Mar 17, 2018
This APhA 2018 Live Episode with Leaders from the University of South Carolina College of Pharmacy we go over Community Outreach with Hanna Murray, Information Technology with Chuck Hennes, and earning very competitive APPE experiences in the DC area with Meg Freiter. The Walker Leadership Scholars Program is a leadership development program endowed by USC College of Pharmacy alumna Donna Walker. Their experiences within and outside of the Walker program have helped the Walker scholars pursue their unique passions.
Full Transcript:
Welcome to the pharmacy leaders podcast with your host Tony Guerra the pharmacy leaders podcast is a member of the pharmacy podcast network with interviews and advice on building your professional network brand and a purposeful second income from students residents and innovative professionals welcome to the pharmacy leaders podcast right now I have a group of students from the University of South Carolina and South Carolina is one of the very few schools if not the only school that has its own leadership development program so I wanted to learn more about it and Hannah Murray is going to take over for a little bit and introduce who's here and then we'll get into the conversation hi everybody I'm Hannah Murray and I'm here with the Walker leadership scholars we're unique to the University of South Carolina College of Pharmacy and I'm currently sitting here with other members of our program Chuck Hennis Meg Frater and Laura Jane Baker straw okay well let's start off with leadership why why does the College of Pharmacy have its own in-house leadership group that's always thought of as a soft skill you know usually we're worried about making sure that our NAPLEX scores are high and things like that so tell me a little bit about how this why South Carolina picked this leadership or how it developed that's a good question our we got endowed by an alumni at Donna Walker who had a very unconventional pharmacy career she ended up having a pretty unconventional experience because of the leadership that she was involved in within her college of an outside of it so she and her husband that generously decided that they wanted to give back to their alumni or alumnus and they started this leadership development program that's very selective they're only two people per class and essentially I know so it's really it's really small there's ten of us currently and we are exposed to different unique opportunities that are supposed to help us sort of form our own career path that might be outside of what the typical pharmacy experience would look like and then sort of I'm sorry not to cut you off but on the flip side of that it's a way that we can use what we learned through this program that were so privileged to be a part of and give it back to our college to help open their mind to what could be different about their own careers so explain to me how it works so you're telling me that there's two P1s two P2s two P3s and 2 P4s mm-hmm so tell me how that interaction works because the p1 is a completely different place than a p4 obviously there's the mentorship value that the p1 gets from the p4 and then you know maybe yeah so tell me how that works yeah this is meg and I can speak to that a little bit so as a p1 you you go through more of an interview process that year and that's how we find our next scholars and so this year we're fortunate to already know who they are and we're gonna just kind of you know interact with them and get them to think about taking on more leadership roles early on so I know a lot of the time if you kind of have mentors that have gone through things and that have had experiences that conferences or have gone and done different things in terms of internships or rotations you can kind of find out about those early on so I think that's what the P4s can kind of lend to the P1s and the P2s and mentorship within our group is a huge part of it we love to hang out together and kind of help each other go you know through the different things the different leadership challenges we might be facing so how does the p4 do that with rotations well that is that is a bit of a challenge that we've that we've been realizing because you know we've realized as P4s we want to still be so involved we have actually only had since the program so knew we had one set of P4s that were like the first generation Walker Scholars and now Laura Jane who's here with us is also a P4 and so I think what's really beneficial is that they're able to kind of check in every once in a while and really make sure that like the mission and the vision of the program is staying on track because we are so new so we're still kind of figuring out who we are as a group and and how we want to operate and I think that's where the P4 kind of lends their their expertise and also just they're there for any questions we might have so let's hear from Chuck good morning everybody my name is Chuck Hennes so with the Watership program with the Walker Leadership Program like we said it's a personalized development program but what I've personally gotten out of it is just being able to give my personal growth up and learn about how to be emotionally intelligent be able to connect with people use my social skills to form great networking opportunities look into various different fields of pharmacy for example came into this college thinking oh yeah I'm just gonna work at CVS like a typical pharmacist may or may be in a hospital that's all I really knew but through this program I was exposed leaders in industry which now I want to pursue a master's in health and information technology along with my PharmD been communicating with different representatives from companies such as Eli Lilly Biogen I'm trying to really get my name out there and form these long-term connections of just being innovative with a pharmacy degree I don't want to be one directional I want to be able to be adaptive and that's really what this program is taught me is just being able to talk to people more effectively being able to lead my peers around me and just be able to communicate on an another level okay so tell me a little bit about what it is to be IT whee-hee righty we here informatics tell me what that looks like for somebody that's interested in computers are interested in something more technological like that I have a master's in human-computer interaction so I can speak to some of those things but tell me what a pharmacist does with technology to make patient care better so typically if you're trying to do informatics that's like a PGY-2 residency that you pursue which is a great Avenue people usually end up being some kind of formulary management and a hospital system you can apply to the community setting as well trying to set up your own type of inventory list make key innovations what I personally want to do is charter I mean I try to pitch ideas to people all the time of taking like say example pharmacogenomics and pharmacokinetics hot topics it's always coming into play I'm taking those key concepts being able to use like the new and upcoming systems like for the IBM's Watson using that type of AI system that can take in large amounts of data and do stuff that humans physically can for example a company that I work for right now we were using IBM to help our formulation of for a steroid of drug typically destined I'd so basically we took data from our PI historian collected at all I extracted it from the historian put it in a format that we could send IBM and then IBM sends us back Watson's interpretation the results that formed these connections that are over millions of data points that just people don't physically have the time to do and then it gives us an idea of where we can start to start fixing our formulation how does that fit into pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics a genomic standpoint or kinetic you can try to take those abstract ideas and improve that personalized medicine for specific people so say if you have alterations and certain genes that give you different types of different alterations of your cytochromes and then you take medications you're gonna have a different metabolism rate of various drugs and you got to be that expert that knows how to interpret those results and be able to help effectively have your physician prescribed for you and how does the school I went to Florida but we can still be friends you know you're gonna jump Carolina yeah yeah go Gators and so tell be held at University of South Carolina usually the bigger schools are the ones that maybe give the better opportunities for this how is the school like South Carolina giving you that opportunity so very unique also to our school along with the Walker Leadership Program we have the kin of the Kennedy Center basically it's the Kennedy pharmacy Innovation Center and they it's a business focused organization that really wants pharmacists that not just to be clinical experts they want to give you that business expertise but they provide opportunities for us to apply for and initially help students out with funding to attend various different events for example I went to a digital health conference this past fall it's a digital Southeast health conference in Greenville South Carolina is a phenomenal experience the first time I got exposed to block blockchain technologies and IBM and various different health ask other health companies but it is a fantastic experience it's like those unique avenues that normally you don't get and just our school is so good at being able to provide those opportunities for people and you just got to seek it and pursue it a lot of people know blockchain as being part of Bitcoin can you quickly explain how blockchain works with in pharmacy you may or may not be able to do block busting within itself should have bought Bitcoin at a quarter so blockchain basically it's that on it's like that impenetrable ledger that just keeps a record of everything you can get into it and still information from so for example legislation right now won't allow healthcare to get into it through HIPAA violations and various other topics but being able to have like kind of like a innovative mind like for example if you take like for a cloud database that just has its own independent storage information you take a person's personalized medical record put it into that that person has access to it use blockchain technologies to be able to keep just a straight track of it of who's receiving this I mean there's probably lots of holes in this idea that I have but you know it's still up and coming but it just kind of keeps track of like a person's medical record you see exactly what's going on you just be able to get that personalized therapy in any location that you go there's companies out there right now that already do this like for example one medical is a company that is a 24/7 our doctor service they give you access to a ridiculous amount of stuff something I really want to look into more but it's just there's lots of opportunities for it when legislation is able to get over those barriers of Hippo mostly but lots of room for innovation and fill the technology in healthcare like they're evolving at the same rates one little slower than oh I guess one's a little slower than the other but they are codependent and it is the future okay great well let's hear from another scholar let's hear from Hannah Murray and tell me a little bit about your experience at University of South Carolina so far and what initiatives you're especially you're especially interested in sure so I actually was really fortunate to do my undergrad and now my technically professional schooling at the University of South Carolina and I'm definitely one of the most gung-ho Gamecock fans out there I was a super student government nerd you still Spurrier I know oh I know I know we did so I was very involved in student government in my first two years of schooling and that had a major impact on what I got involved in with in pharmacy school and I was really worried that going into pharmacy school I wouldn't be able to have the same impact directly one on one on students on the student body in general because I figured that once I got to pharmacy school would be so hard that blinders would be on and all I would do would be study and I thankfully have found that I've been able to do everything I've wanted and more since I got in so for example I'll say that the best thing the way that the University of South Carolina has best facilitated my success has been by being so supportive of the crazy abstract ideas that I've had so not only do they have programs to help you just you know accelerate in anything you want to do but they're also so willing to put sources at your back so that you can actually make any kind of impact happen and that is actually how I ended up being involved in the Walker leader program I one of my biggest accomplishments in school was creating a presentation series on over-the-counter self-care for first-year college students so not pharmacy students and it's game style it's interactive we call it treat yourself care so any Parks and Rec fans out there will get that and we have actually reached over a hundred and twenty first year students by contacting residence halls and just getting our foot in the door we do it during finals and it's really fun we tailor it to stressed-out college students and they always have a lot of fun with it so that it has sort of accelerated my involvement in pharmacy school and I'll say that the farther I get in school the less I know career-wise what I want to do I'm not gonna ask you you don't want to know I have every idea in the world but I'll say that between my undergrad experience and the Walker Leadership Program I at least know the kind of impact I want to have in my career I want to work with I love working with first-year students I love having a one-on-one impact I love mentorship and I have always said that I want to leave my school different from how I found it hopefully better and I think hopefully I have the Walker leader program actually was sort of a leg to stand on in an initiative that I had to create a position within student government that was devoted to community outreach because I think that service is so important in our profession and so through through a hard work and working with current student leaders two of which are Meg and Chuck who are also involved in student government conveniently for me we now have a couple new leadership positions one of them being the community outreach position and I could not be more ecstatic at the turn that our college is taking towards a more service-oriented student body tell me a little bit about why you decided to approach just I don't want to say regular students but the students that are outside pharmacy school today we tend to be in our little bubble that century and what made you reach out I definitely agree with getting out of the bubble but tell me a little bit about that so when I was in undergrad I was so fortunate to be able to work with so many first-year students I was part of an extended orientation program and we worked with incoming students of all kinds from all different backgrounds abled disabled with special needs from out of state and in-state and it made me realize what a vibrant student population we have and I was just and you know I did the two-year undergrad for grad program so by junior year I was starting pharmacy school when I was not ready to let go of my my undergrad so I that was sort of the way that I was able to converge my two passions of pharmacy and still working with our undergraduate student body and I was very thankful to have a friends in high places within like big USC too and they were able to help me facilitate some of the things I've done all right we're gonna move on to Meg and she's gonna tell us a little bit about her future experience in Georgetown but going back to something Hannah said there is an author at Georgetown who wrote a book so good they can't ignore you and it sounds like what I'm getting is that and he recommends that you work on your skills not really worried necessarily about the dream job and things like that so it sounds like the Walker leadership path is really about getting so good they can't ignore you but Meg you have what I call a destination APPE at least group of experiences can you tell me a little bit about how you got into Georgetown MedStar yeah so um it was it was a funny path to get here but I'm very very very excited for the year I have ahead of me it actually all kind of started with Lucinda Maine she is a friend well she's a friend of Donna Walker's and she's been very kind as quite the mentor to all of us and I let her know I was like I I think I want to come to the DC area for my rotations I'm from Massachusetts originally so I thought about maybe moving back closer to my roots so I was like do you have any suggestions do you have any where to maybe start looking and she put me in touch with someone that was able to start giving me some ideas and so I reached out to a bunch of people in the area and Georgetown University Hospital I got in touch with someone there and they had a few different rotations for me so I'll be doing an internal medicine rotation I'll be doing oncology and I'll be doing trance play it so I'm just kind of so this is Georgetown is nationally regarded it's like a Mayo it's that level of success in terms of a hospital how does somebody get that um so you're from South Carolina you're beating out all these people from Maryland area what what did you do or how did how did you get it are you yeah um well I just actually sent an email so I suppose maybe I said I think you're making it sound like this crazy thing but I said I sent an email and just kind of introduce myself I sent them my CV which you know I’II think that I've had some unique experiences that that might have caught their attention but yeah at that that's them I'm mostly I'm doing a couple other things one on when I'm there too so I think really it's just you know reaching out and not being afraid to try because I just kind of had that idea like you know let's see if this'll work out and when I got the three rotations at Georgetown University Hospital I ended up applying for rotations at NCPA and APhA as well so I'll be doing I'll be doing rotations there and then I'm also fortunate enough to I'm gonna I'm gonna be a Cano intern which is a legislative internship this summer and with the with the with the American Society of Consultant Pharmacists so I'm really I'm really excited to have a full year ahead of me with all those things so okay so I just I'm just kind of taking it all in you know and so tell me what your what your schedule actually looks like for APPEs or the year and and kind of how you planned it obviously when you're going for these top APPE rotations you don't exactly get to plan exactly where it is but but tell me about deciding on DC and being in the nation's capital that's my hometown I'm from Montgomery County Maryland and and I love the area and there's so much to it but tell me what your year is gonna look like and where you start off and then how you end yeah so I start off in May I start offing in Columbia South Carolina will be doing ambulatory care so I'll kind of you know have some time to get my things together and then in June I'll start my internship so I'll be with ASCP for two months June and July and that that was going to be just a really great an experience for me because I'm so interested to find out more about how we can advocate and I think legislation plays so much of a part in pharmacy but as students you don't really realize that until you're you know out in the real world and you've realized I hope there's a regulation that says you you can't do that great idea you had or this or that so that was kind of you know what I'm looking most forward to there and then in August I actually go home so I'll be with my family I'll do my hospital rotation there that kind of gets me started and then I'll jump into the acute care rotations for the next three months so it kind of builds which I didn't plan internal medicine oncology and then transplant will and then I'll have a break I'll be with APhA in January and I will be with a community pharmacy in Delray in February and then I will be with NCPA in March and another community pharmacy in April but it really I think my or anyone else's a you know just try it first of all you know apply because if you don't apply the you never know if you'll get it but it really did take a lot of planning so constantly being on top of sort of what's the back-up plan if this one falls through where or what not so ACP has the Walmart Scholars and it seems like the Walker Scholar is on that level where if you've got that you've got the training and now people recognize the training so you can get your ridiculously good APPE sedimentation so what I want to do here is just let everybody first do a shout out to anybody they want to talk of shout out to that maybe has helped them in their journey and then secondly I've asked you a bunch of questions maybe if there's anything I haven't asked you that you want to talk about so shout outs and then anything else you want to say I'd like to give a big shout out obviously to Donnell Walker for starting up this program as well and then Bill and Lou Kennedy at the Kennedy Center at the USC is tremendously helped me out personally was well with the ws program and then recently we just had a new faculty member dr. Alan's B's he's he's the man he's the man he's gonna give us that individualized leadership coaching that really helps develop these skills and just be able to honestly do pretty much conquer the world I do want to double back on something Chuck said because through the Walker program we ended up setting up a lunch with Bill and Lou Kennedy the owner and CEO of nephron pharmaceuticals in Colombia and because of that I Chuck and I actually both work at a nephron now we leveraged into a job and I have never loved a job more than I love my job at nephron which is random because I don't want to do industry but I adore my job in the work environment so major shouts out to them and dr. Spees has only been with the you know the USC College of Pharmacy for a short time and he has had a just a immeasurable impact on my life can't thank him enough and I'm sure he'll listen to this hi dr. speedy through the bed well I think you guys have covered I think you guys have covered a lot of it but especially to Lucinda Maine obviously personally she's had such a great impact on my development Donna and in our advisor Miss Kathy quarrels more she is so proud of us that I know she wishes she was here but she's actually in Florida doing the compounding competition so shout-out to her because we miss her no just thanks for having us we've had a really good time with this Cox yeah yeah sort of thanks for being on the pharmacy sir yeah as a seminar happens from the audio book memorizing pharmacology a relaxed approach with over 9,000 sales in the United States United Kingdom and Australia it's the go-to resource to ease the pharmacology challenge available on audible iTunes and amazon.com in print ebook and audiobook thank you for listening to the pharmacy leaders podcast with your host Tony Guerra be sure to share the show with the hash tag hash pharmacy leaders
