ACCP is my professional home, and the Hematology/Oncology PRN members are my professional family. ACCP PRNs are the College’s lifeblood, serving as conduits for education, professional development, and collegiality, and represent the single greatest member benefit for many ACCP members. Given the importance and reach of the PRNs, I would like to update PRN members on several exciting ACCP initiatives in support of the College’s strategic plan.

The ACCP Board of Regents recently revised and updated the College’s strategic plan (www.accp.com/docs/about/ACCP_Strategic_Plan.pdf). ACCP’s strategic plan is based on its core values and its mission to improve human health by extending the frontiers of clinical pharmacy, with three priorities defined within: to develop, advance, and position clinical pharmacists in practice, research, and education. As part of the strategic planning process, ACCP members were surveyed to identify emerging areas critical to clinical pharmacy. Through this member survey, precision medicine emerged as an important issue for clinical pharmacists.

Precision medicine was incorporated into the College’s strategic plan as Strategic Direction 1.2: Provide opportunities for developing knowledge and skills in precision medicine that advance clinical practice, education, and research. ACCP is fortunate to count among its members many of the leaders in the science, practice, and implementation of precision medicine. Given that precision medicine is the standard of care in oncology and will soon be the standard of care in many therapeutic areas and that clinical pharmacists are the most qualified health care professionals to implement precision medicine, a need for more trained individuals was determined.

As such, a blue ribbon task force led by Vicki Ellingrod made up of leading pharmacogenomics researchers, practitioners, and educators is providing recommendations on how ACCP can advance knowledge and skill development in precision pharmacotherapy. On the basis of task force recommendations, ACCP members can expect several new training opportunities around precision medicine in the next few years. Clinical pharmacists interested in implementing pharmacogenomics-driven clinical practice may benefit from a clinical traineeship. Traineeships will likely be specialty based and provide both foundational knowledge and practical experience in developing and managing a genomics-based clinical practice.

For clinical pharmacists desiring to enhance their research skills, the FIT and MeRIT programs (www.accpri.org/) already offered by ACCP are being evaluated as mechanisms for delivering precision medicine training. FIT, which is designed for experienced researchers, is a 5-day in-person program focused on grant proposal development. Investigators with a draft grant proposal spend most of their time in the program revising their proposal to enhance its competitiveness. MeRIT, a 2-year longitudinal program designed for pharmacists with modest research experience, provides a mentored research experience through live programing and webinars that takes a research project from an idea to publication.

Consistent with its strategic plan, ACCP seeks to position clinical pharmacists by communicating their value, with two papers in development. First, led by Kelly Caudle, the PK/PD PRN is writing an opinion paper titled “What Is Precision Pharmacotherapy?” Second, the ACCP Clinical Practice Affairs Committee, led by Kevin Hicks and Kristine Aquilante, has been charged to develop a complementary ACCP white paper that articulates real-world clinical applications of precision medicine (specifically, “precision pharmacotherapy”) to today’s clinical pharmacist practice.

I thank the members who are taking on these important initiatives and invite all members to contact me at [email protected] with additional thoughts, suggestions, or plans for incorporating precision medicine into their research, teaching, and practice. Together, we can learn from ACCP members who are already leading important precision medicine initiatives and position ACCP as the leading organization in supporting precision medicine research and implementation.