapies for patients enrolled in phase I, II, and III clinical trials. His practice works with the National Cancer Institute and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) drug companies to provide patients with new immunotherapies for late-stage cancers, novel therapies for complicated neurologic conditions, and treatments for emerging infectious diseases (COVID-19). He approaches each day with excitement and enthusiasm to learn about how patients respond to a drug treatment provided by his team. “It’s very rewarding to see a new drug make it to market and to know that our pharmacy team helped contribute to the research that led to the FDA approval,” he states.
His career has largely been influenced by John E. Murphy, Pharm.D., FCCP, FASHP; Brian L. Erstad, Pharm.D., MCCM, FCCP, FASHP, BCPS; and Michael Katz, Pharm.D., all affiliated with the University of Arizona College of Pharmacy. When clinical pharmacy was just beginning to move into the mainstream, Murphy, Erstad, and Katz collectively encouraged Smorra to think like a clinician. The education and mentoring they provided during pharmacy school directly contributed to his ability to complete a PGY1 residency. Furthermore, he feels they contributed to his confidence and courage to practice as a clinical pharmacy specialist at a large, integrated health system.
Smorra is appreciative of his ACCP membership, which has allowed him to grow professionally through BCPS continuing education and stay up to date with a wide variety of clinical pharmacy topics through ACCP journals. He served as a poster mentor for resident posters during the 2018 ASHP Midyear Clinical Meeting in Anaheim, California, and continues to serve as a reviewer for ACCP’s CV review program for pharmacy students, residents, and new practitioners. In addition to pharmacy-related service, he volunteers for the Oregon Food Bank and Northwest Children’s Outreach.
On a personal level, Smorra cares deeply for his own family and enjoys slowing down and exploring the details of a picturesque view. He volunteers to help build and maintain hiking trails in Oregon and is an Oregon-based photographer who creates finely crafted landscape and nature imagery in the wilderness areas of the Pacific Northwest. His goal is not merely to document nature in a photo, but also to capture the beauty, emotions, and moods of nature. Through photography, he hopes to share some of his emotions while traveling through the wilderness. In fact, most people would be surprised to know that Smorra is an award-winning landscape and nature photographer (www.scottsmorraphotography.com). His best advice is to “treat your patients like they are your own family.” This advice guides his own clinical practice and provides him with clarity when making complex clinical decisions.
March 2020
Jessica R. Merlo, Pharm.D., BCACP, received her Pharm.D. degree from the St. Louis College of Pharmacy in 2017 and is an assistant professor of pharmacy practice at Pacific University School of Pharmacy in Hillsboro, Oregon. She served as an ambulatory care–focused PGY1 resident at the West Texas VA in Big Spring, Texas, and then completed a PGY2 residency with a focus in ambulatory care and academia with Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center in Hillsboro, Oregon, and Pacific University School of Pharmacy. Merlo first discovered her love of teaching at age 11 when she began helping kids in her neighborhood learn how to ride their bikes; she had originally considered pursuing a career in education, but decided on pharmacy instead. As a pharmacy student, Merlo completed an international rotation at Nelson Mandela University in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, and was charged with providing a lecture and case-based discussion for pharmacy technician students. This experience not only rekindled her love for teaching, but also inspired her to pursue a career in pharmacy academia. Today, Merlo combines her passion for education and pharmacy every day as a faculty member at Pacific University.
On the academic side, Merlo develops and delivers lectures to students in their final year of didactic curriculum in the neurology, pulmonology, and immunology courses. During pharmacy practice labs, she mentors students through developing patient counseling skills, documenting clinical activities, and formulating responses to drug information requests. In her clinical faculty role, Merlo serves on an interprofessional team tasked with developing a primary care clinic focused on treating patients with limited access to health care. Her clinical practice will focus on treating patients with diabetes and/or opioid use disorders. Merlo is board certified in ambulatory care and is a credentialed provider in Oregon. She is excited not only to precept pharmacy students during clinical rotations, but also to facilitate interprofessional collaboration among students of all health professions at the clinic.
Her initial background knowledge related to a pharmacist’s role was limited to several brief interactions with a local community pharmacist, and while completing her pharmacy prerequisite coursework, she was unsure whether she had made the right career decision. After beginning the professional portion of pharmacy school, Merlo shadowed another pharmacy student on a rotation at the St. Louis County Department of Health, where a woman confided in Merlo about her troubled home life, financial struggles, and several failed attempts to quit smoking. Merlo took the time to get to know her and help select a smoking cessation method on the basis of her individual needs. The woman was very grateful for the time Merlo spent with her and told Merlo that this was the first time anyone had taken the time to help her figure out which product she should select and how to use it successfully. It was a simple intervention, but Merlo left the shadowing experience feeling empowered; she had been able to incorporate clinical knowledge, motivational interviewing, and patient care all in the ambulatory care setting. At that time, she recognized her desire to work with the medically underserved in a primary care clinic.
As both a new practitioner and a faculty member, Merlo understands the competition within the residency match process and current job market. She recognizes that she would not be in her current faculty position without her resilience and her ability and willingness to learn from each of her setbacks. Merlo initially focused only on a limited geographic area and only on PGY1 residency sites associated with a pharmacy school. After several nervous interviews, she was unmatched in round 1 of the process. She then broadened her search, sought feedback on her interviewing skills, and was matched to a program in phase 2. During her post-residency job search, Merlo left several interviews feeling completely defeated. Each time, she took several days to reflect on her shortcomings and was able to approach the next interview or application with renewed energy. Merlo is thankful for the times she has stumbled because she has learned something from each situation:
Your career path will undoubtedly have twists and turns, and compromise is inevitable. [You need to] determine your “must haves” [and] be ready to be flexible with [the] other components. In the end, you may find yourself in a residency or job that is perfect for you, but incredibly different from what you originally envisioned.
Merlo contributed to the pharmacy profession as a member of the ACCP Publications Committee tasked with updating the 2016 ACCP Pharmacotherapy Didactic Curriculum Toolkit and served as a moderator for the Emerge from the Crowd: How to Be a Standout Residency Candidate program at the 2018 ACCP Annual Meeting. She is completing the ACCP Academy Research and Scholarship Certificate Program and currently serves ACCP as a member of the Task Force on Medication Access. Merlo is also an adviser for the Phi Lambda Sigma chapter at Pacific University and is a proud Kappa Psi graduate member.
January 2020
Dr. Kyle Strnad is a critical care clinical pharmacist at the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio. After earning his Pharm.D. degree at Thomas Jefferson University, he completed his PGY1 pharmacy practice residency and PGY2 critical care residency at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Strnad maintains a clinical practice setting in the cardiovascular intensive care unit at Cleveland Clinic with an emphasis on post-cardiothoracic surgical care. He cares for patients recovering from valve replacements and/or repairs, aortic repairs, coronary artery bypass grafting, pulmonary endarterectomies, and heart and lung transplants and patients requiring mechanical circulatory support. Strnad also plays an active role in precepting Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experience students and pharmacy residents.
Strnad was encouraged early on as a pharmacy student to become involved within ACCP because of support from his mentor, Dr. Cynthia Sanoski. He initially served on an ad hoc task force with well-established pharmacists and states that this experience was the catalyst for his pharmacy career. He likes to highlight the group’s eagerness to integrate his thoughts and illustrate for him a team-friendly approach. After this, he served on the ACCP National Student Network Advisory Committee as both vice chair and chair. During this experience, he had the opportunity to model the initial behaviors and experiences learned while serving on his first task force.
Strnad encourages residents and students to be curious with their learning. He acknowledges the difficulty with transitioning from the pharmacy didactic curriculum to clinical practice. He recommends that, to maximize their time with preceptors, learners talk through difficult topics and ask questions. Strnad also emphasizes the importance of becoming involved with organizations in order to network and open doors.
On a personal note, Strnad learned to fly an airplane before he learned to drive a car. As a teenager, he pursued a possible career as a commercial airline pilot. He began flying lessons when he was just 15 years old and completed his first solo flight 4 days after his 16th birthday. Strnad states: “I still laugh at the notion that ‘the sky’s the limit’ because it’s not – I’ve been there, [and] you can always keep reaching.”
2019 ACCP Member Spotlight
November 2019
Kaitlin (Katie) Rascon is a fourth-year pharmacy student at the University of Houston College of Pharmacy (UHCOP) and is expected to graduate in May 2020. Before this, she received her B.S. degree in environmental health with a minor in biochemistry from Baylor University in Waco, Texas.
Rascon has been actively involved in her local ACCP student chapter since her first professional year, holding a variety of leadership positions, including president-elect and president. With its great team, her local chapter won the National Student Chapter of the Year Award 2 years in a row. She feels that the student chapter has provided her with a platform for learning beyond the classroom and has been influential in her investigation of career paths and development as a leader.
Rascon was recently appointed to serve as a student representative on the ACCP Task Force on Transitions of Care. She is excited by the diversity of the role and the challenge of the projects she will be tasked with. She looks forward to being part of a collective voice to collaborate and advocate better patient care while advancing the future of pharmacy through the tenets of ACCP.
Rascon first became interested in pharmacy during her former career as a clinical laboratory scientist. In this role, she often interacted with pharmacists, became intrigued by the scope of their practice, and inquired about volunteering and shadowing opportunities. During one shadowing experience, she heard a patient tell the pharmacist how the pharmacist’s clinical interventions and genuine concern had saved the patient’s life. From that moment on, she knew that being a pharmacist would allow her the utmost ability to provide patient care and advocacy.
Rascon’s current interests include pursuing a residency in infectious diseases or oncology. Within each of these fields, there is tremendous opportunity to act as a patient advocate and empower patients to be proactive with their own health care needs. Some of her primary goals as a student, which she plans to continue pursuing as a clinician, have been promoting patient health and actively seeking or creating opportunities that enhance patient well-being.
While president of the ACCP student chapter, Rascon created a naloxone and opioid epidemic outreach initiative on the UHCOP campus. Student pharmacists provided educational presentations to empower the public. They educated the community about opioid addiction and misuse, addressed the stigma it creates, and provided effective strategies to recognize and react to an overdose. With this information, patients and the community can proactively promote and maintain their health to ideally aid in overdose prevention while championing appropriate medication use. Over 1 year, this initiative reached more than 1500 Houstonians.
One of Rascon’s lifelong goals is to remain an agent of change and continue to help transform communities. One day, she hopes to develop and promote socially progressive older adult living centers that incorporate innovative ideas to combat loneliness, including the provision of physical and mental stimulation. She wants to invest in holistic older adult care in which residents have interaction and freedom of choice while receiving high-quality, person-centered care from an interdisciplinary group of compassionate and devoted health care practitioners. Outside school, Rascon enjoys DIY remodeling projects and scuba diving.
September 2019
Brian Kurish, Pharm.D., is a critical care clinical pharmacist at ProMedica Toledo Hospital in Toledo, Ohio, and holds an adjunct clinical faculty appointment at the University of Michigan College of Pharmacy. Kurish earned his Pharm.D. degree at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy and completed PGY1 health systems pharmacy and PGY2 critical care residencies at the University of Michigan Health System. He has contributed to the pharmacy profession by serving 2 years on the ACCP National Student Network Advisory Committee and another 2 years on the ACCP National Resident Advisory Committee (RAC). As a RAC member of the Resident Advisory Committee, he has greatly contributed through ACCP media geared toward student, resident, and fellow members. Kurish’s most recent accomplishment is the ACCP resident and fellow podcasts, which began to be published earlier this year – he hopes these are something all ACCP members will enjoy.
In his current position, Kurish participates on an interdisciplinary medical ICU team rounding daily. He also precepts pharmacy students and PGY1 residents in the medical ICU rotation. In his current role, Kurish finds himself avidly drawn to the complex and dynamic ICU patient population and enjoys applying knowledge in pharmacotherapy and pharmacology to optimize the care of his patients. “Seeing patients leave the ICU after overcoming a life-threatening illness is what makes critical care pharmacy so rewarding to me.”
Kurish, who enjoyed learning about the molecular properties of drugs in his college organic chemistry class, thought he wanted to be a clinical pharmacist well before enrolling in pharmacy school and before knowing what it meant to be a clinical pharmacist. He sought opportunities to expose himself to clinical pharmacy early as a pharmacy student. Kurish first learned all the exciting work clinical pharmacists were doing across the country at the 2014 ACCP Annual Meeting in Austin, Texas. Enthusiastic and determined, he pursued his career path.
Indeed, his organic chemistry class and attendance at ACCP Annual Meetings have influenced his career, Kurish says. Moreover, “Becoming an ACCP member as I began pharmacy school has had a great influence on my early career.” After his first Annual Meeting, he served a leadership role in an ACCP student chapter to become better acquainted with the organization. ACCP has given him the opportunity to network with many brilliant pharmacists and students from across the country, with whom he anticipates building great friendships and research collaborations. Outside the pharmacy profession, but in line with his disciplined characteristic, Kurish enjoys spending time outdoors running and biking and is currently taking on the challenge of athletic swimming to accomplish his life goal of completing a triathlon.
June 2019
Alyssa Peckham, Pharm.D., BCPP, is a clinical assistant professor of pharmacy at Northeastern University and a substance use disorders (SUDs) advanced practice pharmacist at Massachusetts General Hospital. Peckham earned her Pharm.D. degree from the University of Rhode Island and completed both a PGY1 residency in pharmacy practice and a PGY2 residency in psychiatry and addiction at the Veterans Affairs Hospital in West Haven, Connecticut.
Peckham practices pursuant to a collaborative practice agreement while precepting APPE students together with PGY1 and PGY2 pharmacy residents. She is passionate about reducing harm and increasing access to medications for individuals with opioid use disorder (OUD) via removal of the Drug Addiction Treatment Act waiver for buprenorphine prescribing, conversion of naloxone products to over-the-counter status, legalization of safe injection facilities in the United States, increased access to syringe exchange program and safe injection kits, decriminalization of low-level drug-related infractions, and destigmatization of OUD.
Peckham researches misuse and overuse of prescription medication and illicit substances, with recent publications examining the epidemiology, economics, and policy implications of gabapentin abuse in concert with opioids. She received the Upsher-Smith Excellence in Innovation Award in 2017 for her collaborative practice in psychiatry. She is an active member of the CNS PRN, serving as secretary/treasurer for 2018–2019; is a member of the 2019 Annual Meeting Planning Committee; and will moderate an educational session highlighting old medications with newfound clinical indications or concerns.
Peckham’s career has been influenced by individuals with SUDs who cannot receive adequate treatment because of the various barriers they must overcome to do so. Education and field training relative to SUDs is underrepresented across many health care professional training programs, leaving many health care professionals underprepared to help those with SUDs. Lack of understanding of addiction as a “chronic illness involving brain reward, motivation, memory, and related circuitry that can lead to relapse and progressive development, and that is potentially fatal if left untreated,” has left many patients without proper care. It’s not difficult to identify how devastating and impactful this lack of health care professional preparedness has been in the midst of the opioid crisis as hundreds of Americans continue to die of opioid-related causes despite the availability of an antidote to reverse opioid overdose and effective treatment for maintenance. Given these facts, Peckham comments:
I am influenced by individuals with SUDs who are desperate for help but have yet to be treated with the respect and dignity that every human being deserves. With this, I would encourage everyone to familiarize themselves with the nearest low-barrier, non-punitive SUDS clinic so that we can all be prepared to guide someone into appropriate treatment when the opportunity presents.
In addition to her professional goals, a potentially unrealistic life goal of Peckham’s has been to own two additional properties aside from her home – one that is slope-side and another that is oceanfront – because she loves skiing in the winter just as much as she loves sitting on the beach in the summer. Another fun fact is that Peckham held out for 21 years without reading a single Harry Potter book or watching one of the movies. Indeed, she didn’t begin reading about Harry Potter until 2018 in Puerto Rico, when she had finished reading her vacation book a bit earlier than expected and went to a local bookstore in search of a second read. To her surprise, most of the books were written in Spanish. She knew her 4 years of C+ grade high school Spanish would not suffice unless she hit the children’s section, so instead, she eloquently asked the lady at the register “¿libros en inglés?” (she nailed it!). The lady directed her to a very small section only occupied by Harry Potter books. It took her 4 months to read the seven books and watch the eight movies. She happily left her muggle life behind and is proud to report that she was sorted into Ravenclaw, her Patronus is a wolf, and her wand is Elm wood with a Dragon heartstring core 12½" and unyielding flexibility – don’t say she didn’t warn you!
March 2019
Elizabeth “Lizzie” Cook, Pharm.D., AE-C, BCACP, CDE, is a clinical assistant professor at the University of Texas at Tyler, Ben and Maytee Fisch College of Pharmacy. Cook received her Pharm.D. degree from Wilkes University in Pennsylvania, in addition to completing a PGY1 pharmacy residency at Ascension Via Christi Hospitals in Kansas and a PGY2 ambulatory care residency at the University of Oklahoma College of Pharmacy.
Cook first became aware of clinical pharmacy after her mother, a psychiatric nurse, mentioned how much she enjoyed having a clinical pharmacist on her unit. As a student, Cook’s professional interests bounced between specialty areas, but her ambulatory care APPE solidified her decision to pursue this career.
I was so inspired by the way [my] preceptor was able to interact with patients and their family members. [My preceptor was able] to elicit the minutest details from them [and] formulate an individualized therapeutic regimen.
As a social person, ambulatory care has provided Cook with the outlet to establish longitudinal relationships with her patients and motivate them to achieve health-related goals. “I enjoy that the growing demand for ambulatory care services has offered many opportunities for pharmacists to develop novel practice models [which makes] it an exciting time for me to practice in this particular field.”
The passion and drive of both faculty members at her alma mater and preceptors during her residency were extremely influential in shaping the trajectory of Cook’s pharmacy career. In particular, she recognizes Drs. Jonathan Ference and Jennifer Malinowski of Wilkes University as well as PGY2 Residency Program Director Katherine O’Neal for providing personal and professional guidance throughout her training. The contributions of these individuals instilled in Cook the drive to go above and beyond to serve patients, providers, and learners.
Cook balances service, scholarship, and teaching in her current academic position. Her clinical practice site is located at the Bethesda Health Clinic, a community-funded adult internal medicine facility for the uninsured and working poor. As a member of the clinic interdisciplinary team, Cook performs both consultative and pharmacist-driven clinical services. In both didactic and experiential settings, she enjoys promoting patient empowerment as the cornerstone to exceptional chronic disease management. Cook serves as a referee for several reputed journals and is an advisory board member for iForumRx, a website whose goal is to propagate evidence-based medicine among ambulatory care pharmacists. Her research interests include quality improvement in cardiovascular risk reduction, diabetes, and asthma, and she is currently completing the ACCP Research and Scholarship certificate.
In her spare time, Cook loves to travel and hike, and one of her life goals is to visit all the U.S. National Parks. She would most like to visit Denali National Park in Alaska, but so far, her favorite location has been Zion National Park in Utah.
January 2019
Alexander Flannery, Pharm.D., BCCCP, BCPS, graduated from the University of Kentucky (UK) College of Pharmacy in 2011. After completing his PGY1 residency at the Medical University of South Carolina, he returned to UK HealthCare to complete his PGY2 residency in critical care. Flannery is board certified in pharmacotherapy and critical care. He has completed the ACCP Research and Scholarship Certificate Program and is currently a Ph.D. candidate in clinical and translational science at the University of Kentucky.
Flannery’s primary appointment is currently as a critical care pharmacist in the medical intensive care unit (MICU) at UK HealthCare, where he routinely precepts pharmacy residents and students. He is also program director for the PGY2 critical care residency at UK HealthCare. Flannery’s academic appointment is as an assistant adjunct professor in the Department of Pharmacy Practice and Science in the University of Kentucky College of Pharmacy. He maintains an active research practice, working with residents, students, and his own investigator-initiated research on pharmacotherapy issues in critically ill patients. According to Flannery:
While I may have had no idea what a clinical pharmacist did when I entered pharmacy school, once I started the second semester of the curriculum, I began to see the thousands of ways that a pharmacist could optimize drug therapy in patients across the spectrum of care. As I progressed through clinical rotations, I loved the privilege and the challenge of communicating about ways to optimize drug therapy to patients, physicians, and other health care providers. Being torn between critical care, infectious diseases, and internal medicine, I fittingly found my home in medical critical care in the MICU practice setting. I love the challenge of having to use every tool in my tool kit, whether it’s antibiotic stewardship, pharmacokinetic monitoring, anticoagulation, toxicology, or whatever happens to arise in the MICU on any given day. I am constantly learning and being humbled at what all I have yet to learn and at the power of advanced medical care provided by interdisciplinary teams. I embrace the chance of having some evidence to base many pharmacotherapy decisions on, and the challenge of having to rely on physiologic and pharmacologic rationale and monitoring for others.
Faculty and colleagues at the University of Kentucky have had a tremendous influence on my career. From my formative days as a student, Joe Fink modeled and coached my leadership development. Kelly Smith taught me the power of professional organizations and networking. Several mentors during my residency training, Aaron Cook and Jeremy Flynn, have lent an ear and advised on no less than hundreds of matters in the past 7 years. My MICU physician colleagues have taught me how to reason clinically, prioritize, and advocate for patients. My Ph.D. mentor and MICU Division Chief Pete Morris has been a champion for my research and my overall career. I always tell people that Kentucky is a great place to start your career, and that is in no small part to the people like those above, with a vested interest in seeing you achieve your full potential.
Flannery notes that three pieces of advice have been instrumental in his early career. First, he describes seeking additional research training, whether in programs like those offered through ACCP or classes through universities, as the single best career move he has made since his residency. He says, “Whether or not you have an interest in being an investigator yourself, additional training in research gives you as a clinician the skills that you need in this day and age to read and critically evaluate the literature, subsequently optimizing care decisions for your patients.” Second, Flannery advises individuals very early in their career to almost never say “no” in the first few years when it comes to professional opportunities. “Whether it’s an opportunity within your institution or professional organization, saying ‘yes’ early on, even for something that you’re not entirely thrilled about, opens doors for you and introduces you to a host of colleagues and future opportunities.” Flannery’s last piece of advice stems from one of his favorite quotes in Randy Pausch’s The Last Lecture: “Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.”
For every successful leadership position appointed to and manuscript accepted, there are always an equal or greater number of less successful moments where the result wasn’t what we wanted. Those are great chances not only for us to reflect and take something away from the experience, but [also] for us to share with our mentees how to be open about failure, the lessons learned from it, and the importance of resilience in our careers.
2018 ACCP Member Spotlight
November 2018
John Awad, Pharm.D. candidate, is a fourth-year pharmacy student at the University of Connecticut (UConn) School of Pharmacy. Awad was first exposed to hospital pharmacy practice as a volunteer at Backus Hospital in Norwich, Connecticut. In this role, he assisted pharmacy technicians in managing drug inventory using a McKesson automated medication dispensing robot and delivered high-cost medications, including chemotherapy, to patient units in a timely manner. Awad also gained a strong understanding of clinical pharmacists’ roles in patient monitoring, drug information, medication safety, and antimicrobial stewardship. This volunteer experience uncovered his passion to pursue a career in clinical pharmacy that would allow him to fulfill his goal of positively influencing patients’ lives.
At UConn, Awad became a founder and president of the ACCP student chapter (SCCP). He started the student organization to promote excellence in patient care, research, education, professional development, and interprofessional teamwork and to inspire the next generation of clinical pharmacy leaders. What originally seemed to be a daunting task, given the fierce competition from 16 other pharmacy student organizations, became achievable through hard work and determination. During its first 2 years, the UConn SCCP thrived and grew exponentially, from 5 founding members to 35 members.
The student chapter successfully developed innovative student activities that align with ACCP’s mission. For example, under Awad’s leadership, the chapter developed the first UConn Campus Blood Pressure Clinic in partnership with the UConn Student Nurses Association. Awad understood the importance of exposing future nurses to the role of clinical pharmacists in advancing ACCP’s mission. This inspired him to develop an information session to educate pharmacy and nursing students about the role of each profession in providing patient care.
Building a student organization from scratch developed his confidence, decisiveness, and awareness. It also motivated him to pursue a career in hospital pharmacy administration, where he plans to drive innovations in pharmacy practice that ultimately enhance patient care in ways that are currently unimaginable.
In addition to his student leadership experience, Awad is a pharmacy intern at Yale New Haven Hospital (YNHH), a 1541-bed academic medical center in New Haven, Connecticut, serving many underserved patients from surrounding communities. He assisted the Oncology Pharmacy Leadership Team in driving many initiatives, including incorporating one of the first KIRO Oncology automated chemotherapy compounding robots in the United States. He was involved in enhancing pharmacy technician workflow and safety through projects such as updating the USP 797/800 Gowning SOP, which was implemented across the entire YNHH system. He assisted the leadership team in developing workflow and contingency plans for the USP 800 upgrade, obtaining additional FTEs to support drug volume growth and training new pharmacy technicians on USP 800 best practices. Currently, Awad is heavily involved in the initiative to perform medication reconciliation for 100% of YNHH patients. His experience at YNHH has given him an appreciation for the role of pharmacy in enhancing patient outcomes, reducing hospital readmissions, and improving medication safety. His experience as an intern has given him a comprehensive understanding of the drug distribution process, the role of pharmacists and technicians in patient care, and, most importantly to Awad, the integral role of strong hospital pharmacy leadership.
Awad understands that pharmacy leadership is critical in managing increasing drug costs, drug shortages, and a growing specialty pharmacy market. He also believes that strong pharmacy leaders will play an increasingly important role in the financial stability and growth of health systems. Awad’s goal is to someday be in a leadership position that enables him to advance the practice of pharmacy within a large health system.
September 2018
Jae Wook Yang, Pharm.D., Ph.D., BCPS, is a full professor of pharmacy practice who teaches pharmacotherapy and medicinal chemistry at the Sahmyook University College of Pharmacy and internal medicine at the Sahmyook Medical Center in Seoul, Republic of Korea. He holds a joint appointment as the director of the Research Institute of Clinical Education and Practice at Sahmyook University. Before assuming his current position, Yang was an assistant professor at the University of Kansas and an associate professor and assessment committee chair at West Coast University.
Yang has an enriched academic background. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in pharmacy from Sahmyook University, earned his Ph.D. degree in medicinal chemistry at Seoul National University, and completed his postdoctoral program at Stanford University in Stanford, California. He then received his Pharm.D. degree at Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona, California (2006), and completed a 3-year fellowship in renal transplantation and clinical pharmacogenetics at the National Institute of Transplantation and St. Vincent Medical Center, Los Angeles, California.
Yang holds leadership positions in various organizations. He is the vice president of the Korean College of Clinical Pharmacy, the vice president of the Korean Association of Pharmacy Health Communications, and the chair of a subcommittee on medical and pharmacogenetics of the Genetics Society of Korea. He is also a member of the board of directors of the Korean Pharmaceutical Information Center. Moreover, Yang is actively engaged in the international relationship between Korean and U.S. pharmacy schools. In July 2018, he served as a liaison and chaperone who recruited 16 Korean pharmacy students nationwide to attend a 2-week international summer program at Western University. He is also an APPE preceptor for the Loma Linda University School of Pharmacy in southern California.
Yang recalls that when he studied pharmacy in Korea, he learned much about chemistry and biology, but not pharmacotherapy, given that most of his courses focused on new drug development or drug manufacturing at pharmaceutical companies. Yet most graduates of Korean pharmacy schools eventually land jobs at community pharmacies or hospitals, where clinical knowledge is required to work as pharmacists. Recognizing the importance of balancing pharmaceutical and clinical education in Korean pharmacy education, Yang decided to come to the United States to be trained as a clinical pharmacist and to shape the future of Korean pharmacy education. In his early 40s when he pursued his Pharm.D. degree at Western University, Yang gained encouragement from university faculty members and many fellow clinical pharmacists who worked with him during his study. He later became a faculty member at two U.S. pharmacy schools before returning to his home country, where he now contributes to the development and innovation of clinical education in Korean pharmacy schools.
Yang states that he owes much of his successful career as a clinical faculty member and clinical pharmacist to the support of ACCP, which helped him identify suitable academic career opportunities and prepare for the BCPS examination. Yang has been a full member of ACCP and an active member of the Immunology/Transplantation PRN since 2005. He has presented 25 research posters at ACCP national meetings and was a top 5 finalist in the Best Resident/Fellow Poster competition at the 2007 and 2009 ACCP Annual Meetings. Yang has contributed to the College by serving as a reviewer for student travel awards, resident/fellow travel awards, and the ACCP Virtual Poster Symposium; a CV reviewer for pharmacy students and trainees; a manuscript reviewer for Pharmacotherapy; an item writer for the ACCP pharmacotherapy mock exam; and a chapter reviewer for the ACCP Critical Care Pharmacy Preparatory Review Course in 2015.
While practicing as a clinical pharmacist in a hospital, Yang realized that although computers can store clinical information and communicate with other health professionals within a hospital, they are rarely used to make clinical decisions. Looking to the future, he believes that if computers can further assist clinical pharmacists with reviewing patient medication profiles, identifying prescription errors, and optimizing pharmacotherapy, the job accuracy and efficiency of clinical pharmacists will be enhanced, ultimately benefiting more patients. In addition, he believes that many existing technologies – for instance, QR codes for storing prescription information – have yet to be applied to clinical pharmacy practice. Yang perceives that clinical pharmacists with knowledge of information technology (IT), particularly artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things (IoT), will have more advantages to work in a hospital setting in the future. Along these lines, Yang hopes to develop an IT course for pharmacy students as well as a research area (“digital pharmacy”) that integrates IT with clinical pharmacy.
July 2018
Allison N. Boyd is a PGY2 critical care pharmacy resident at Eskenazi Health in Indianapolis, Indiana, and completed her residency in June 2018. She earned her Pharm.D. degree at Butler University in May 2016 and completed an institutional/residency track program during pharmacy school. She then completed her PGY1 pharmacy practice residency at Eskenazi Health. Boyd has maintained an active involvement in ACCP by serving as the Indiana College of Clinical Pharmacy Butler University student representative and, most recently, serving as the vice chair of the National Resident Advisory Committee. She is also an active member of both the Society of Critical Care Medicine and the American Burn Association and is involved with several pharmacy-related initiatives in both organizations, as well as attending these organizations’ annual meetings.
In August 2018, Boyd will become the trauma/burn clinical pharmacy specialist at Rhode Island Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island. She plans to pursue board certification in critical care pharmacy in her first year after residency completion. Her professional interests include pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic alterations in the critically ill population, nutrition, and analgesia and sedation in the intensive care unit. She will play an active role in precepting and teaching pharmacy students and residents in her new position.
As a pharmacy student, Boyd was undecided in which area she wanted to pursue in clinical practice. She states she found her passion for clinical pharmacy when she obtained firsthand experience with providing patient care and having teaching responsibilities and administrative roles. Boyd discovered her interest for critical care, and specifically trauma/burn, during an experience on her internal medicine rotation as a pharmacy student. She was given the opportunity by the burn pharmacist to work with a burn patient and, the following week, started her critical care rotation in the SICU and burn ICU. These experiences solidified her interest in the fast-paced environment of critical care.
Boyd’s research projects during her PGY1 and PGY2 residency years have focused on the trauma/burn patient populations. She enjoys the pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic challenges in these patients because of their hypermetabolic states and doing research in an area without specific guidelines. This interest has also provided her with the opportunity to assist with policy and protocol development in this patient population.
Although Boyd states many people have influenced her during her career, she says that one mentor has gone above and beyond to help her achieve her goals and that she hopes to model her future practice after this clinician. Boyd states:
I would like to specifically thank Todd Walroth, Pharm.D., BCPS, BCCCP, for his mentorship since I was a student and through my residency years. Through his role as clinical manager for pharmacy services and the burn/critical care clinical pharmacy specialist, he has taught me to have confidence in my abilities, to always strive to be successful, and to find a learning opportunity in every experience.
On a personal note, Boyd has a particular interest in all things Disney. She has been to Disney World about a dozen times. She enjoys learning more about the history of Walt Disney and the creation of the parks. One day, Boyd hopes to visit all six Disney theme parks across the world. She states that everyone should have an outlet for fun and that, for her, she loves being a kid at heart through her Disney hobby.
May 2018
Melody L. Berg, Pharm.D., MPH, BCPS-AQ ID, AAHIVP, is a senior clinical content specialist for Wolters Kluwer Clinical Drug Information, where she is primarily responsible for developing and maintaining drug-drug interaction and drug-allergy content for embedded clinical decision support systems. Before serving in her current role, Berg was a clinical pharmacy specialist in internal medicine and infectious diseases (ID), with a focus in virology. She received her B.S. degree in pharmacy in 2003 and her Pharm.D. degree in 2004 from Midwestern University Chicago College of Pharmacy, followed by a master’s degree in public health from University of Massachusetts-Amherst in 2015. She completed PGY1 residency training at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and the PGY2 pharmacotherapy residency at Midwestern University Chicago College of Pharmacy. Throughout her career, Berg has engaged in educating students and residents, including serving as a PGY2 residency program director in ID. In addition, she conducts research and gives presentations on medication adherence, drug interactions, and HIV prevention strategies. She holds BPS board certification in pharmacotherapy with added qualifications in ID as well as specialty certification in HIV.
Berg was motivated to pursue clinical pharmacy as a career by an early IPPE preceptor, Professor Lynn Patton, whom she admired greatly during pharmacy school. She became interested in the ID specialty during her P2 pharmacotherapy classes and an APPE rotation in ID with another mentor, Dr. Christopher Crank. In the latter experience, Berg’s observation of clinical pharmacists functioning as integrated members of the interdisciplinary team defined her professional mission. Throughout her career, she has chosen roles that afford her the opportunity to gather data and use evidence-based medicine to solve therapeutic dilemmas, directly advocate for the patient, and promote the pharmacist’s role in pharmacotherapy research. Her current role as a clinical content specialist allows her to continue using her investigative skills to solve therapeutic problems more globally.
Berg notes that her career path has not gone the way she envisioned when she first entered practice. However, she acknowledges that taking the winding road has allowed her to meet people from a variety of walks of life and helped expose her to a wide array of paths in pharmacy. She has turned this experience into advice for other pharmacists: “Don’t be afraid to take opportunities and risks as they arise and are intriguing and interesting to you.”
Berg enjoys a busy life outside pharmacy practice as well, which includes raising three children with her husband of almost 15 years, coaching several softball teams, and taking on a leadership role as director of player development for softball on the local Little League board. She enjoys volunteering at her children’s elementary school and serving as a precinct chair for a local political group. Berg credits her early passion for athletics for her current work ethic and time-management skills and appreciates using these skills to encourage children to be physically active and involved. She enjoys the opportunity to inspire others to be active in their communities and help make positive changes. Berg concludes that “being flexible in your career, while maintaining motivation, will allow you to find that work-life balance you need to meet both your professional and personal goals.”
March 2018
Dr. Kalynn A. Rohde, Pharm.D., BCCCP, is a critical care pharmacist at the University of North Carolina Medical Center in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where she is involved in quality improvement projects, clinical research, and precepting and mentoring both pharmacy students and residents. Rohde also serves in a unique role as the heparin-induced thrombocytopenia stewardship pharmacist at her practice site. She earned her Pharm.D. degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She then completed a PGY1 pharmacy practice residency and a PGY2 specialty residency in critical care at the University of North Carolina Medical Center. Rohde is board certified in critical care pharmacy.
At the suggestion of her high school guidance counselor, Rohde attended "Discovery Day" at the University of Wisconsin School of Pharmacy. During this event, Rohde was determined to become a clinical pharmacist, yet her pathway to critical care was not as straightforward. After her fourth year in pharmacy school, she became interested in infectious diseases. However, during her PGY1 training, she rotated through the neurosciences intensive care unit and "absolutely fell in love with critical care." In this practice setting, Rohde states that she feels "challenged every day - there is always something new to learn. I enjoy the complexity of the patient population and the endless quality improvement and research opportunities."
Rohde first became involved in ACCP as a second-year pharmacy student when her abstract was accepted for presentation at the 2011 Annual Meeting. During this meeting, her research was recognized as runner-up for Best Student Poster. She continued her involvement as a resident by serving as both member-at-large and chair of the National Resident Advisory Committee. Now, as a new practitioner, Rohde remains active in ACCP by serving as a member of the Critical Care PRN and as treasurer/secretary of the local ACCP chapter, the Triangle College of Clinical Pharmacy. According to Rohde, ACCP has been "one of her professional organization homes." She reflects,
ACCP provides opportunities for growth in clinical research, education, and leadership, which are all key components of my career as a clinical pharmacist. It is also a great platform for networking with colleagues from across the nation.
Outside her practice responsibilities, Rohde is a certified scuba diver. Besides diving in local areas around North Carolina and Virginia, she has traveled to the Caribbean, where she has explored numerous underwater sites.
January 2018
Elias B. Chahine, Pharm.D., FCCP, BCPS-AQ ID, is currently an associate professor of pharmacy practice at Palm Beach Atlantic University Lloyd L. Gregory School of Pharmacy. Chahine graduated from Saint-Joseph University with a "doctorat d'exercice en pharmacie" degree and received his Pharm.D. degree from the Lebanese American University. He then completed a drug information graduate internship at Eli Lilly, a pharmacy practice residency at the Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital affiliated with Columbia University, and the AACP Academic Leadership Fellows Program. In addition, Chahine has completed the ACCP Academy certificate programs in teaching and learning, research and scholarship, and leadership and management; APhA programs in immunizations, medication therapy management, and travel health; an NACDS program in point-of-care testing; and a University of Toronto workshop on OSCEs (objective structured clinical examinations).
Chahine maintains an active practice in infectious diseases as a clinical pharmacy specialist at Wellington Regional Medical Center and coordinates an integrated infectious diseases pharmacotherapy course. He has written more than 40 articles and continuing education programs in the areas of infectious diseases pharmacotherapy, immunizations, pharmacy education, and medical missions. He has also written four infectious diseases book chapters in the ACCP Pharmacotherapy Self-Assessment Program and the ACCP Infectious Diseases Pharmacy Preparatory Review Course. He is currently chair of the ACCP Infectious Diseases PRN and member of the Board of Directors for the Florida Society of Health-System Pharmacists (FSHP). He is an elected ACCP Fellow and the recipient of several teaching and practice awards, including the FSHP Residency Preceptor of the Year and Pharmacist Forerunner awards and the ACCP Infectious Diseases PRN Clinical Practice, Preceptor Servant Leader, Preceptor of Distinction, and Teacher of the Year awards.
Chahine believes that clinical pharmacy combines his desire for a career in health care and education. With his interest in infectious diseases, which was spurred on by a passionate professor, he strives to empower health care professionals, trainees, and patients to promote the judicious and appropriate use of antimicrobials in order to optimize clinical outcomes, halt resistance, decrease adverse effects, and optimize resource use.
Chahine states that, after completing residency training, ACCP has allowed him "to interact with and learn from some of the brightest clinical pharmacy practitioners, researchers, and educators from across the country." The networking opportunities and professional development programs available through ACCP have helped him further develop his skills as a clinician, teacher, researcher, and leader. He reflects, "ACCP provided me a way to connect with these outstanding pharmacists from outside my institution, which helped me to broaden my horizon and stay up to date with contemporary pharmacy practice."
In addition to his work, Chahine is engaged in community service and international medical missions. He has led teams of pharmacists and students on medical mission trips to Mpulungu, Zambia; San Pedro de Macorís, Dominican Republic; Manaus, Brazil; and Anchorage, Alaska, which provided free pharmacy services to underserved patients in collaboration with local prescribers.
2017 ACCP Member Spotlight
November 2017
Jordan Perrine is a fourth-year student pharmacist at University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC) College of Pharmacy and is enrolled in the University of Memphis MBA degree program. She will graduate from both the pharmacy and the business programs in May 2018. Before her study at UTHSC, she earned a B.S. degree in chemistry and business from Mercer University in Macon, Georgia.
Perrine is actively engaged in many organizations and has been an ACCP member since her second year at UTHSC. UTHSC’s lack of an active ACCP student chapter has not prevented her from participating in ACCP activities. As a member-at-large of the 2017 ACCP National Student Network Advisory Committee, Perrine has been asked by students across the country how ACCP membership adds to her professional growth. “[ACCP] gave me a unique opportunity to speak to students from across the country about their schools and learn from what they are doing,” she states. “It is truly amazing to see the impact student members make through seminars and interprofessional activities.” Perrine, who believes that other students may also be limited by what their school offers or the experiences available in their geographic region, finds that her clinical expertise has grown through discovering what is out there and what other members find important.
Although neither of her parents were in health care, they instilled in her a mindset for serving others. “When I decided to apply to pharmacy school, I had a plan that my parents were proud of,” she explains. And “while they knew nothing about pharmacy, they understood I was following my own path to serve others.”
Before entering pharmacy school, Perrine imagined her future position in a pediatric hospital pharmacy, making a positive impact on children and their families. However, as she progressed from pre-pharmacy to the pharmacy program, she was largely exposed to the world of clinical pharmacy:
"When I got to pharmacy school and I started hearing these foreign words like 'clinical pharmacy' and 'PGY2,' I realized I may have missed a piece or two in my pre-pharmacy life plan. Now that I am a little bit wiser, after the teaching and continued guidance of all of the faculty members at UTHSC, I realize how truly lucky I have been in finding the right mentors to help me find my path to clinical pharmacy and the future."
Outside pharmacy school, Perrine enjoys working as a pharmacy intern at CVS Pharmacy and serving as a pharmacokinetic tutor for UTHSC Student Academic Support Services. After graduation, she wishes to advance her professional competencies by pursing a PGY1 pharmacy practice residency and plans to pursue a career that provides her the opportunity to teach or mentor students. With a strong passion for pediatric patients, Perrine plans to achieve her career goal by subsequently completing a PGY2 residency in pediatrics.
Aside from school, Perrine’s personal goal is to run her first half marathon and full marathon before graduation. Perrine completed her half marathon during her P2 year, and although she will be in Montana for a rotation on her planned marathon race day, she will undoubtedly complete her first full marathon in the near future.
September 2017
Erin McCreary, Pharm.D., BCPS, is the education and development coordinator and an infectious diseases (ID) clinical pharmacist at the University of Wisconsin (UW) Health. She is also a clinical instructor at the UW-Madison School of Pharmacy and teaches ID lectures at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health. She earned her Pharm.D. degree from Auburn University Harrison School of Pharmacy (War Eagle!) and completed her PGY1 and PGY2 ID residencies at UW Health. McCreary is a Board Certified Pharmacotherapy Specialist. She has served the pharmacy profession in numerous roles, including as executive board member of the ACCP ID Practice and Research Network (PRN), chair of the ACCP National Resident Advisory Committee, member of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists Section of Inpatient Care Practitioners’ Advisory Group on Pharmacy Practice Experiences, and lead mentor for the Pharmacy Society of Wisconsin Adherence Competence Collaborative. She also is actively involved with the Vizient University HealthSystem Consortium research committee.
In her position, McCreary is responsible for student pharmacist, pharmacy resident, and clinical pharmacist education and development within UW Health. This includes onboarding and training, experiential education, residency training, continuing professional development, career advancement, and recognition, board certification, scholarship, and interprofessional practice within the pharmacy department. She also engages in antimicrobial stewardship and rounds with several inpatient ID consult teams for both adult and pediatric patients. Finally, she serves as a preceptor for students and residents. McCreary believes that the two best things about the pharmacy profession are serving patients and engaging in lifelong learning and that her first job is the perfect blend of the two. Her specific practice interests include preceptor development, medication adherence, interprofessional education, antimicrobial resistance, pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics, vaccination advocacy, and penicillin-allergy determination. Her dream is to have patient-pharmacist interaction at every phase of care for all patients in the future landscape of health care.
McCreary has always been fascinated by science and passionate about people. She first became interested in pharmacy as a junior in high school. At that time, someone very close to her was placed on an intricate medication regimen that involved a narrow therapeutic index drug. This experience exposed her to the complexity of pharmacy practice, the variety of pharmacist specialties and roles in care, and the incredible impact of pharmacists on the lives of patients. She applied to college by sorting the top 25 pharmacy schools and the top 25 football teams and only applying to institutions on both lists. She hasn’t looked back since and finds yet another aspect of her work every single day that supports her belief that pharmacy is the greatest profession in the world.
McCreary states that listing all the individuals who have influenced her life and career would exceed the word limit of this spotlight. Many teachers, preceptors, colleagues, friends, and, most importantly, patients have made her the person and pharmacist she is today. She would like to extend a special thank-you to Chris Bland, Kayla Stover, Katie Lusardi, and Sarah Tennant for believing in her as a student, affording her the opportunity to serve on the ACCP ID PRN Executive Committee, and continuing to foster her professional and personal growth as a new practitioner. She would also like to thank Dave Hager and Lucas Schulz for selecting her to complete residency training within their respective programs and investing time and resources to develop her into the clinician she is today. McCreary’s mentors have taught her the meaning of selflessness, commitment, perseverance, integrity, effective communication, kindness, scholarship, and humility. As a result, she believes in hard work, treating people how they would like to be treated rather than how she would like to be treated, and doing the right thing even when no one is watching.
McCreary joined ACCP in pharmacy school after a friend and mentor recommended that she apply for the National Student Network Advisory Committee. This was one of the best experiences of her pre-residency career and sparked her passion to continue to serve the organization and its members. She then met Tamara Malm at the “Emerge from the Crowd” programming during her fourth year of pharmacy school, who encouraged her to be heavily involved with ACCP throughout residency training and beyond. McCreary is grateful that ACCP is the type of organization that fosters instantaneous connections with some of the best and brightest in the profession and believes the ACCP Annual Meeting is one of the best conferences of the year. She credits the relationships she has formed through ACCP with teaching her something every single day, engaging her in several research and scholarship opportunities, and overall making her a better pharmacist.
McCreary encourages pharmacy students, residents, and fellows to ask a million questions. Travel to attend local, state, and national meetings and meet as many people in the profession as possible. Save money for residency applications and the awkward month after residency/fellowship, when you have to eat and pay rent without a paycheck. Make time for the people and activities in your life outside pharmacy. Say yes to as many things as possible early in your career to discover what drives you, and then home in and say yes only to the things that move you in the direction of your goals. Throw kindness around like confetti. Spend 5 extra minutes with your patients. Recognize that it is an awesome privilege to be a pharmacist and to serve others. Teach everything you learn to someone else. Surround yourself with people who make you better, and be a go-to person for others. Be brave and honest. Smile. Show your passion. Remember that dreams don’t work unless you do and that no dream is too big or too small.
July 2017
Eman Elsayed Younis, Pharm.D., B.S., BCPS-AQ Cardiology, is a cardiology clinical pharmacist at National Guard Health Affairs - Prince Mohammad Bin Abdulaziz Hospital (PMBAH) in Al Madinah Al Munawwarah, Saudi Arabia. She earned her B.S. degree in pharmacy in 2001 and her Pharm.D. degree in 2006 from the Faculty of Pharmacy, Alexandria University in Egypt. She trained at Al Ameery Educational Hospital, Alexandria University. Younis is only the second pharmacist in Saudi Arabia to earn a BCPS with added qualifications in cardiology.
After earning her Pharm.D. degree, Younis’s first clinical position was as a cardiology clinical pharmacist at the Prince Sultan Cardiac Centre Hospital Al-Hassa in Saudi Arabia. There, she started the first clinical pharmacy division in the region and subsequently became the director of the Pharmaceutical Care Department.
In her current position at PMBAH, Younis provides care to patients with cardiovascular disorders. Her daily patient care responsibilities include attending rounds as a member of an interdisciplinary team in the cardiac care unit and as a member of the inpatient cardiology consult team. Her administrative responsibilities include membership and active participation in numerous hospital committees as well as advancing hospital-wide medication safety. Younis uses her pharmacotherapy knowledge in corporate drug evaluations and medication use process evaluations while assisting with the development and implementation of protocols related to cardiovascular pharmacotherapy. She is actively involved in implementing formulary management strategies through current protocol revision and evaluation of non-formulary requests.
Strongly committed to patient care, Younis is also active in other professional activities. She has initiated a training program for pharmacy interns and developed medication safety activities. She serves as a preceptor for clerkship interns, passing along her expertise in cardiology. In 2015, she was a panel member with the Saudi Center for Evidence-Based Healthcare for ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction guidelines. She has served as a peer reviewer for numerous journals, including the Journal of Pharmacy Practice and Annals of Pharmacotherapy. Younis has served as a speaker and chair for national and international conferences. Her many topics and presentations include the role of clinical pharmacists in improving pneumonia vaccination in cardiac patients; atrial fibrillation management, guidelines, and best practices; and an anticoagulation program workshop.
Younis, an ACCP member since 2012, credits the College for her active involvement in clinical pharmacy. She has served ACCP as a pilot tester and CV reviewer and is active in the Cardiology and Infectious Diseases PRNs. Younis states:
I’ve gained so much from being a member of ACCP. Being a PRN member has allowed me to work and communicate with cardiology pharmacists all over the world. I advise every pharmacist who is ambitious and wants to be more professionally active in his or her pharmacy career to be a member in a PRN.
Younis’s initial interest in pharmacy was inspired by her mother and father, a dentist and a surgeon, respectively. She believes her family medical environment markedly influenced her aspirations to become a pharmacist. Younis has had numerous mentors and influential individuals in her professional life, including Drs. Labiba El-ghordagly and Nawal Khalafalla, who have encouraged her and positively influenced her career. She especially credits her husband, a certified pharmacist in quality and patient safety. He has greatly influenced her career by his constant encouragement and support for her work in clinical pharmacy, specifically cardiology.
In addition to cardiology, Younis works in infection control. She earned a professional certificate in infection control from the American University in Cairo, Egypt. Younis contributes to her community by participating in public education to increase awareness of areas such as diabetes, hypertension, and smoking cessation campaigns.
Younis expects her list of achievements and accomplishments to continue to grow. She plans to continue to make a positive difference in the field of cardiology and positively affect the patients she interacts with daily. She hopes and believes that
through continued professional service and patient care, she will someday achieve fellowship in ACCP.
May 2017
Dorothy McCoy, Pharm.D., BCPS-AQ ID, is the infectious diseases (ID)/antimicrobial stewardship clinical pharmacist at St. Joseph’s Regional Medical Center in Paterson, New Jersey. McCoy earned her Pharm.D. degree at the Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy (EMSOP) at Rutgers University and completed her PGY1 at Hackensack University Medical Center in Hackensack, New Jersey, and her PGY2 in ID at the University of Michigan Health System in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Before joining St. Joseph’s, McCoy was a clinical associate professor at EMSOP with her clinical practice site in ID at Hackensack University Medical Center for 9 years. She is an active member of the Society of Infectious Diseases Pharmacists (SIDP) and served as vice chair and chair of its membership committee. She is also a member of the SIDP stewardship taskforce committee and developed the Clostridium difficile module for the antimicrobial stewardship training program. In addition, McCoy is involved with ACCP and the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) and was recently selected as the president-elect of the North Chapter of the New Jersey Society of Health-System Pharmacists (NJSHP). She is a member of the ACCP ID Practice and Research Network and is an ACCP mentor. McCoy has presented many topics for continuing education for pharmacists and technicians and many posters at regional, national, and international conferences. She has also provided several interviews to various magazines and news outlets.
McCoy decided to pursue clinical pharmacy after her first advanced practice experience in the emergency department in her last year of pharmacy school, after realizing the pharmacist’s tremendous ability to optimize a patient’s pharmacotherapy. She was intrigued by the discussions between clinical pharmacists and physicians and saw how pharmacists influenced clinical practice. During her PGY1 ID rotation, she became partial to ID pharmacy. Seeing ID in the real-world setting helped her understand the interplay between the organisms, the host, and the antimicrobial agents. McCoy’s passion for ID has grown tremendously during her career, and she is still captivated by this practice area where, as a clinician, she encounters new challenges each day. Just when ID practitioners think they have a piece of the puzzle figured out, they are faced with a new challenge, whether a new resistance mechanism, an emerging pathogen, new information about an older antimicrobial, or information about an older pathogen with a new mechanism to spread.
McCoy has been involved in clinical practice, teaching, research, and scholarly activities throughout her career. Her clinical practice includes ID rounds and antimicrobial stewardship. She influences practice by providing recommendations during rounds, responding to drug information questions related to ID pharmacotherapy from providers, and monitoring and making interventions to optimize antimicrobial use through the antimicrobial stewardship program. McCoy routinely advises providers regarding antimicrobial selection, dose adjustments for renal or hepatic dysfunction, drug interactions, adverse effects, and therapy duration. She is also responsible for approving the use of restricted antimicrobials and reviewing new antimicrobial agents for formulary at St. Joseph’s. Her research interests include C. difficile, invasive fungal infections, antimicrobial stewardship, ß-lactam allergies, infections in immunocompromised hosts, and gram-negative resistance.
McCoy has mentored over 100 pharmacy students during their advanced practice experiences and serves as a preceptor to PGY1 residents for ID and longitudinal antimicrobial stewardship learning experiences. McCoy enjoys teaching students and residents about ID and inspiring them to further their education in this area. Her dedication to ID was recognized when she received the 2011 ASHP Research and Education Foundation Pharmacy Residency Excellence New Preceptor Award and the 2017 NJSHP Preceptor of the Year Award.
McCoy is grateful to everyone who has influenced and provided guidance during her career. She credits her mentors Arpi Kuyumjian, Pharm.D.; Michael Wynd, Pharm.D., BCPS; Peggy Carver, Pharm.D.; and Daryl DePestel, Pharm.D., BCPS-AQ ID, for developing her clinical, teaching, writing, research, and presentation skills and providing her with confidence, courage, perseverance, patience, leadership, and mentorship. They encouraged her participation in pharmacy organizations and recognized the importance of scholarly activity and networking for her professional development. Her life has also been enriched by the experiences she has shared with faculty members, clinical pharmacists, physicians, other health care providers, students, residents, and staff during her career. McCoy is grateful to her husband, parents, family, and friends, who have provided support as well.
McCoy’s advice to young pharmacists is to be brave and bold and to dare to open new doors when the opportunities arise—whether it is taking on a new lecture, writing a paper on an unfamiliar topic, presenting at a conference, starting a new research project, or taking on a leadership role in a professional organization. McCoy states:
"It is impossible to map out exactly where your career will take you, as there are always unexpected forks in the road. Rather than thinking, ‘I’ve never done this before and I cannot do it,’ think ‘I’ve never done this before and I can figure it out.’ You have the tools needed from all of your experiences to take on new things, and who knows what other doors that one step will take you to."
March 2017
Nick Peters, Pharm.D., BCCCP, BCPS, is a critical care and nutrition support clinical pharmacy specialist and PGY1 residency program coordinator at Suburban Hospital – Johns Hopkins Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland. In addition, Peters is the Recognition Committee chair for the ACCP Critical Care PRN and is the only pharmacist representative on the Society of Critical Care Medicine In-Training Selection committee. He earned his Pharm.D. degree from Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana; completed a PGY1 residency at TriStar Centennial Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, and a PGY2 specialty residency in critical care at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia; and earned Board of Pharmacy Specialties certification in both pharmacotherapy and critical care.
Peters recognizes that his mentors have shaped him into the pharmacist he is today. He specifically wishes to highlight the guidance and support he received from Christopher Paciullo, Pharm.D., FCCP; Stacey Folse, Pharm.D., MPH; and Alley Killian, Pharm.D., while he was a PGY2 resident at Emory University Hospital. Through these mentors, he learned that he "could contribute to clinical pharmacy through leadership, mentorship, research, multidisciplinary education, and professional organization involvement in addition to providing clinical services." Peters also credits them with instilling in him a sense of courage and confidence that helped set him on his professional path.
Peters has been an ACCP member since he was a pharmacy student and actively seeks out ways to give back to the College and the profession. In his words, ACCP has "given me the opportunity to meet, network with, learn from, and develop friendships with pharmacists from across the country." Moreover, "the education offered through ACCP has helped me grow as a clinical pharmacist, primary investigator, preceptor, and educator." Peters has served ACCP as an abstract, curriculum vitae, and poster reviewer, and he is active in the Critical Care PRN.
In addition to his professional pursuits, Peters' other passion is traveling. He has set a personal goal of visiting all seven continents and, to date, has visited three of the seven continents with plans to visit his fourth in the coming year. He believes in the power of positive thinking and imparting happiness toward others and aims to make memories, not only within his professional activities, but also personally, all over the world.
January 2017
Daniel Witt, Pharm.D., is a clinical professor and vice chair of the Department of Pharmacotherapy and assistant dean of clinical affairs at the University of Utah College of Pharmacy. He earned his BSPharm degree at the University of Utah and his Pharm.D. degree at the University of Washington (UW). He completed a clinical pharmacy residency at the UW Medical Center and Harborview Medical Center and an advanced residency in primary care and family medicine at the UW Medical Center. Witt is a Board Certified Pharmacotherapy Specialist and a Fellow of ACCP. He serves on the board of directors for the Anticoagulation Forum (the Medical & Scientific Advisory Board of the National Blood Clot Alliance) and is a member of ASHP and the International Society on Thrombosis and Haemostasis.
Witt specializes in anticoagulation therapy management at the University of Utah's thrombosis clinic. He is also responsible for supporting the Department of Pharmacotherapy's clinical enterprise and provides support to its clinical faculty. He is the chair of the newly created Pharm.D. project committee at University of Utah College of Pharmacy, which was created for Pharm.D. students to develop important research skills such as professional writing, critical thinking, and project management. Witt has written or cowritten over 90 journal articles and 11 book chapters and has given numerous lectures for continuing education programs. He was a panel member for the 2012 CHEST Consensus Guidelines for Antithrombotic Therapy and is currently a panel member for the venous thromboembolism guidelines being developed by the American Society of Hematology.
Witt's research interests focus on providing practical information on the use of anticoagulation therapy to front-line practitioners and patients. He is passionate about conducting anticoagulation therapy–related research projects focused on (1) documenting the clinical and economic impact of clinical pharmacy services, (2) providing optimal therapy management, and (3) providing evidence-based practical solutions to providers.
Witt states that his involvement with anticoagulation clinical practice was incidental. He did not intend to practice in this clinical area and initially believed that anticoagulation was uninteresting. However, he discovered how rewarding and challenging anticoagulation therapy can be and developed a passion for this clinical practice setting. Witt offers this advice to young pharmacists:
From my experiences, I would encourage young pharmacists not to try and plan out their careers too carefully. Be open to an unexpected detour every now and then that might open up a whole new world of the profession that you never imagined you would be interested in.
Witt states that many people have influenced him in his career. The two mentors with the most significant impact are Alan Ellsworth, Pharm.D., at UW and Dennis Helling, Pharm.D., recently retired from Kaiser Permanente Colorado. Ellsworth exposed Witt to the many opportunities available to clinical pharmacists and helped Witt develop his love for clinical research and ability to create research projects from clinical scenarios. Witt is grateful that Helling encouraged him to join the pharmacy team at Kaiser Permanente Colorado after his specialty residency. Witt credits Helling with providing significant mentorship and coaching that allowed Witt to develop the Clinical Pharmacy Anticoagulation Service and the Clinical Pharmacy Research Team at Kaiser Permanente.
On a personal note, Witt is involved with the Boy Scouts of America, "a wonderful organization that has provided me with opportunities to enjoy adventures in the outdoors and has provided me with some of the best leadership training available."
2016 ACCP Member Spotlight
November 2016
Israa Fadhil Yaseen, BScPharm, BCPS, is completing the fourth and final year of her clinical pharmacy residency at the teaching hospitals of Medical City in Baghdad, Iraq. Yaseen graduated in 2006 from the University of Mosul College of Pharmacy in Iraq. After graduation, she worked in the pediatric hematology-oncology unit at the Ibn Al-Atheer Teaching Hospital for Children in Mosul for 2 years. She then became the director of the Drug Information Center at the hospital, where she was ranked first among other directors in the city. After working in an outpatient pharmacy for an additional 2 years at a rural health care center, Yaseen enrolled in her residency program in 2012.
During her residency training, Yaseen has trained in the cardiac care unit, conducted research on clopidogrel nonresponsiveness in patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention, and enrolled in the Educational Training in Total Parenteral Nutrition program at the American University of Beirut. In July 2016, she became a Board Certified Pharmacotherapy Specialist—the first female pharmacist in Iraq to hold the certification. Because of her achievements during her residency, Yaseen is now a candidate to become a Clinical Pharmacy Fellow in the Iraqi Board for Medical Specializations. In addition to her residency training, Yaseen is enrolled as an investigator in the EURObservational Research Programme of the European Society of Cardiology. Furthermore, she is the only resident member on a specialized physician committee working to design the Baghdad Dyslipidemia Protocol—the first dyslipidemia management protocol to be established in Iraq. Her professional affiliations include ACCP, where she is a member of the Cardiology PRN; the European Society of Cardiology; the American College of Cardiology; the International Society of Cardiovascular Pharmacotherapy; and the Medical Education Committee of the cardiology department in Baghdad Teaching Hospital.
Yaseen’s decision to pursue clinical pharmacy was influenced largely by the terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001. After achieving exceptional scores in high school, Yaseen had narrowed her career options to becoming an orthodontist, like her father, or a pharmacist, which was actually her father’s dream for her. After seeing the events of September 11 unfold in America and asking God for guidance, Yaseen decided to pursue pharmacy, with the hope of becoming involved in the Red Cross or another humanitarian organization. “I decided to become a pharmacist to help people and save lives all over the world,” she says.
Yaseen has had many mentors throughout her training and career. One such mentor is Dr. Lika’a Al-Kzayer, a pediatrician and head of the pediatric hematology-oncology unit at the Ibn Al-Atheer Teaching Hospital for Children. Yaseen states:
Dr. Al-Kzayer showed me the real meaning of teamwork. She is so faithful and sympathetic with patients, and this increased my interest in clinical work, especially in helping children patients with cancer.
Another such mentor is interventional cardiologist and president of Scientific Council of Cardiology, Professor Hasan Ali Al-Farhan. Of Al-Farhan, her supervisor in the cardiac care unit during residency training, Yaseen says, “He trusted me from the beginning and has encouraged and supported me from the moment I met him.” They have collaborated on several teams and projects, and Yaseen’s passion for cardiology is largely the result of Al-Farhan’s influence. “Dr. Al-Farhan increased my interest in cardiology and believes in the importance of clinical pharmacists in cardiovascular teamwork.” Finally, Yaseen’s father has played a vital role in her success. He instilled in her a passion for teaching and gave Yaseen her first opportunity to teach a didactic lecture on antibiotic and analgesic use in dentistry.
Yaseen expects her list of achievements to continue growing. Professionally, she wants to continue making an impact in the field of cardiology and hopes to be one of the first pharmacists to become board certified in cardiology through the Board of Pharmacy Specialties. In addition, she plans to get involved with humanitarian organizations, become fluent in French and Spanish, and travel the world.
September 2016
Edward Van Matre, Pharm.D., is a critical care fellow at the University of Colorado Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences in Aurora, Colorado. He received his B.S. degree in biochemistry and molecular biology from Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Oklahoma, in 2010 and his Pharm.D. degree from the University of Colorado in 2014. After graduation, Van Matre completed a PGY1 pharmacy practice residency at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, Kentucky, and a PGY2 specialty residency in critical care at the University of Colorado.
After completing his PGY2 residency, he began his critical care fellowship at the University of Colorado. This fellowship is multifaceted with a primary focus on clinical and benchtop research, specifically neurocritical and medical intensive care, as well as direct clinical patient care and didactic teaching. He is also currently enrolled in the M.S. degree program in clinical science at the University of Colorado. His goals on completing this program are to pursue a faculty position at a school of pharmacy and academic medical center and advance the practice of pharmacy and pharmaceutical application in critically ill patients through research.
Van Matre was drawn to clinical pharmacy because of his family’s values of altruism and service to the community. His mother is an emergency medicine nurse, and his father is a police officer. Spending countless meals and holidays with his family in an emergency department break room or a police station bullpen, Van Matre knew it was never a question of if he wanted to serve the community but how he would serve the community. He was originally drawn to the aspects of chemistry and biochemistry in pharmacy, but he took note of the profession’s evolving impact within hospital-based clinical settings. On entering pharmacy school, he recognized his ability to make quick decisions on the basis of partial or imperfect data, which drew him to the inpatient setting. He found this setting very rewarding because he could see the direct effects of clinician decisions when working as part of an interdisciplinary team. He was eventually led to critical care when he observed the immediate impact of pharmacotherapy on patient care. He continues to be driven in this field to use his knowledge and apply it through the scientific method to change practice. He hopes to further clinical pharmacy within the critical care setting through scholarship, clinical practice, and education of the next generation of clinical pharmacists.
Van Matre has been guided by a large group of mentors in his pharmacy school, residencies, and fellowship. Van Matre states:
This group of mentors is as diverse as the membership of ACCP, from junior ambulatory care faculty to fellows of the Society of Critical Care Medicine. They have all invested countless hours providing feedback, providing ideas, being excellent practice role models, and, above all else, listening.
He has particularly appreciated their ability to relate to him on both a personal and a professional level. Through them, he has learned how to lead, offer encouragement to others with a quiet comment, and balance his work and home life. He is very thankful for them, whom he credits as having helped make him a better pharmacist, researcher, educator, and husband.
On a personal note, one of his life goals is to hike all of Colorado’s 53 “fourteeners”—mountains 14,000 feet in elevation or higher. Because he grew up in Oklahoma, he did not have many opportunities to experience mountainous terrain. He particularly enjoys hiking the fourteeners because it provides a significant physical and mental challenge. Van Matre reflects:
Meeting these challenges allows me to step out into nature and helps to provide mental clarity in my everyday life. And who can’t beat the feeling of standing on top of the world!
July 2016
Sonak Pastakia, Pharm.D., MPH, BCPS, is an associate professor of pharmacy practice at Purdue University College of Pharmacy, an adjunct assistant professor at Indiana University School of Medicine, and a visiting lecturer at Moi University School of Medicine in Eldoret, Kenya. He practices as a full-time public health pharmacist based in Eldoret. Pastakia completed his Pharm.D. degree at Temple University School of Pharmacy and both a PGY1 and a PGY2 residency in HIV/infectious diseases at the University of North Carolina Hospitals. In addition, he earned an MPH degree at Harvard University School of Public Health and is on track to complete a Ph.D. degree with a focus on health economics at the University of Warwick in Coventry, UK, by the end of 2016.
In his current position as a public health pharmacist in Eldoret, Pastakia focuses his efforts on addressing the needs of underserved populations residing throughout rural western Kenya. He works with Academic Model Providing Access to Healthcare (AMPATH)—one of the largest HIV treatment programs in sub-Saharan Africa, with over 150,000 ever-enrolled patients with HIV receiving care at over 500 facilities. Pastakia serves in several capacities, including as co-chair of the pharmacy working group, collaborator with the chronic disease management program (focused on diabetes and hypertension), principal investigator on a nationwide counterfeit detection program, principal investigator on the largest gestational diabetes study in a low- and middle-income country setting, and board member for a street youth drop-in center. Through his participation in the AMPATH program, he has helped AMPATH transition from an HIV-focused program to a comprehensive program focused on the many health and societal issues faced by rural, resource-constrained patients in western Kenya. In addition to his work in Kenya, he develops novel models of care delivery in India to increase access to underserved rural populations.
Pastakia is passionate about his work and devotes much time to community service in Kenya, including helping to implement several unique models that incorporate high-priority services like microfinance and agricultural support into a portable group-based health care delivery model. This model, Bridging Income Generation with Group Integrated Care (BIGPIC), has improved health and economic outcomes in the recently completed pilots. Moreover, he has played a role in implementing a novel approach to addressing the needs of street youths in western Kenya. Street youths are immersed within a practical educational model (a living laboratory) that teaches about the latest agriculture, energy, and engineering technologies to help them prepare for the jobs of tomorrow and successful reintegration back into the community. This educational model includes the use of remote-controlled drones to streamline farming activities, fabrication of utility vehicles for rural terrains, and creation of a permaculture farm to enrich the soil for future farming efforts.
When discussing what has most influenced his career, Pastakia states:
One of the things that I have marveled at throughout my career is the immense resilience of underserved populations. When these populations are forced to thrive in situations where nothing is easy or given, they consistently demonstrate a resourcefulness, for which I’ve developed an immense appreciation.
Pastakia goes on to state that his career has also been influenced by his desire to ease the burden these populations face so that they can redirect their resourcefulness toward other community-enriching activities. Addressing health needs is of vital importance, but Pastakia challenges us to think broader than this—programs that solely focus on the traditional elements of health care have a tendency to come up short if they don’t simultaneously address the basic needs for food and income security. He feels strongly that this “bigger-picture view” spans far beyond the traditional practice of clinical pharmacy and has largely influenced the trajectory of his career. Similarly, Pastakia offers this advice to trainees:
Try to rethink health care around the constraints that the populations we are trying to serve face, rather than continuing to build health care services around the interests of the providers delivering care. Instead of treating the small proportion of the population that is able to visit stationary facilities, we must figure out better ways to engage entire populations to maximize the clinical outcomes we desire.
Pastakia describes these simple realizations as the primary guiding principles for the many impactful programs he has helped develop in western Kenya and notes that these skills of adaptability will be crucial in a world with ever-growing limitations in resources.
May 2016
Marcia Buck, Pharm.D., B.S., is currently ACCP president-elect. She earned her degrees from Purdue University and completed a pediatric residency and fellowship at the Medical University of South Carolina. Currently, she holds numerous job titles: clinical coordinator for pediatrics and residency program director for the pediatric PGY2 at the University of Virginia (UVA) Health System; associate professor of pediatrics at the UVA School of Medicine; and clinical professor at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Pharmacy. She has received several practice and teaching awards, including the UVA McLemore Birdsong Award for Excellence in Teaching. Examples of her multidisciplinary role in education include precepting PGY1 and PGY2 critical care and solid organ transplant pharmacy residents; training medical students, residents, and fellows; and participating in the pharmacy and nursing didactic and experiential education programs.
Buck credits Michael Reed, Pharm.D., FCCP, FCP, for shaping the way she practices and for her level of commitment to the profession. She was already an ACCP member when they met, but he encouraged her to expand her involvement. She started with her first committee appointment, went on to chair the Pediatrics Practice and Research Network (PRN), served on the Board of Regents, represented ACCP on the panel to develop the pediatric petition for the Board of Pharmacy Specialties and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists’ Task Force on Collaborative Practice, and is now the College’s president-elect.
“I’ve gained so much from serving in the organization,” she says. “I’ve had the opportunity to work with and learn from pediatric pharmacy leaders.” Moreover, “being a PRN member and serving on committees has allowed me to develop friendships with colleagues from institutions throughout the U.S. and Canada.”
With her background and varied experience, she continues to give back to the organization.
“As a clinical pharmacist working in an academic medical center without a school of pharmacy, I also bring a slightly different perspective to conversations about inter-professional practice, education and research that I hope will add value to many of ACCP’s current initiatives.”
Like her service to the profession and to ACCP, her professional and scholarly contributions continue to grow. She has published articles in many peer-reviewed journals, including Pharmacotherapy, and has written chapters for the Pharmacotherapy Self-Assessment Program (PSAP). She also produces a monthly open-access newsletter, Pediatric Pharmacotherapy, which is published through the UVA Department of Pediatrics. As coeditor for the Pediatric Self-Assessment Program (PedSAP), she aims to provide an effective tool for recertification. With each experience, she has grown as a writer and encourages leaders in our field to mentor junior professionals in their publishing career.
Writing is a true passion for Buck. Recently, she put her skills to the test by writing a book about the fascinating history of the antique house she owns and shares with her husband. Originally built as a tavern in the mid-1700s, Buck’s house belonged to one of Thomas Jefferson’s sisters and her husband, and Buck has journal entries written by Jefferson about going there for dinner and entertainment. The transition from pharmacy-related therapeutic reviews to narrative prose is not exactly seamless, however, and Buck admits that a friend deemed her first draft “a great cure for insomnia.” She is working hard to address these comments and strives to write a story that you cannot put down.
March 2016
Andrew Abe, Pharm.D., is a clinical pharmacist specializing in managed care and drug information at AlohaCare in Honolulu, Hawaii. AlohaCare is a local nonprofit health plan that provides services to the underserved population of Hawaii. Abe works with pharmacists and technicians to process medication prior authorizations and manages the Medicare and Medicaid formulary for AlohaCare. He enjoys using the drug information and literature evaluation skills he gained in both pharmacy school and fellowship training to appropriately determine the medical necessity of a recommended therapy.
Abe earned his Pharm.D. degree at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California, in 2011. After graduation, he completed a 2-year research fellowship in drug information and evidence-based practice at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. During his fellowship, he served as a drug information rotation preceptor to advanced pharmacy practice experience (APPE) students and assisted in managing the hospital formulary. His research interests concentrated on dietary supplements and relevant drug information for practicing pharmacists. After completing his fellowship program, he accepted a position at the University of Kansas (KU) as a drug information specialist responsible for managing the drug information center. In addition, as a clinical assistant professor at KU, he taught the drug information and biostatistics course and an elective Medicare course, served as a preceptor to APPE students, and was the faculty adviser for the KU Kappa Psi chapter.
The decision to work in drug information, academia, and managed care came from his desire to keep up to date on new medications and their impact on patient care. Abe states that this was not always his career path in pharmacy school because he was unaware of the many opportunities available, but he liked the idea of being a career student (albeit without midterms and finals, of course). While on his rotations, he explored options within pharmacy and found gratification in making clinical decisions—based on evidence—that would have a large impact on patient populations. Abe states:
When I discovered that there was a career in pharmacy doing just that, I worked hard to make sure my training and experience made me qualified. I feel fortunate that my career has allowed me to be a lifelong student with the ability to positively impact patient medication therapy.
Abe credits his involvement with the Kappa Psi Gamma Nu chapter at the University of the Pacific for influencing his career the most. “A lot of who and where I am as a clinical pharmacist has revolved around my involvement with Kappa Psi.” He acknowledges his fraternity brothers for providing excellent guidance on how to be successful in school and for offering advice on a variety of career paths and training opportunities beyond earning the Pharm.D. degree. “I can honestly say that through Kappa Psi I have made friends and colleagues at every step of my career. Their mentorship during my career has been instrumental to my successes.”
Involvement with ACCP and its Drug Information Practice and Research Network (DI PRN) has enabled Abe to form relationships with like-minded clinical pharmacists. Abe recognizes that although all pharmacy organizations have their benefits, ACCP provides an opportunity to collaborate with clinical pharmacists who share his passion for drug information, which has been instrumental in helping him develop his personal clinical practice. He appreciates the valuable time-saving advice he has received from members of the DI PRN. Abe adds that the PRN’s e-mail list and networking meetings have enabled him to communicate with leaders in his field, helping him grow all aspects of his practice. Even though Abe is relatively new to ACCP, he is determined to give back more than he has received. Abe contributes to the College by reviewing curricula vitae, participating in the DI PRN, and being involved in committees.
January 2016
Craig Beavers, Pharm.D., graduated in 2009 from the University of Kentucky (UK) College of Pharmacy and completed a PGY1 pharmacy practice residency and a PGY2 cardiology pharmacy residency at UK Albert B. Chandler Hospital in Lexington, Kentucky. Beavers is a clinical pharmacist and the cardiology pharmacy residency program director at TriStar Centennial Medical Center and the corporate director of cardiovascular services for the Hospital Corporation of America. He has worked as adjunct faculty for Lipscomb University College of Pharmacy, University of Tennessee College of Pharmacy, and UK College of Pharmacy. Beavers currently serves as the co-chair of the clinical pharmacist workgroup of the American College of Cardiology and as a member of the Cardiovascular Team Council and Surviving Acute Myocardial Infarction Steering Committee. He is the first pharmacist to be a Cardiovascular Professional for the Society for Cardiac Angiography and Interventions and serves on its quality committee. He has served as the vice chair and chair of the ACCP Cardiology PRN Student and Resident Committee and currently serves as the PRN’s secretary/treasurer. He has published numerous papers, abstracts, and textbook chapters with a focus on cardiovascular pharmacotherapy. He is board certified in pharmacotherapy with added qualifications in cardiology and is a certified anticoagulation care provider. He is a fellow of the American Heart Association and an associate of the American College of Cardiology.
As a cardiovascular clinical pharmacist, Beavers serves adult acute care cardiovascular patients in the coronary care unit and wards and the cardiac catheterization laboratory. In this position, he can participate in physician rounds, assist with quality improvement, provide patient education, and provide training and education to pharmacy residents, pharmacy students, and cardiology fellows and interns. Beavers provides lectures and other services as an adjunct faculty member. Because his position allows for research and other academic pursuits, he is currently enrolled in a Ph.D. degree program in clinical and translational science.
When discussing who influenced his career the most, Beavers states, “I found that the world around me, past and present, provides constant influence and motivation. First and foremost, my family has a strong pull on my life.” He explains:
My drive for success comes in efforts to support my family and in return, my family provides me the grounding I often need. I would not be half the man I am today without my wife, daughter, mother, father, brothers, and others. Beyond this, there are so many people who do amazing things, even more amazing than anything I think I have done, that I aspire to model. People I work with or admire provide me confidence to be able to accomplish any dream; knowing the things they have faced or how they get things done. I find it important to be well-rounded and often find influence in historical figures, such as John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, and Walt Disney to name a few, who worked hard and came from nothing.
Beavers would advise people, regardless of practice, profession, or background, to be open to all sources of inspiration and continue to learn. He says, “The world is full of glorious people, events, music, art, books, theater, sports, and ideas that can be applied to your daily life; you just need to be open to them.” He challenges others to set daily learning goals and goals for keeping up-to-date. He states:
I would challenge everyone to be open-minded when approaching anything. You will find the biggest limitation in life can be yourself. Sometimes you have to cast a wide net to catch some fish. Finally, be willing to take calculated risks.
Beavers participates annually in the American Heart Association’s Heart Walk as a local team leader/captain and assists with fundraising. He and his wife hope to start a Dolly Parton Imagination Library program in Central Kentucky, which provides one free book a month to all children 0–5 years of age who participate. He aspires to visit all 50 states and learn to play the piano.
2015 ACCP Member Spotlight
November 2015
Deeter Neumann is pursuing his Pharm.D. degree, with an emphasis in leadership and research, at the University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy with an expected graduation date of May 2016. He received his B.S. degree in genetics from the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences at the University of Wisconsin – Madison in 2009.
Throughout his time at the University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy, Neumann has been engaged in numerous organizations and has been a member of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy since the first year of his professional studies. He was actively involved with chartering the Minnesota Student College of Clinical Pharmacy and then served as president the following year. Neumann currently serves as a member at-large for the 2015–2016 ACCP National Student Network Advisory Committee.
Outside the college of pharmacy, Neumann is one of the lead pharmacist-interns at Abbott Northwestern Hospital, a 629-bed quaternary/tertiary care community teaching hospital. As a lead intern, he focuses on incorporating 19 interns into the hospital’s drug distribution and medication reconciliation services. In addition, Neumann works in the emergency department and various patient care units completing medication history interviews. In this capacity, he assesses patients’ home medication regimens for possible drug-related admissions and provides recommendations for optimizing pharmacotherapy. Neumann is also a pharmacist-intern at Fairview Home Infusion of Fairview Pharmacy Services. In this role, he has been trained in sterile compounding and preparing outpatient parenteral medications in a variety of administration devices.
On graduation, Neumann intends to further develop his clinical knowledge, leadership abilities, and research skills by completing a PGY1 pharmacy practice residency. After completing the PGY1, Neumann fully expects to specialize his clinical practice by completing a PGY2 residency in oncology.
Neumann’s interest in pharmacotherapy began during his undergraduate studies in genetics, immunology, and physiology. An introduction to pharmacology course stimulated his curiosity about pharmacologic treatment and pharmacogenomics. Neumann became interested in oncology pharmacy when he studied the role of genetics and immunology in malignancies and potential future treatment options.
Neumann credits Drs. Todd Sorensen, Rebecca Fahrenbruch, Debra Skaar, and Pamala Jacobson with positively influencing his professional development. Sorensen’s Leading Change in Pharmacy course taught him the importance of self-reflection; Fahrenbruch challenged him to be involved within the college of pharmacy as well as professional organizations, and he continues to serve as a mentor; Skaar, a faculty liaison for ACCP and a strong advocate for the College, encouraged his involvement and leadership within the organization; and Jacobson challenged him to expand his knowledge base while continuously reinforcing the importance of discipline and self-motivation.
Neumann’s advice to all student pharmacists interested in clinical pharmacy is to spend time shadowing pharmacists in areas that stimulate their interest. In addition to providing didactic and experiential education, these experiences can help narrow potential career paths and provide an opportunity to find a mentor. Neumann emphasizes that his mentors have challenged both his professional and his personal abilities, and the mentor-mentee relationship has been an unrivaled source of wisdom for him. He stresses that this relationship is reciprocal because he believes the mentor finds satisfaction from observing professional growth.
Neumann’s life goal is to travel the world to enjoy all the exotic places it has to offer. He hopes to initiate his travels soon after finishing his residency training with a trip to the Galápagos Islands to observe the variety of wildlife that inhabit the archipelago.
September 2015
Tamara Malm, Pharm.D., MPH, BCPS, is an assistant professor of pharmacy practice and administration at the University of Saint Joseph in Hartford, Connecticut. She serves as a preceptor for the ambulatory care rotation for pharmacy students in the adult primary care clinic at Yale-New Haven Hospital. This clinic provides many services, including hypertension, addiction, diabetes, anticoagulation, and urgent care, but most of her time is focused in the transitional care clinic. Developing clinical pharmacy services in the transitional care clinic was the focus of her PGY2 research project, which has turned into an extremely rewarding position. The primary goal of the clinic is to provide continuity of care for patients between the hospital and home. Important issues such as medication accessibility, affordability, and education are addressed at follow-up appointments with a multidisciplinary team consisting of an attending and resident physician, licensed practical nurse, social worker, pharmacist, and pharmacy student. Malm aims to expand this service during the next year by adding home and virtual visits by pharmacists, pharmacy students, and residents to reach even more patients during critical transitions. Malm believes that educating patients on their medications and making interventions on medication discrepancies keeps her focused on the significance of her position, while educating pharmacy students and asking meaningful research questions helps expand her breadth of knowledge.
Malm’s journey to pharmacy began when she packed up her horse, cat, and personal belongings to move to Lexington, Kentucky, for undergraduate training at the University of Kentucky. She fell in love with the Bluegrass state and decided to stay and complete both her Pharm.D. and MPH degrees in 2013. The clinical challenge of her neurocritical care experiential rotation drove her to pursue postgraduate training. She completed a PGY1 residency program at Vidant Medical Center in Greenville, North Carolina. With determination, persistence, and leadership, she successfully completed her research project, “Ensuring Safety and Accuracy of Admission Medication Histories in a Technician-Run Service.” Her mentors Kathey Rumley, Pharm.D., Leigh Gurley, Pharm.D., and Carol Labadie, Pharm.D., taught her how to manage others, develop and redesign a clinical service, track and trend medication errors, provide constructive feedback, and relay important results to key stakeholders. Malm believes the PGY1 residency program was one of her most rewarding experiences thus far, and over the course of that year, she recognized her strengths in leadership, management, and medication safety. Malm completed a PGY2 residency in health-system pharmacy administration at Yale-New Haven Hospital in New Haven, Connecticut, and then achieved credentialing as a Board Certified Pharmacotherapy Specialist (BCPS). She is extremely thankful to all of her mentors during both her PGY1 and PGY2 residencies, who helped develop her clinical management acumen and provided her with challenging opportunities at every turn.
As a student, Malm recognized during her first ACCP Annual Meeting that ACCP is a unique and special professional pharmacy organization. Malm believes that there is so much to be gained at each ACCP meeting, including opportunities for organizational involvement, networking, idea sharing, and expanding therapeutics knowledge. She attends a wide variety of programming sessions at each ACCP meeting, but her favorite sessions include recent updates in drug therapy, new and innovative practice models, and the best paper presentations. She is inspired by the range of experience among the pharmacist attendees at the sessions, and this motivates her to push the boundaries of pharmacy practice. Malm has been very active in ACCP since joining several years ago. She recently completed her term as the vice chair of the ACCP Resident Advisory Committee (RAC), where she helped develop informational videos about ACCP and the RAC. Furthermore, she is actively involved in increasing both student and resident involvement in the Clinical Administration PRN, career roundtables, and premeeting symposium at the ACCP Annual Meeting. Malm is still a new practitioner, but “ACCP has already established a permanent place in [my] professional life and [I look] forward to contributing to the College even more in the future.”
Malm believes that the most underserved patients in the United States are those with a language barrier. Through her work with underserved populations in Connecticut, she has been inspired to learn Spanish to help patients understand their own health and medications. She hopes to combine her love of traveling and clinical pharmacy to help patients outside the United States.
Malm realized that she was meant for clinical pharmacy and that she truly loved her job when she was told “I don’t know what we would have done without a pharmacist here.” This statement provides her with enough fuel to get through all of the tough days and continue learning and growing as a practitioner. Malm advises new practitioners to always say yes at the beginning of their career. She feels passionately that because there are so many different career paths in pharmacy, you owe it to yourself to try everything. She understands that taking on many different projects may stretch you a little thin but believes that you should push yourself to your limits to see what you can handle.
July 2015
Alexandre Chan, Pharm.D., MPH, FCCP, BCPS, BCOP, is assistant head and associate professor at the Department of Pharmacy, Faculty of Science at National University of Singapore (NUS). He is also jointly appointed as an associate professor at Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School in Singapore and adjunct faculty at the University of California, San Francisco School of Pharmacy and University of the Pacific Thomas J. Long School of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. Chan earned his Pharm.D. degree from Rutgers University Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy and his M.S. degree in public health from National University of Singapore. He completed a pharmacy practice residency (PGY1) at the University of California, San Francisco School of Pharmacy and an oncology specialty residency (PGY2) at the University of California, Davis Medical Center. Currently, he is dually board certified in pharmacotherapy and oncology pharmacy.
Chan moved to Singapore to begin his academic career in 2006, where he established a clinical pharmacy service with the lymphoma and sarcoma team at the National Cancer Center in Singapore. Through his clinical service, Chan has been providing direct patient care and drug optimization to patients with cancer, ensuring drug efficacy and safety. Today, Chan’s clinical service also provides experiential learning opportunities for pharmacy students and residents in Singapore and different parts of the world. As a strong advocate of clinical pharmacy education, Chan has cowritten several textbook chapters, including the lymphoma chapter in Pharmacotherapy: A Pathophysiologic Approach. He is also a program director for the National Oncology Pharmacy Residency Program in Singapore.
As a clinician-scientist, Chan is heavily involved in cancer research. He has great interest in cancer supportive care with an emphasis on understanding the biological mechanisms, clinical prediction, and management strategies of chemotherapy-induced and cancer-related toxicities in patients with cancer and survivors. He also has a strong interest in cancer pharmacoepidemiology, medication safety in oncology, and clinical pharmacy education. Chan has published more than 110 full-length peer-reviewed manuscripts in a wide array of cancer supportive care topics, including chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting, myelosuppression, cognitive impairment, dermatological toxicities, and cancer-related fatigue. Chan supervises Ph.D. students and fellows, and his research program has attracted more than $1.7 million in funding support from numerous agencies and pharmaceutical companies at the national and international level. Chan was the recipient of the Young Scientist Award from National University of Singapore in 2013 and was elected as an American College of Clinical Pharmacy (ACCP) Fellow in 2014.
Chan has served as a leader in various regional, national, and international organizations. He has served on many committees and task forces with ACCP, as well as organized numerous conferences and workshops in Asia to advocate for ACCP. With the International Society of Oncology Pharmacy Practitioners (ISOPP), he has served as a chair for the education committee, as well as the scientific co-chair for the 2014 and 2016 biannual meetings. Chan is also an associate editor for the Journal of Oncology Pharmacy Practice, the official journal for ISOPP. He is currently serving his second term as a board member with the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer (MASCC) while also chairing the neurotoxicity study group and membership committee. Chan has served on numerous guideline panels for MASCC, including two clinical management guidelines for dermatological toxicities associated with EGFR inhibitors and radiation dermatitis. Chan has also served in various capacities for other organizations, including the Asian Conference on Clinical Pharmacy and the Ministry of Health, Singapore.
Chan firmly believes that his mentors have influenced and inspired him greatly throughout his career. These individuals include Drs. Jacky Olin, Robert Ignoffo, Andrea Iannucci, Jeanne Reede, William Dager, William Kehoe, and Gary Yee. He is very grateful for their valuable guidance, both personally and professionally. He has also learned the meaning of mentorship from them, and he hopes to follow their footsteps to provide great mentorship to his trainees and students.
Chan encourages everyone to be adventurous and not fearful of changes and challenges. He could have taken a safe and conservative route to develop his career in the United States. Instead, he made a bold, yet conscious, decision to move to Singapore to develop his academic career. He saw great opportunities, and he was determined to expand the presence of clinical pharmacy in Asia. Today, Chan is a leader in pioneering clinical pharmacy practice, research, and education in Asia. He is grateful to have met many wonderful colleagues in Singapore and Asia who share his vision. Chan believes that his career successes to date would not have been possible without these colleagues. He urges everyone to cultivate a broader mindset, step out of his or her comfort zone, and embrace the challenges lying ahead.
Chan’s favorite quotation is, “Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.” He is a firm believer that we must be passionate and enthusiastic about what we do, and it is important that we continue to network and surround ourselves with like-minded individuals. Chan believes that ACCP has given him many wonderful opportunities. He strongly encourages everyone to stay active within ACCP and to find his or her niche within this excellent organization.
May 2015
Jonathan Bain, Pharm.D., BCPS, is a critical care pharmacy specialist at the Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California. He began his college career at the University of Tennessee at Martin, where he received a B.S. degree in chemistry. Shadowing experiences during this time sparked his interest in critical care clinical pharmacy, leading him to apply to the University of Tennessee in Memphis, where he completed a Pharm.D. degree. He continued his clinical training by completing a PGY1 pharmacy practice residency at Moses H. Cone Hospital and subsequently a PGY2 critical care residency at the University of Kentucky. On completion of his second residency, he briefly remained on staff at the University of Kentucky as a cardiothoracic surgery/cardiovascular critical care pharmacist, where he was also involved in student and resident rotations, research projects, and therapeutic lectures at the University of Kentucky College of Pharmacy.
In his current role, Bain’s patient care responsibilities include daily rounding on several intensive care units, including neurosurgery, medicine, cardiology, trauma, general surgery, and cardiothoracic surgery; sedation, delirium, and analgesia patient rounds; medication therapy management; management of critical bleeding; and medical emergency “code” and stroke responses. Bain is also involved administratively in the implementation of formulary management strategies through current protocol analysis or development and analysis of non-formulary requests. He provides pharmacotherapy education to the medical and surgical residents and is involved in several research projects with plans for publishing the results. Bain’s plans for the future include providing advanced practice experiences for students and residency rotations. He has an interest in anticoagulation and bleeding disorders that originated from his work at Moses Cone Hospital and the University of Kentucky. He cowrote a recent paper in the Journal of Thrombosis and Thrombolysis on the off-label use of recombinant activated factor VII for patients with critical bleeding.
Bain credits his early shadowing experience with showing him what a clinical pharmacist does in areas from nutritional support to critical care. As an undergraduate, he saw how critical care pharmacists had a high impact in the care of critically ill patients. Bain’s access to great mentors and his ability to complete his education at several institutions across the United States have enabled him to observe and incorporate different styles of practice and teaching into his current practice. Bain is inspired to become a better pharmacist and researcher, never to settle for the status quo, and to strive to be the same type of mentor to others as he experienced early in his career.
Bain joined ACCP as a student pharmacist. His mentors—G. Christopher Wood, Pharm.D., FCCP, BCPS-AQ ID; Bradley Boucher, Pharm.D., FCCP, FCCM; and P. David Rogers, Pharm.D., Ph.D.—were actively involved in the organization and influenced his decision to join ACCP. As a student, his work on the project “CAS5 is required for fluconazole tolerance in Candida albicans,” with Dr. Rogers received an ACCP Best Poster Award. He believes that ACCP has provided a venue for meeting clinical practitioners from across the United States and throughout the world, as well as a great way to stay in touch with colleagues. ACCP has been essential to his growth as a practitioner through participation in its meetings, committee work, and publications. Bain has been an active member of the Critical Care PRN and has served on the PRN’s program and communications committees. He has also served on ACCP’s Organizational Affairs Committee and looks forward to becoming more involved in the College.
Bain’s advice to others is to surround yourselves with great practitioners and people. He credits his success to being fortunate to have been surrounded by many hard-working, selfless people who always push themselves to be great. He finds this attitude contagious, and it serves as one of the driving forces that influence his teaching, research, and clinical activities.
January 2015
Dr. Michael Gillette is a clinical pharmacy specialist in cardiology at the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center in Houston, Texas. Many people and moments in his life have influenced his career in numerous ways, but his brother first introduced the profession of pharmacy to him, and his undergraduate chemistry professors were also instrumental in supporting and preparing him for pharmacy school. He attended Nova Southeastern University College of Pharmacy, where many faculty and preceptors helped him grow professionally and encouraged him to consider pursuing residency training. After graduation, he first gained valuable experience working as a clinical/staff pharmacist for 2 years in the VA setting before completing an accredited PGY1 pharmacy practice residency with an emphasis in acute care and a 2-year postdoctoral fellowship in cardiology at the North Florida/South Georgia Veterans Health System. He is a recent graduate of the ACCP Research and Scholarship Academy and is board certified in both pharmacotherapy and ambulatory care pharmacy.
In his current role, his patient care responsibilities include rounding as a member of the interdisciplinary team in the cardiac care unit and on the inpatient cardiology consult team. He also manages a pharmacist-run heart failure clinic once a week and precepts pharmacy students and residents. Gillette’s interests lie in providing optimal patient care as well as conducting research related to the use of pharmacotherapy for treating various cardiovascular diseases. His administrative responsibilities include being a member of the hospital’s critical care committee and assisting with the development and implementation of protocols related to cardiovascular pharmacotherapy. In addition, he participates in investigator-initiated research projects and collaborates with other providers in clinical trials.
Gillette enjoys the daily challenges of being a clinical pharmacy practitioner, and he chose this as a career path because it gave him the ability to directly and positively influence patient care. Some sage advice he would offer to future clinical pharmacists is to always take advantage of every opportunity and experience to grow and evolve. He notes that while in school, he never thought he would eventually be practicing in cardiology, and although concepts didn’t make sense in school, he was fortunate to have the opportunity after graduating to practice under clinical pharmacists and physicians who were able to fill in the missing gaps in an area that was so perplexing at first but then just fell into place. He commented, “Sometimes, you learn from the positive experiences and sometimes the negative, but the great thing is that you learn. Take the opportunity to look back on your mistakes and self-reflect so that you don’t repeat them.” One thing that has helped him significantly is his experience in networking with others to seek advice, ideas, and even encouragement when necessary. “A good mentor,” he recounts, “is certainly worth his/her weight in gold. Work hard in all that you do; nothing good ever came to those who didn’t put forth the effort or ever try.” Finally, he advises hopeful clinical pharmacists to find an area within pharmacy that is enjoyable because, as he says, “you’ll be doing it for a long time and you’ll be successful at doing things that you enjoy. Most of all, great things happen as a generous response to prayer.”
Gillette also credits a few others as helpful influences: the numerous patients he has encountered, who have given him necessary experience and both positive and negative feedback; his family and friends, who have been a longitudinal cord of support; and lastly, God, who has graciously coordinated everything that has led him to where he is today.
2014 ACCP Member Spotlight
November 2014
Mr. Tyler Vest is currently a third-year pharmacy student at the University of Cincinnati (UC) James L. Winkle College of Pharmacy who is expected to graduate in May 2016. Before matriculating into the Pharm.D. program at UC, he completed undergraduate coursework at the University of Kentucky (UK). During his time at UK, he developed a passion for clinical pharmacy and research. Vest engaged in research in a pharmaceutical sciences laboratory at the UK College of Pharmacy that seeks to personalize lung cancer therapy by looking at the genomic content of lung cancer DNA. The laboratory’s principal investigator, Dr. E. Penni Black, strengthened Vest’s interest in clinical pharmacy and research and began to help him hone the skills that would be necessary for further education and training.
Vest works as an inpatient pharmacy intern at the Cleveland Clinic. As part of his internship, he completed two 12-week components focused on clinical pharmacy and operations during the summer months after his first and second year. Through this opportunity, he has learned the importance of clinical pharmacy; moreover, he has been exposed to day-to-day pharmacy operations. This experience has allowed him to participate in two clinical research projects: re-dispensing from the institution’s pediatric pharmacy satellite and reviewing initial antimicrobial doses in patients on CVVHD (continuous veno-venous hemodialysis).
Vest’s exposure to clinical pharmacy ultimately led him to apply to pharmacy school to pursue clinical pharmacy further. One day, he hopes to be a clinical pharmacist in an inpatient setting. Through his research projects, and listening to clinical pharmacists talk about their careers at UK, he became intrigued by clinical pharmacy and began to understood the importance of pharmacist involvement in patient care as experts in drug therapy. He wants to be involved in direct patient care and to be doing what is necessary to care for his patients. Although he is currently considering all the many paths available within clinical pharmacy, he is most interested in pursuing oncology.
Vest joined ACCP during his first pharmacy year and shortly thereafter served as an ACCP College of Pharmacy Student Liaison. With the help of his classmates, he also established the local ACCP Student Chapter at UC. He is actively involved with the state’s ACCP affiliate, the Ohio College of Clinical Pharmacy. He currently serves on the ACCP National Student Network Advisory Committee as vice chair and will assume the role of chair next year. This experience has been an incredible opportunity for him. He is very enthusiastic about helping to shape and contribute to the career paths of students aspiring to be clinical pharmacists during their earliest stage of career development. Having attended the past two ACCP Annual Meetings, Vest thoroughly enjoyed all the programming therein. ACCP has opened doors for him that he never thought were there.
One of Vest’s life goals is to complete postgraduate training. He hopes to complete a PGY1 and then perhaps pursue a PGY2 in oncology. His initial oncology exposure was during his time at UK, and his experiences since then have strengthened his interest in oncology. By completing this short-term goal, Vest hopes to make progress toward his long-term goal of being involved in direct patient care and managing his patients’ medication therapy.
September 2014
Amy Barton Pai, Pharm.D., FCCP, FASN, BCPS, is an associate professor of pharmacy practice at Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences (ACPHS). She earned her B.S. degree in pharmacy from Albany College of Pharmacy in 1996. She then completed a pharmacy practice residency at St. Peter’s Hospital in Albany, New York, and received her Pharm.D. degree at Albany College of Pharmacy in 1999. From 1999 to 2001, she was a nephrology research fellow at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Then, from 2001 to 2008, Dr. Barton Pai was an associate professor at the University of New Mexico College of Pharmacy and School of Medicine.
Dr. Barton Pai is director of the ANephRx Core Laboratory. Her clinical and translational research program focuses on oxidative stress and inflammation in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). Her laboratory conducts in vivo and in vitro investigations of the effects intravenous iron compounds, vitamin D, and other pharmaceuticals on cytokine activation, reactive oxygen species formation, and lipid peroxidation to better understand the potential effects of the agents on inflammation and cardiovascular disease in patients with kidney disease. Her other research interests include pharmacokinetics and drug metabolism in CKD, effects of iron on gram-positive organism growth and infection, and outcomes related to clinical pharmacy interventions in patients with CKD. Dr. Barton Pai has received grant support from the PhRMA (Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America) Foundation and the Dialysis Clinic, Inc.; investigator-initiated contracts from the pharmaceutical industry; and federal funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Dr. Barton Pai’s practice for the past 15 years has been in the ambulatory hemodialysis setting. In 2002, she initiated the Clinical Pharmacy Research Training Program to provide longitudinal training for aspiring clinical pharmacy scientists. She actively mentors residents, fellows, and pharmacy students in a nephrology-focused elective rotation and an APPE (advanced pharmacy practice experience). She serves as a co-adviser for the Student College of Clinical Pharmacy Chapter (SCCP), which was recognized as the student organization of the year at ACPHS in 2014. SCCP at ACPHS provides cardiovascular and kidney screenings in the Capital Region of upstate New York in partnership with the Northeast Kidney Foundation.
Dr. Barton Pai first became interested in research during the fourth year of her B.S. degree program in pharmacy. The dean offered to send students to Cornell Medical College in New York City to work in the pharmacology laboratory. During that time, she spent 6 weeks working with various laboratory techniques in both in vitro and animal models. On the last day of the experience, she went on rounds with a clinical pharmacologist who used his research experience in hepatic enzyme activity to modulate a patient’s chemotherapy regimen. After that, she knew she wanted to be a clinical and translational scientist. She chose the subspecialty of nephrology because of the “complexity of the biochemical milieu in patients with chronic kidney disease and how that may affect response to drug therapy.”
Dr. Barton Pai is a Board Certified Pharmacotherapy Specialist and a Fellow of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy and the American Society of Nephrology. She serves on several national committees, including the American Society of Nephrology Dialysis Advisory Group and the NIH National Kidney Disease Education Program (NKDEP) Coordinating Committee, and she serves as chair of the Pharmacy Work Group for NKDEP. She is serving on the Programming Committee for the National Kidney Foundation for 2015. Dr. Barton Pai finds her work with these professional organizations rewarding and has experienced many benefits through her ACCP membership. ACCP and the Nephrology PRN have been instrumental in providing grant funding, mentorship, and networking opportunities for her career. She also states, “The intimacy of ACCP meetings compared to other pharmacy meetings and the growth of student programming has made the student ACCP experience invaluable. As an adviser, I always recommend that students attend ACCP first if they are planning on pursuing post-doctoral experiences.”
Although Dr. Barton Pai remains very busy with professional organizations, research, and the mentoring of aspiring pharmacists and researchers, she also has many interests outside her career. One especially interesting example is Dr. Barton Pai’s passion for ballet. She takes six to eight classes per week and tries to attend as many New York City Ballet performances as possible.
July 2014
Dr. Richard Parrish is a clinical practice leader for surgery and pediatric pharmacy with Alberta Health Services (AHS) in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and practices at Royal Alexandra Hospital. Dr. Parrish completed his B.S. degree in pharmacy general practice at The Ohio State University in 1980, his M.S. degree at Auburn University in 1985, and his Ph.D. degree in social, administrative, and clinical pharmacy at the University of Minnesota in 2000. His dissertation on early 20th-century interprofessional negotiation of drug standards was published as a book, the first in the program’s 40-year history. He is a Board Certified Pharmacotherapy Specialist (BCPS). As the former chief pharmacist at five U.S. hospitals of various bed sizes and scope, Dr. Parrish has led the implementation of significant medication safety improvements in CPOE (computerized physician order entry) systems in both adult and pediatric health systems.
In his current practice, Dr. Parrish serves as a provincial pharmacy representative to AHS’s Surgery Strategic Clinical Network (SCN) Core Committee and as an ERAS (Enhanced Recovery After Surgery) Steering Committee member for the Diabetes, Obesity, and Nutrition SCN. He is also a member of the AHS Pediatric Advisory Committee.
Dr. Parrish was elected as an ACCP Fellow in 2013. Since election to ACCP membership in 2001, he has served on numerous task forces and committees, both as member and chair. Moreover, he has been a member of ACCP’s Research Institute’s Practice-Based Research Network Community Advisory Panel since 2012. From 2010 to 2012, Dr. Parrish served the Pediatrics PRN as chair of the Collaboration Committee, which published a joint opinion with the Pediatric Pharmacy Advocacy Group (PPAG) in both Pharmacotherapy and the Journal of Pediatric Pharmacology and Therapeutics on a pediatric patient’s need for a clinical pharmacist. He was the founding president for DC-CCP (District of Columbia College of Clinical Pharmacy), an ACCP chapter. In addition to his service to ACCP, he is an active member of PPAG and SIDP (Society of Infectious Diseases Pharmacists) and was recently invited as a participant in the Alberta College of Pharmacists Inaugural Leadership Forum.
Dr. Parrish values ACCP because of the educational resources and networking opportunities it has provided to him through the years. The College leadership inspired him to contribute his time, talent, and treasure. He would like to offer his gratitude to the College leadership, most notably Mary Beth O’Connell, Gary Matzke, Dawn Havrda, Milap Nahata, Don McLeod, and the late Darwin Zaske, for “their penetrating vision, timely mentoring, and sparkling collegiality along my wayfare.”
Advice Dr. Parrish offers to the College is to “define, or be defined!” In addition, he recommends three professional precepts: being goal directed, building new relationships, and maintaining and expanding old relationships. He enacts these precepts each day by setting the following goals: learn and use the names of three new people, and express appreciation and affection to three friends. These goals have guided his practice for more than 35 years. You may be surprised to learn that, partly to honor the birth of his three sons and his professional upbringing in Roman Catholic health systems, Dr. Parrish chose to be a Catholic and is a trained liturgical cantor who ministered to parishes in State College, Pennsylvania, and Wayzata, Minnesota, for almost 10 years in the 1990s.
May 2014
Emily Benefield, Pharm.D., BCPS, an alumna of Washington State University, is the PGY1 residency site coordinator and advanced clinical pharmacist in the pediatric/cardiac intensive care units (PICUs/CICUs) at Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah. Dr. Benefield was introduced to clinical pharmacy while shadowing at Yakima Valley Memorial Hospital (YVMH) during her senior year of high school. This was the first of her many interactions with Dr. Dennis Hoover, the director of pharmacy, and Dr. Carol Vanevenhoven, a junior clinical pharmacist. At YVMH, Drs. Hoover and Vanevenhoven taught her that the practice of clinical pharmacy uses high-level math and science skills in the provision of patient care. Two years after that initial meeting, Dr. Benefield was hired as an intern at YVMH, thus beginning her path to becoming a clinical pharmacist. Over this period, Dr. Benefield was taught the basics of pharmacy, which grew into clinical abilities, thanks to the clinical pharmacy mentors at YVMH and her exposure to the residency program there. Moreover, although Dr. Benefield knew her career path would lead her to postgraduate training before becoming a clinical pharmacist, she had no idea this path would eventually lead her to pediatrics.
Dr. Benefield was drawn to pediatrics because of her lack of confidence and knowledge in the specialty. Hence, to better herself, she sought out every advanced pharmacy practice experience (APPE) in pediatrics available so that she could learn more about pediatric disease states and their relationship to pharmacotherapy. Because of the paucity of data for most pediatric drug treatments, the pediatric clinical pharmacist as the drug therapy expert is an integral member of the interdisciplinary health care team.
After graduating with a Pharm.D. degree from the University of Oklahoma College of Pharmacy, Dr. Benefield began her PGY1 training at the under the direction of Winter Smith, Pharm.D., BCPS. During her first year there, Dr. Benefield found her love and passion for pediatric pharmacotherapy. This led her to further pursue a PGY2 pediatric pharmacy residency with Tracy Hagemann, Pharm.D., FCCP, FPPAG, also at the University of Oklahoma.
After completing her residency, Dr. Benefield began her career as a clinical pharmacist at Intermountain Healthcare - Primary Children’s Hospital, a 289-bed freestanding pediatric referral center for Utah, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and Nevada. Serving such a large geographic area, Primary Children’s Hospital has a high-acuity patient population, adding to the excitement of working in the pediatric referral center. Dr. Benefield participates in daily multidisciplinary rounds with faculty and residents in the University of Utah Department of Pediatrics, attends all respiratory and cardiac resuscitations, contributes to trauma stabilizations, and provides support for ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) cannulations on the PICU and CICU teams. She works with an accomplished team of pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, physicians, nurse practitioners, nurses, respiratory therapists, dietitians, and critical care technicians to provide the best possible care to the children of the Intermountain West.
Dr. Benefield became the residency site coordinator for the PGY1 pharmacy residency at Primary Children’s Hospital about 2 years ago. Primary Children’s has 3 of the 10 PGY1 pharmacy residents within the four sites of the Intermountain Healthcare residency program, all of whom have opportunities to participate in elective learning experiences at the pediatric facility. She also serves as a preceptor for the PICU learning experience offered to APPE students and PGY1 and PGY2 residents in the Salt Lake City area. Dr. Benefield finds daily fulfillment in the challenges of training the up-and-coming minds of pediatric clinical pharmacy.
One of most important mentors in Dr. Benefield’s career is Dr. Tracy Hagemann, former PGY2 pediatric residency director at the University of Oklahoma College of Pharmacy. Dr. Hagemann is not only a great professional example, but she also truly focuses on Dr. Benefield’s overall development. Dr. Benefield is very grateful for Dr. Hagemann’s understanding of the importance of having balance in life. Indeed, only with this guidance was Dr. Benefield able to make some professional sacrifices to move to Utah for the love of family and the outdoor things she loves, such as running, hiking, and snowboarding. Dr. Benefield has no regrets about the decision, as she has been able to mold her position to include leadership, clinical, and research opportunities while serving as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Utah College of Pharmacy. With the support of the pediatric pharmacy faculty at the University of Oklahoma, Dr. Benefield has been able to go much farther than she ever imagined in her early years as a practitioner. Although it isn’t easy to find a work-life balance, Dr. Benefield recommends that young practitioners take the time to find the right personal balance for themselves.
March 2014
Dr. Nicole Olson is a clinical pharmacy specialist – patient aligned care team (PACT) at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC) in Tomah, Wisconsin. She earned her Pharm.D. degree from the University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy. In 2011, she completed a PGY1 Pharmacy Residency at the VAMC in West Palm Beach, Florida. She is a Board Certified Ambulatory Care Pharmacist who focuses on primary care.
Dr. Olson primarily works in a primary care clinic treating veterans with diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, heart failure, tobacco cessation, asthma, and COPD. She also works ½ day each week in the anticoagulation clinic. In between seeing patients, Dr. Olson reviews nonformulary requests and answers many drug-related information questions for providers and other health care workers with whom she works closely. In addition, she is the provider for two shared medical appointments—one for diabetes and the other for heart failure.
When Dr. Olson began pharmacy school, she did not anticipate pursuing a clinical pharmacy career. Her clinical interests grew each year of school until she experienced her fourth-year rotations, when she realized she wanted to pursue a residency so that she might train to become a clinical pharmacist. Through her fourth-year rotations, she discovered her pharmacy niche in ambulatory care while on rotation at a cardiology clinic at the West Palm Beach VAMC. She is passionate about ambulatory care because she enjoys seeing patients, establishing the provider/patient relationship, and adjusting patients’ medications. Dr. Olson considers helping patients to medically improve the most rewarding aspect of her pharmacy career. She also enjoys being the primary medication resource for provider questions. She enjoys the challenges a career in clinical pharmacy brings, noting that it forces her “to stay on her toes” and keep up with the latest research and practice guidelines. For these reasons, she pursued an ambulatory care clinical pharmacy position at the VAMC in Tomah, Wisconsin, after her residency.
Although Dr. Olson gives credit to all of the preceptors from her residency for influencing her career and shaping her to be the clinical pharmacist she is today, one preceptor in particular had the biggest impact on her career: Dr. David Parra. Not only was Dr. Parra one of her residency preceptors, but he was also the preceptor for the rotation she had as a student that made her choose to pursue ambulatory care pharmacy. He pushed Dr. Olson and challenged her to be the best pharmacist that she could be. She feels that Dr. Parra went out of his way to help her succeed. He taught her how to be a good clinical pharmacist, the importance of work-life balance, and how to make work challenging, rewarding, and fun. Although she is now hundreds of miles away, Dr. Parra continues to help her and provide guidance when needed. Dr. Olson considers Dr. Parra an exceptional preceptor, mentor, and teacher.
Because preceptors have had such an impact on Dr. Olson’s career, she intends to be a preceptor for students and residents. Having had great mentors and preceptors as a student and resident, she knows the value of training the future of clinical pharmacy. She intends to make the aspiring pharmacists better pharmacists, just as her preceptors did for her.
January 2014
Dr. Amber Castle started her career as a pharmacy technician at a Stop & Shop pharmacy when she was 16 years old. For the first time, she understood that pharmacists did much more than manage the inventory. She admired their compassion and the strong personal relationships they built with their clients. It was then that she decided to pursue pharmacy as a career. After starting college at the University of Rhode Island in Kingston, Rhode Island, Castle learned that pharmacists had many roles outside retail pharmacies. She spent a summer volunteering at Yale-New Haven Hospital (YNHH) in New Haven, Connecticut. During that time, she had the opportunity to shadow Bryan Polsonetti, a clinical pharmacist, in the surgical ICU. She saw patients, discussed their care as an equal member of the medical team, and was able to make real-time interventions before a prescription was ever written. That was when she knew she wanted to be a pharmacist specializing in the care of the critically ill. In 2007, Castle graduated magna cum laude with a Pharm.D. degree and a certificate in French and pharmacy. She worked as a pharmacy intern at YNHH most weekends throughout college and went on to complete a PGY1 pharmacy practice residency. She finished her training at just the right time and was able to immediately transition into her current position as the neuroscience ICU (NeuroICU) pharmacist.
As the NeuroICU clinical specialist, Castle is responsible for epilepsy, neurology, and neurosurgery services. She has found the neuroscience pharmacy community welcoming, vibrant, and dynamic. She believes neuroscience really stands out as a field in which pharmacists are exceptionally well represented at the highest levels of leadership. Gretchen Brophy, Theresa Murphy-Human, and Denise Rhoney are mentors and role models who have inspired Castle to get involved with collaborative, multicenter research and interdisciplinary education. It is truly an exciting time to practice in neuroscience. Today, Castle wears many hats in addition to her primary role. As the lead ICU pharmacist, she helps coordinate policy and other initiatives across the ICUs. As a part-time lecturer in the Yale School of Nursing nurse practitioner program, she coordinates two pharmacology courses. As the director of the PGY2 critical care pharmacy residency program, she is responsible for the recruitment and training of two residents.
Castle is also proud to be a member of the Connecticut 1 (CT-1) disaster medical assistance team. The CT-1 team was deployed to New York during Hurricane Sandy in 2012; however, she was sent to join the Tennessee 1 (TN-1) team in New Jersey, which needed an additional pharmacist. These teams were among the first of many in the United States to respond to the disaster. Castle found it a challenge not knowing where she would be located or exactly what to expect,…and it was a little scary driving through a hurricane! However, thanks to the amazing TN-1 team led by Team Commander Teddy Rogers, the team was able to quickly set up a functional base of operations and start seeing patients immediately after the storm. The pharmacy team, Roberta Keeton, Stephen Wickizer, and Patricia Wilcox, led by the multitalented Glenn Susskind, successfully operated a pharmacy out of a tent on the Rutgers campus and then out of the back of a truck at a convention center in Atlantic City, New Jersey, for 2 weeks. While there, the team assisted with therapeutic interchange, drug information, drug selection and dosing, and inventory management. YNHH and the pharmacy department management team fully supported this humanitarian mission.
Castle is grateful for the many opportunities she has had over the years. She feels privileged to be part of an amazing department of talented, dedicated, and incredibly intelligent pharmacists at YNHH. One of the best parts of her job is the opportunity to work with students and residents. Their energy and enthusiasm is contagious and pushes her to do more and learn more. She is thankful for her mentors, especially Jim Sarigianis, Eric Tichy, Marina Yazdi, and Lori Lee, for all of their encouragement and support.
2013 ACCP Member Spotlight
November 2013
Ms. Cedona Watts is currently a fourth-year student pharmacist at the University of Southern California (USC) School of Pharmacy and is expected to graduate in May 2014. She recently completed her first advanced pharmacy practice experience in ambulatory care, during which she gained experience managing patients with cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and HIV. She is also an intern pharmacist at City of Hope, a National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated comprehensive cancer center. Last summer, Watts completed a 10-week research internship at the NCI, part of the National Institutes of Health, where she assisted in developing an assay to detect endocrine-disrupting chemicals in water sources. At USC, Watts was the recipient of two research scholarships to study the use of CXCR1/2 antagonists in the treatment of triple-negative breast cancer. Before joining USC, Watts earned a B.S. degree in biological sciences with a minor in chemistry and a B.A. degree in philosophy from the University of Alabama in Huntsville.
Watts applied to pharmacy school to become a clinical pharmacist, and her goal is to become a faculty member. She was intrigued by clinical pharmacy after shadowing a clinical pharmacist. This experience provided her the opportunity to learn about the role of clinical pharmacists in recommending appropriate drug therapy and precepting students and residents as part of a multidisciplinary health care team. Although she is aware of the many areas of pharmacy practice, she is particularly interested in learning more about oncology. Watts’ career choices were influenced the most by the faculty at USC and the pharmacists at City of Hope—experts in their respective fields and leaders in the pharmacy profession. Her experience in research helped her understand the basic science behind therapeutics, and her experience in cardiology led her to realize the importance of looking at the patient as a whole before making clinical decisions.
Watts joined ACCP during her second year of pharmacy school and attended “Emerge from the Crowd: How to Become a Standout Residency Candidate” at the ACCP spring meeting in Reno, Nevada. Her favorite part of the conference was the workshop in which she learned the importance of scholarly activities and the ways in which students can get involved during pharmacy school. She also participated in the online CV review service, from which she learned great tips for improving her CV. This year, Watts is excited to serve on the ACCP National Student Network Advisory Committee as a member-at-large.
Despite her busy schedule, Watts finds time for community service. She participates in organizing health fairs for the underserved patient population, where students not only screen for blood pressure, provide immunizations, and counsel patients, but also develop an appreciation for cultural competency. Watts is currently assisting in organizing a student conference for undergraduate, graduate, and professional students to promote diversity in higher education.
Finally, people would be surprised to know that Cedona Watts wanted to be a foreign correspondent before starting college!
September 2013
Dr. Jeremy Moretz is currently a PGY2 cardiology pharmacy resident at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee. In May 2008, Dr. Moretz received his undergraduate degree in religious studies: history and thought at Lenoir-Rhyne University in Hickory, North Carolina, and in May 2012, received his Pharm.D. degree from the University of North Carolina (UNC) Eshelman School of Pharmacy. After completing his PGY1 pharmacy practice residency at Vanderbilt, he was selected to stay on as the university’s first PGY2 resident in cardiology, his current course of study. Dr. Moretz’s future career interests include pursuing a cardiovascular practice, obtaining an academic appointment at a college of pharmacy, and conducting research in heart failure. Throughout his pharmacy studies and residency training, he has maintained an active role in ACCP, serving as member-at-large in both the National Student Network and National Resident Advisory committees.
His interest in cardiology primarily stems from two highly influential life events. First, many years before considering a career in pharmacy, he watched as his grandfather suffered from heart failure, witnessing firsthand his grandfather’s day-to-day struggles with the burdens of his disease and the complexity of his medication regimen. After deciding to enter the profession, Dr. Moretz believed that it would be enriching to work with the cardiology patient population, both in educating them about their condition and in assisting them with optimizing their therapeutic regimen.
The second life event driving Dr. Moretz’s interest in cardiology originated in his own health problems. Having struggled with his weight for many years, he was given a diagnosis of hypertension at age 16 and placed on an aggressive antihypertensive regimen. When he was only 21 years old, he weighed 290 pounds. During his senior year of undergraduate study, he made a conscious decision to implement a complete lifestyle change. Over the next 6 years, he achieved a 115-pound weight loss and was eventually able to discontinue his antihypertensive therapy. He notes that it is incredibly rewarding to counsel patients who struggle with lifestyle modifications and to share with them his personal struggle, believing that, in so doing, he is able to give them a new perspective on weight loss. Implementation of weight loss is not (only) a factor in reality television shows but, with hard work and dedication, can also be accomplished by one’s own conscious choices and changes in lifestyle.
For Dr. Moretz, the greatest influence on his life is the exceptional mentorship he has been afforded during his studies at UNC and his pursuit of residency training at Vanderbilt. Time and again, he has been pushed to excel by his mentors. Moreover, countless preceptors and professors have shown him what it means to become a practicing pharmacy professional. Their demonstration of integrity and professional excellence, together with their commitment to the profession, lifelong academic pursuit, collegial relationship building, professional networking, and ability to maintain a healthy work-life balance, has been life-changing. According to Dr. Moretz, who has found the wisdom and guidance of his mentors, preceptors, and professors deeply influential, it is wise to learn from those who have walked a similar path before you. His appreciation to all who have served as mentors to him and as otherwise exemplars of scholarship at UNC and Vanderbilt is heartfelt.
Of note, Dr. Moretz is also an avid musician (both piano and guitar) who will be presiding over his oldest and best friend’s wedding as an ordained minister.
May 2013
Dr. Juliana Chan is a clinical associate professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) College of Pharmacy and in the College of Medicine in the sections of Digestive Diseases, Nutrition, and Hepatology. She earned her B.S. degree in pharmacy and her Pharm.D. degree from the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy (MCP). She completed a Pharmacy Practice Residency (PGY1) and a Specialized Residency in Gastroenterology and Hepatology (PGY2) at the University of Michigan. She is a Board Certified Ambulatory Care Pharmacist who teaches and conducts research in gastroenterology and hepatology with a focus on viral hepatitis.
During the past decade, Dr. Chan had many opportunities to serve in several clinical capacities. In 2002, she established the first hepatitis C pharmacist-managed clinic at the University of Illinois Medical Center (UIMC) Outpatient Care Center, which was subsequently dedicated as the Bobbie and Marvin Fink Liver Clinic. She was the primary care provider for patients with hepatitis C when referred by the hepatologist to initiate hepatitis C therapy. Dr. Chan was responsible for all patient assessment and education, as well as for ordering and monitoring pertinent laboratory tests, providing therapy and dosage adjustments, and managing adverse drug effects associated with hepatitis C medications. The pharmaceutical care she provided allowed her to focus her efforts on maximizing the benefits of liver drug therapy, reducing complications and adverse effects, improving patient outcomes, and decreasing overall health care costs.
In 2007, Dr. Chan was named the assistant director of clinical pharmacy in ambulatory care at UIMC. Her clinical skills and expertise in creating the hepatitis C service revolutionized specialty pharmacy services at UIMC. Under her direction, rheumatology, neurology, and gastroenterology specialty pharmacy services were created, which mirrored and modeled the hepatology service she had established. In addition, during her tenure as assistant director, she focused her research efforts on pharmacy administration, including the management of Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies (REMS), quality improvement, and medication safety.
Because of Dr. Chan’s success in creating the pharmacist-managed hepatitis C clinic in early 2000, she was selected to spearhead the development of a novel telemedicine clinic at UIC. Established in 2010, the hepatitis C telemedicine program provides direct patient care to about 300 inmates with viral hepatitis within the Illinois Department of Corrections by video conferencing; Dr. Chan is currently the clinical pharmacist who oversees this program.
Dr. Chan has given many invited national and international presentations on gastrointestinal and liver topics, published her research in peer-reviewed professional and scientific journals, and written several book chapters. She has also presented many papers on pharmacy administration with a focus on REMS, specialty pharmacy services, and quality improvement initiatives involving the Joint Commission requirements; these presentations have occurred at the University HealthSystem Consortium, American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and ACCP.
Through the years, Dr. Chan’s career has been enriched with several challenges and successes. She states that two individuals were of great influence to her, responsible for getting her to where she is today. The first is Professor Marion Hoar, her pharmaceutics professor at MCP, who taught her that perseverance is the key to success. Dr. Chan fondly recalls days in the pharmaceutics lab, making suppositories during intensely hot summer months. She felt punished and wondered “why me?” of all students chosen to make suppositories, a “not-so-nice” dosage form to be compounded in 90-degree weather. Although Dr. Chan pled with Professor Hoar to assign another item to compound, she was unsuccessful. Professor Hoar kept telling her “to keep trying and do not give up so easily.” He always pushed students to their limits and never gave them an easy answer; instead, he encouraged and nurtured self-thinking, pushing his students out of their comfort zone. It certainly was a journey, going through the pharmaceutics course. Professor Hoar, however, taught her that determination and “giving it your all” would make everything worthwhile. Professor Hoar’s constant guidance afforded her many “aha” moments…including a successful outcome when congealing a suppository, even in the warm weather.
The other individual who molded Dr. Chan into who she is today is Dr. Rosemary R. Berardi, professor emeritus of pharmacy at the University of Michigan College of Pharmacy. During Dr. Chan’s PGY1 residency program in 1998, she was introduced to Dr. Berardi, who identified herself as the GI/liver clinical pharmacist who was encouraging/soliciting residents to be on her clinical service. Dr. Chan states that the first words of Dr. Berardi were, “If you want to learn and teach, then select my rotation,” and that afterward, the professor left her curriculum vitae (CV) on the table and exited the room. Dr. Chan was petrified as she thought, Who would be “crazy enough” to be a clinical pharmacist specializing in constipation and diarrhea? However, at the same time, she was intrigued as she perused Dr. Berardi’s unique CV and, without hesitation, selected her GI/liver rotation. Because this occurred during the first 2 months in the PGY1, Dr. Chan quickly realized that GI was more than bowel excretion. Dr. Berardi modeled the persona of an excellent clinician who treated every patient as though he or she were her own “mom or dad” and encouraged Dr. Chan to “always think outside the box!!!” Dr. Berardi’s mentorship solidified Dr. Chan’s desire to pursue a PGY2 residency in GI/liver under her guidance. Dr. Chan has no regrets about the day she was selected to develop her knowledge and skills under Dr. Berardi’s tutelage. She truly believes that many of her academic accomplishments were achieved through Dr. Berardi’s guidance, mentorship, and, most importantly, friendship, through the years. Dr. Chan readily credits Dr. Berardi with her contributions to pharmacy and for being the thought leader in the gastroenterology and hepatology pharmacy world; without her being the “mother” and “creator” of this unique and specialized area, many of us would not be where we are today.
Dr. Berardi introduced Dr. Chan to ACCP and the importance of committee work. Dr. Chan maintains that without Dr. Berardi, there would be no GI/Liver/Nutrition PRN today. Dr. Berardi established the ACCP GLN PRN and invited Dr. Chan to be one of the founding members in 1999. Since then, Dr. Chan has been actively involved in national organizations, devoting most of her time and energy to ACCP. Among her contributions to ACCP are serving as a reviewer for annual and spring meeting abstracts for ACCP, for Pharmacotherapy, and for the Pharmacotherapy Preparatory Review Course on Gastroenterology Disorders. For the Clinical Administration PRN, she has served as a co-chair on the Programming Committee and has established the Scholarship Committee. She was also selected to be the GLN PRN secretary/treasurer for 2012–2013. In addition, she has been invited to write the Viral Hepatitis section for the ACCP Pharmacotherapy Self-Assessment Program in the ACCP Ambulatory Care New Practitioner Survival Guide/Resource Manual and will be an item writer for the GI/liver content in the ACCP National Student Competition. Dr. Chan follows Dr. Berardi’s example and is giving back to students, residents, and junior faculty by participating as an ACCP CV reviewer, National Resident Advisory Committee mentor, and Teaching and Learning Academy mentor. She encourages all trainees to join ACCP early in their career, telling them that this organization will help them grow professionally.
Dr. Chan gives credit to ACCP and states, “Being a member has allowed me many opportunities never thought of more than a decade ago.” Dr. Chan believes her success in the practice of pharmacy is directly because of those who taught and mentored her when she was a student and resident. To be successful in the ever-evolving health care system, Dr. Chan advises students and residents to (1) seize every opportunity when it appears; (2) accept criticism to decrease your blind spots, even if not presented in a constructive way; and (3) never be afraid/reluctant to voice your thoughts and/or opinions because you never know. Dr. Chan’s motto is, “Ask and you may receive, give and you will receive.”
March 2013
Dr. Emily Hawes is a clinical pharmacist practitioner, a designation by the North Carolina Boards of Medicine and Pharmacy conferring approval to provide collaborative drug therapy management under the direction of a licensed physician. She serves in this capacity at the University of North Carolina (UNC) Family Medicine Center in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and she is currently a clinical assistant professor at the UNC School of Medicine. In 2006, Dr. Hawes earned her B.S. degree in education and, in 2010, her Pharm.D. degree, both from Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. In 2011, she completed a PGY1 pharmacy practice residency and, the next year, completed a PGY2 pharmacotherapy residency—both earned at the University of North Carolina Hospitals and Clinics in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
Dr. Hawes practices at the UNC Family Medicine Center, an ambulatory care site with a pharmacist-led pharmacotherapy clinic focusing on the management of chronic diseases such as anticoagulation, heart failure, hypertension, diabetes, asthma, chronic pain, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease as well as medication reconciliation after hospital discharge during multidisciplinary visits. She also serves as a preceptor for pharmacy residents and students through the University of North Carolina Eshelman School of Pharmacy. She has the additional responsibilities of teaching Family Medicine medical residents, responding to drug information inquiries for the Family Medicine team, developing and evaluating medication-related policies and procedures, contributing to various quality improvement initiatives, and providing recommendations, counseling, and education to patients as needed. With respect to her research endeavors, Dr. Hawes was recently awarded a grant from the American College of Clinical Pharmacy for a prospective pharmacodynamic study evaluating peak and trough coagulation test results in patients taking therapeutic doses of rivaroxaban.
Dr. Hawes chose clinical pharmacy as a profession by seeking God’s particular place of service in her life. Throughout many years of living abroad and one experience after another, she felt her heart was turned to serve those who are physically hurting. One experience influencing her drive toward health care was during her visit to an isolated leper colony in northern India with her family. She met a woman in a mud hut whose hands were both covered in open sores and whose fingers had disintegrated; this woman suffered from leprosy. Without any fingers, she could only watch as her daughter cleaned the rice for supper. To move from place to place, she painfully shuffled her body along the dirt ground. The daughter explained that they been forced to abandon their old homes and permanently seclude themselves from the rest of society. She then asked, “But, Emily, have you come to help? Did you bring medicine? Can you cure my mother?” At this moment, Dr. Hawes realized she wanted to do more than just smile and empathize with others in agony. She wanted to provide a service to help physical suffering.
One of Dr. Hawes’ undergraduate professors encouraged her to explore the field of pharmacy. Positive experiences shadowing pharmacists inspired her to pursue this wonderful profession. During her first month of PGY1 residency while rotating with an exceptional pharmacist at UNC’s Family Medicine Center, she discovered the valuable role of a clinical pharmacist in the primary care setting. The passion to provide pharmacy services across diverse patient populations of all ages led her to pursue a PGY2 in pharmacotherapy, and she went on to serve as a pharmacist in the primary care setting at a great institution with extraordinary colleagues.
Dr. Hawes attributes mentorship as the single most important influence on her career. Several professors and preceptors at Samford and UNC significantly affected her professional development. This included contributing to her decision to pursue pharmacy, increasing her passion for the profession, and directing her to residency training, which led to a position in a primary care setting. The leadership of her mentors was exemplified in the ways they served, respected, listened, motivated, taught, and communicated to help learners realize their maximum potential. Leadership is all about influence and service through building relationships and taking the time to really learn about one’s background, goals, and motivations. Through the years, mentors have shown what it means to provide exceptional care to patients, continually self-evaluate, make evidence-based decisions, maintain a high standard of integrity and excellence, act professionally, serve selflessly, live in a balanced way, integrate with a multidisciplinary team, advocate for pharmacy, be a lifelong learner, count blessings, and accomplish responsibilities effectively and efficiently, among other traits. Even now, being mentored by outstanding pharmacists and other health care providers helps Dr. Hawes grow as a leader, practitioner, educator, and preceptor. It is out of gratitude for the many individuals who have invested in her that she is inspired to mentor others and help prepare the next generation of pharmacists.
People would be surprised to know that she met Princess Diana in Pakistan during elementary school, played the position of goalkeeper for her college soccer team, and went skydiving for her 1-year wedding anniversary.
January 2013
Marissa Escobar Quinones, Pharm.D., CDE, is a clinical pharmacy specialist in ambulatory care at Parkland in Dallas, Texas. She works at Southeast Dallas Health Center, which is one of Parkland’s Community-Oriented Primary Care Clinics. Dr. Quinones received her B.S. degree from Texas State University in May 2000 and her Pharm.D. degree from the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Pharmacy (TTUHSC SOP) in May 2004. She then completed both an American Society of Health-System Pharmacists–accredited pharmacy practice and ambulatory care specialty residency with the Veterans Affairs North Texas Medical Center and TTUHSC SOP in Dallas, Texas, from 2004 to 2006.
Dr. Quinones primarily works with indigent patients of Dallas County. She provides drug therapy management services, evaluates medication nonadherence, and assesses for polypharmacy in patients with diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia, anticoagulation therapy, and heart failure by a collaborative practice agreement. Dr. Quinones has prescriptive authority in Texas as part of her collaborative practice agreement. Dr. Quinones is a Certified Diabetes Educator who serves as a diabetes instructor and assists with the coordination of the Parkland’s American Diabetes Association educational program, which was recognized as the Diabetes Site of the Year in 2011. She serves on Parkland’s Diabetes Advisory Council and was named as the Diabetes Educator of the year in 2011.
In addition to her direct patient care responsibilities, Dr. Quinones provides mentorship and clinical experiences to the Parkland pharmacy practice and ambulatory care pharmacy specialty residents. She is an adjunct faculty at TTUHSC SOP and preceptor-faculty for the University of Texas College of Pharmacy, where she precepts clerkship students. Dr. Quinones actively participates in various administrative duties within the pharmacy department to improve patient care in a cost-effective manner. She performs drug use evaluations, non-formulary medication reviews, drug information consults, and in-services to various disciplines. Her research focus is the impact of clinical pharmacy services on patient outcomes and cost avoidance.
Dr. Quinones believes that leadership is an important part of the clinical pharmacist’s role. She is an active member of ACCP and the Texas Society of Health-System Pharmacists. She has served as the chair for the Ambulatory Care and Endocrine and Metabolism PRNs of ACCP. Dr. Quinones has also served as the president and secretary for the Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) local chapter of the ACCP. Dr. Quinones has presented various posters at ACCP highlighting the work of the Endocrine and Ambulatory Care PRNs. She recently presented a collaborative research project highlighting the impact of clinical pharmacy services on diabetic outcomes and cost avoidance at Parkland at the 2012 ACCP Annual Meeting in Hollywood, Florida.
Dr. Quinones was introduced to clinical pharmacy services while on rotations as a third-year pharmacy student at TTUHSC SOP. She worked with Dr. Krystal Edwards, who provided services to indigent patients with diabetes, many of whom were Spanish speaking or had comorbidities. She recalls a particular Spanish-speaking patient who required insulin adjustments and was having major health problems when he presented at his initial visit for diabetes management. Dr. Edwards assigned this patient to her, and each week, the patient was contacted by telephone to review his glucose levels, answer questions, and make recommendations under the faculty’s supervision. The improvements the patient made with the clinical pharmacist were amazing as the rotation progressed. Through this rotation, she became interested in learning more about clinical pharmacy as a career. She learned clinical pharmacists are instrumental as part of the health care team. This experience taught her the value of a clinical pharmacist in improving the health of patients. During her fourth year, she decided to pursue a pharmacy practice residency, which is when she realized she enjoyed ambulatory care pharmacy. This, in turn, led her to pursue an ambulatory care specialty residency. She is thankful for her mentors and the experiences she has encountered, having made her the practitioner she is today.
To this day, she continues to spend most of her time at her practice site, educating patients and managing their medical conditions. She is passionate about serving and educating patients. Many patients do not know about their disease and the importance of medication adherence. Dr. Quinones believes that being passionate about patient care is an important part of being a clinical pharmacist because they are an integral part of the care patients receive. She enjoys helping patients because many need health care services, given that they are unable to read or write or are nonadherent because of various social and economical barriers. Several patients cannot afford their medications and sometimes do not have enough money to eat healthy. Dr. Quinones is able to work one-on-one with all of her patients, tailoring the education according to their needs. Her mission is to improve the health of her patients by ensuring their adherence to medications and gradual modifications in lifestyle, together with providing the education they need to make better choices. Dr. Quinones has an interest in health literacy and has provided various educational programs about the importance of better communication with patients having limited health literacy. She emphasizes the importance of learning to communicate effectively with patients.
Dr. Quinones enjoys the networking and educational opportunities ACCP provides. She believes leadership is an important part of her success. Being an active member of ACCP has been rewarding. She attends the ACCP Annual Meeting every year. She has met various members throughout the United States, and ACCP has been instrumental in her growth as a practitioner. Through the years, she has encouraged students and residents to become part of ACCP and has helped move the organization and the role of clinical pharmacists forward. She believes that being active in professional pharmacy organizations and giving back to the pharmacy profession is an integral part of her role as a clinical pharmacy specialist.
Through the years, she has learned the importance of finding a work-life balance as a clinical pharmacist. She focuses on teaching her residents and students the importance of family, work, and personal life and how to balance all the demands the clinical pharmacist will face. Most people cannot believe how well she is able to balance her home life with her work life—something she has worked on for many years. She believes that everyone should have some time to reflect on himself or herself, make time in the day to do something enjoyable, and recognize that family time is important.
Dr. Quinones enjoys traveling, taking pictures, working out, and spending quality time with her family. She likes the outdoors, camping, and trips to South Padre Island, Texas, which is her favorite beach. She has a very supportive husband and two beautiful children who keep her busy. An active member of the Weight Watchers program since 2011, she lost more than 60 pounds. Through this experience, she learned new ways to cook and prepare balanced, nutritional meals for her family. She enjoys finding ways to keep her kids interested in healthy eating habits.
2012 ACCP Member Spotlight
September 2012
Christopher Frei, Pharm.D., M.Sc., is an associate professor of pharmacy at The University of Texas at Austin College of Pharmacy and an adjunct faculty member at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio School of Medicine. Dr. Frei completed his Pharm.D. degree (2001), master’s degree (2003), residency (2003), and postdoctoral training (2005) at the UT Austin and the UT Health Science Center. He joined the faculty at both universities in January 2006. Dr. Frei is a Board Certified Pharmacotherapy Specialist who studies clinically important infectious diseases, including pneumonia, skin and soft tissue infections, and HIV. He is particularly interested in emerging antibiotic resistance among gram-positive bacteria including Staphylococcus aureus. His research approach involves pharmacoepidemiology, comparative-effectiveness, and microbial genomics.
Dr. Frei has been a principal investigator/coinvestigator for 12 different studies supported by the NIH, the Society of Infectious Diseases Pharmacists, and the pharmaceutical industry. He has published 57 peer-reviewed papers in leading medical and scientific journals, including the American Journal of Medicine, Antimicrobial Agents in Chemotherapy, Chest, Clinical Microbiology and Infection, Drugs, Pharmacotherapy, Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, and Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine. He has also given more than 260 national, state, and local presentations. This past year, Dr. Frei was promoted to an associate professor with tenure at the UT Austin. He was also recognized as “Mentor of the Year” by the Texas Society of Health-System Pharmacists, “Young Investigator of the Year” by the Society of Infectious Diseases Pharmacists, and “Distinguished Young Alumnus of the Year” by the UT Austin College of Pharmacy.
Dr. Frei spends 75% of his time conducting patient-oriented research and teaching pharmacy graduate students. He participated in ACCP’s Focused Investigator Training (FIT) Program in 2008 and considers the program an integral part of his research and career development. In 2010, Dr. Frei received a 2-year grant for a project titled “Genetics, Resistance, and Treatment in a South Texas Practice-Based Research Network.” His grant is a Mentored Research and Career Development Program (KL2) in Clinical and Translational Sciences, funded by NIH’s National Center for Research Resources.
Dr. Frei is a firm believer in the importance of mentorship. He attributes his success to his mentors at the UT Austin, ACCP’s FIT Program, and the NIH/KL2 career development program. He is grateful to his wife and family who have supported him throughout his career, the administrators at the UT Austin for the research support they have provided, and his current and former graduate students, whom he considers his extended family.
Dr. Frei believes ACCP has played a key role in his professional development. He joined the organization as a resident in 2001, presented his first poster at an ACCP Annual Meeting, and published his first paper in the journal Pharmacotherapy. He highly values the opportunities he has had to work with colleagues from across the country on initiatives such as ACCP’s Practice-Based Research Network. He encourages pharmacy students to become involved in ACCP through his role as the ACCP College of Pharmacy Liaison for the UT Austin College of Pharmacy.
People may be surprised to know that Dr. Frei is an avid consumer of books and lectures on leadership and mentorship. Some of his favorites include The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (Stephen Covey, 1989), Making the Right Moves (Laura Bonetta, 2006), At the Helm (Kathy Barker, 2010), The Five Dysfunctions of a Team (Patrick Lencioni, 2002), and The Last Lecture (Randy Pausch, 2007). He spends most of his free time “at the ranch” with his family or “with the kids” at their baseball and softball games.
July 2012
Dr. Eric Tichy is a clinical pharmacy specialist at Yale-New Haven Transplantation Center (YNHTC), where he is a member of the heart, kidney, and liver transplant teams. In 2009, he established YNHTC’s PGY2 Transplant Pharmacy Residency, and currently, he serves as the program’s director. He holds adjunct faculty appointments at the University of Connecticut School of Pharmacy and Duquesne University Mylan School of Pharmacy. Dr. Tichy received his Pharm.D. degree from the University of Connecticut School of Pharmacy and completed his pharmacy practice residency at Yale-New Haven Hospital. He is a board-certified pharmacotherapy specialist.
During his career, Dr. Tichy has established himself as a leader in clinical pharmacy with a focus in transplantation. His involvement in several projects has helped advance pharmacy practice in the field of transplantation, including his service as the coauthor of a white paper describing the role of the transplant pharmacist and as a founding member of the American Society of Transplantation’s (AST) Transplant Pharmacist Community of Practice (CoP). His present practice focuses on the education and training of new practitioners from many health science disciplines. He is currently chair-elect of the AST’s Transplant Pharmacist CoP.
Dr. Tichy chose transplant pharmacy because it gave him the opportunity to use all of his clinical training and skills. He enjoys the opportunity to interact with and contribute directly toward the care of patients with multiple disease states. Moreover, in transplant pharmacy, an expert knowledge of pharmacotherapy is essential because of the many potential drug interactions and adverse effects that are encountered on a daily basis. He summarized his passion for his chosen specialty by saying,
Transplant pharmacy is simply nirvana for the ambitious clinical pharmacist, and I have found transplant a perfect fit for my skill sets and interests. There are a large number of myths and misconceptions in the community regarding organ and tissue donation and transplantation. As a transplant clinician, I see firsthand the profoundly positive impact transplantation has on the lives of individual patients and their families. To help face these myths and misconceptions, I get involved with efforts to provide education in the community regarding these issues, and I see myself as a witness spreading the good news about transplantation. I have presented at schools, churches, and within my local pharmacist society. In addition to raising awareness about the need for organ and tissue donors, I love to encourage talented young people to consider careers in transplantation because we need to continually recruit the best and brightest to advance the profession.
Dr. Tichy believes that ACCP membership has provided him an invaluable opportunity to network with colleagues from around the country. The relationships he has formed have led to significant career benefits, and he considers his fellow Immunology/Transplantation PRN members to be part of his extended family. He has developed many great friendships through the PRN and enjoys reconnecting with many of them on the PRN’s e-mail list and at ACCP meetings.
Outside work, Dr. Tichy enjoys being outdoors. An avid hunter and fisherman, he commented, “I love getting outdoors. Depending on the season, you might find me in the woods with a bow or on a boat with a pole on my day off.”
May 2012
Dr. Nicole Gillespie is an assistant professor and clinical pharmacist at Creighton University School of Pharmacy and Health Professions in Omaha, Nebraska. Dr. Gillespie became interested in chronic disease management and lifestyle medicine while earning her Pharm.D. degree and completing her postgraduate training at Creighton. During her residency, she worked closely with the Creighton University Cardiovascular Risk Reduction Program and helped implement the university’s Diabetes Mellitus Risk Reduction Program. After completing her residency, she elected to stay on as faculty while working full-time with the Risk Reduction Programs at Creighton. Each service enrolls Creighton University employees with chronic disease states, including hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and diabetes. Each pharmacist-run service takes a multidisciplinary approach toward patient care using dieticians, physical therapists, exercise physiologists, and licensed mental health care practitioners. The Risk Reduction teams at Creighton also work closely with each participant’s physicians to optimize medication therapy, increase participant education, and incorporate lifestyle medicine to improve participant outcomes. She also serves as a preceptor for students at this unique clinical practice site. The faculty appointment gives her the opportunity to teach about what she loves—prevention—and expose students to the effect pharmacists can have on the health and quality of life of their patients. In addition to precepting students, Dr. Gillespie lectures in various didactic courses and works with the residents from the Creighton University Community Pharmacy Residency Program.
Nicole is active in local, state, and regional organizations. She is president-elect of the Midwest College of Clinical Pharmacy and an appointed member of the legislative committee for the Nebraska Pharmacists Association. She was awarded Distinguished Young Pharmacist of Nebraska by the Nebraska Pharmacists Association and Pharmacists Mutual, and she received the Governor’s Point of Light Award for her group volunteer work in the community.
Dr. Gillespie chose the pharmacy profession, specifically preventive pharmacy, because she believes there is a void in this type of care in the current health care system. She believes that health care has become increasingly effective at treating acute problems, but less so at avoiding these problems altogether, and that clinical pharmacists are armed with the tools necessary to bridge this gap. They are experts in optimizing chronic disease medication regimens, capable of monitoring, assessing efficacy, and increasing patient education and medication adherence. With the help of additional lifestyle medicine training, pharmacists can be extremely effective at decreasing chronic disease risk and improving patient outcomes, including quality of life. As a result, they can make a significant impact on preventing costly hospital and emergency department visits, which are of paramount importance in the state of our current health care system.
The obesity epidemic, as well as the increasing incidence of chronic disease in the pediatric population, has been a big influence on Dr. Gillespie’s career, and she believes that as health care providers, we need to focus more on improving in this area for our patients. Moreover, together with obesity and chronic disease comes decreased quality of life. If the obesity and chronic disease trends continue to move in the current direction, there is a gloomy forecast for our future. One of her career goals is to seek out solutions to help patients take control of their health. One individual who has been extremely influential on Dr. Gillespie’s career is her mentor and colleague Dr. Thomas L. Lenz, Pharm.D., M.A., FACLM. Dr. Lenz has been a proponent of lifestyle medicine in pharmacy practice for years. He wrote the book Lifestyle Modifications in Pharmacotherapy, started an elective lifestyle modifications course for pharmacy students at Creighton, conceived and developed the Cardiovascular Risk Reduction Program, and continues to advocate for additional lifestyle-related education to health care professionals and students.
Dr. Gillespie believes that ACCP is, in many ways, an excellent venue to foster ideas and promote the profession of pharmacy. The mission and philosophy of the organization clearly indicate that the advocacy for the advancement of human health and expansion of pharmacy practice are among the reasons ACCP exists. This community of advocacy is extremely important in shaping the future of our profession. Furthermore, being a member of ACCP has afforded her the opportunity to take part in this community and have a voice in its advocacy endeavors. She is grateful for the networking, idea sharing, and continuing education ACCP provides and hopes to give back to the organization by continuing to further the risk reduction programs at Creighton and by encouraging involvement to her colleagues and students.
March 2012
Dr. Shareen El-Ibiary is an associate professor of pharmacy practice at Midwestern University College of Pharmacy in Glendale, Arizona. She received her Pharm.D. degree from the University of South Carolina in Columbia, South Carolina, in 2000 and completed a general pharmacy practice residency at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) in 2001, where she subsequently completed a certificate program for additional training in clinical research. She has been board certified in pharmacotherapy since 2003. Dr. El-Ibiary started her academic career at UCSF in the area of drug information, where her interest in women’s health developed from receiving several consumer questions pertaining to that area. She made the change to focus on women’s health and worked in a specialty clinic in the latter part of her time at USCF. During her time in California, she was very active in local, state, and national organizations. She was president of the Golden Gate Society of Health-System Pharmacists and, in 2007, became a fellow of the California Society of Health-System Pharmacists. She has been the public policy liaison and chair of the ACCP Women’s Health Practice and Research Network (PRN) and is currently an ACCP College of Pharmacy Faculty Liaison. She has been awarded project preceptor of the year and the Dean’s Apple Award for Teaching Excellence at UCSF.
Three years ago, she made the move to Midwestern University in Glendale, Arizona, where she maintains an internal medicine practice at Banner Thunderbird Medical Center. Although her practice is internal medicine, she maintains a strong interest in women’s health and continues to collaborate with others in the field. Her areas of interest and research include women’s health, specifically hormones and contraception, pharmacogenetics, and innovative teaching. Dr. El-Ibiary currently teaches a variety of courses at the College and coordinates a women’s health elective, as well as a first-year pharmacy course, “Integrated Sequences 2 and Professional Skills Development.” She is involved in many different publications, including writing a PSAP chapter in women’s health and serving as the women’s health section editor and chapter author for Koda-Kimble’s Applied Therapeutics. She also serves on the editorial board for the Journal of the American Pharmacists Association and is a current faculty member of ACCP’s Updates in Therapeutics®: The Pharmacotherapy Preparatory Review and Recertification Course.
Dr. El-Ibiary’s early exposure to the health care setting came from her mother, a physician. Dr. El-Ibiary showed an early interest in the sciences, and her love of teaching led her to seek a career path that would encompass each of these areas. She first became interested in clinical pharmacy while working as a pharmacy technician and pursuing her undergraduate degree. In particular, she liked the idea of making interventions and counseling patients. What cemented her future career choice, though, came later in pharmacy school, when she identified with one of her professors who was a clinical specialist and whose faculty job description sounded like the ideal career path. She saw that, as a faculty member, she could combine the clinical/science aspect of pharmacy with her love of teaching in an academic setting. She sought out information on how her professor obtained her position, which set her on a path that has allowed her to touch the lives of numerous students, patients, and colleagues.
ACCP has been an integral part of Dr. El-Ibiary’s career. Many of her opportunities have come to her through her involvement with the College. When she first started as a faculty member, she saw a meeting announcement for the ACCP Annual Meeting and noted that a pre-seminar workshop for junior faculty was scheduled. Although she was unfamiliar with the organization at the time, she attended the session, which she believes was one of her best decisions. She met other junior faculty starting out, made several friends/connections, and learned about finding a mentor and ways to deal with struggles in academia. It was an excellent seminar. She enjoyed every aspect of the meeting and met experts in various fields. As she focused her interests on women’s health, she found the Women’s Health where she connected with other colleagues interested in and dedicated to women’s health. The connections she made through the PRN were priceless. From this group, ideas, opportunities, and growth in women’s health practice emerged. She was able to take more of a leadership role within the group, which provided her many opportunities with respect to collaborations, publications, and speaking engagements. Her knowledge in the area grew as well from learning about others’ practices and research endeavors. She is still in contact with many of the colleagues she met at her first meeting and continues to collaborate with them. She noted that many of her accomplishments would not have been possible were it not for her ACCP membership.
Dr. El-Ibiary has given back to ACCP by fostering student involvement. She is currently an ACCP College of Pharmacy Faculty Liaison for Midwestern, and she has served as a reviewer for the Clinical Pharmacy Challenge, Pharmacotherapy, and PSAP. She was the public policy liaison for 3 years and the chair/chair-elect for the Women’s Health PRN. She is currently a faculty member for ACCP’s Updates in Therapeutics®: The Pharmacotherapy Preparatory Review and Recertification Course, and she has presented regularly at ACCP Annual Meetings. She encourages others to join ACCP and hopes to continue to serve the College and help keep it growing so that others may benefit from it as she has.