Moving on...

It's been a while since my last blog and I apologize for those of you anxiously awaiting my return... Sorry, my sarcasm gets the best of me sometimes :). Anyway, I've been busy getting settled into my new career that I'll be blogging about so you guys can finally have an understanding of my day-to-day, but first I guess I've got to describe my choice and how I landed here.

I've given you the ups and downs of pharmacy school and all the personal struggles I had between me and here. Now for the good stuff! Most of you know by now, I spent the last year completing a residency in Richmond. A lot of you have asked many questions along the way and sometimes it's hard to explain, but I'll do my best. 

A residency is a program you enter post-graduation to gain extra, in-depth, and intensive experiential knowledge in mostly specialized fields. It is equated to about 5 years of working experience. For pharmacy, it's relatively new to the profession even though people have been doing them for 50+ years.  The most traditional programs are in hospitals, but in the past 10-15 years those have expanded to include community and ambulatory care pharmacies.  Of course, true to fashion, I chose the path least traveled and went the community route. For those of you who are curious, community pharmacy is your average pharmacist you see in a CVS or Walgreens.  I know everyone out there is thinking "So you spent an extra year, at less than half pay to learn how to count by 5s better." Well, I hope not because that is most certainly not what I did or currently do. Hence, this lovely blog :)

Once you enter pharmacy school, you start pondering all the job opportunities and career paths you can take. Believe it or not, pharmacy offers a TON of divergent paths to follow post-graduation. Most of us get jobs in the traditional settings of hospitals, Walgreens, etc since residency programs are relatively new to the field and can be a little scarce. Not to mention, the enormous pay differential and crap load of student loans most of us carry. Some enter into graduate school to pursue another type of degree to complement their Pharm.D., and a good proportion of us enter into residencies.  I chose the latter for a lot of reasons.

When it came time to figuring out my career path, I had some confusion and wavering, but ulitmately I knew I wanted to enter into community practice because simply put, I like people. I didn't want to be cooped up in a hospital basement somewhere or rounding in rooms with people who are barely coherent, incredibly grumpy, or just plain sick and tired of being poked and proded by students and providers.  My rotation in this experience, while incredibly enjoyable, only reinforced that fact! I wanted to be able to create lasting relationships with my patients and become a common fixture in their daily lives. I wanted to be a resource for all health care issues, big or small, and see their progression on a daily basis. I love the people I meet at work, even the ones who make me hate my job for the moment. Those stories are the most fun, but I try to keep them at a minimum! 

I have been so lucky to have had a lot of positive influence in this direction. I've been so blessed to have mentors who are experts and educators in community practice and I clearly recall the day I knew this is what I would do.  It was my P2 year and I decided to get a job since I felt I needed to supplement my lifestyle (aka spending habits, ha). My roommate, Kellie, came home one day and told me the CVS down the street was hiring and I should apply. I walked in, asked the pharmacist if he was hiring, and left with the promise of a job. Seems easy enough, haha. Well, it was an adjustment since I was essentially thrown in immediately with the good ol' "sink or swim" philosophy of management! With a couple of uneventful, ho-hum nights under my belt, I went to work on a Saturday to get some extra hours. It was then that I had my first shift with a professor from school. I remember being in absolute awe at the way the patients clung to every word she said, how she seemed to know just EVERYTHING, and the trust that they put into her recommendations. I stopped and thought "I want to do that!". It just clicked after that and I knew I wanted to enter into academia and most importantly community practice after I finished.

Amy would serve as a mentor at work and school for the next 2 years.  Fostering my career choice at VCU was not hard to do considering we had 4 faculty members strictly focused on community practice, a very unique trait. I went into my rotations pretty much convinced I would pursue a residency with community.  UNTIL....the time came to send out applications! I, all of the sudden, became panicked and worried about making the right choices.  Then, my second mentor, our own rockstar of pharmacy (yes, I'm THAT dorky), Kelly Goode said to me a simple comment; "If you want to change pharmacy practice, you'll do a community residency". 

I left the conference we were attending and decided to go for it and haven't ever looked back. The residency started at VCU on July 1 2009 with 4 other incredible ladies and I've never been happier, at least until now :). I've never had a better time learning and realizing important strengths and weaknesses.  The year was amazing, incredible, fun, challenging, hilarious, memorable....I could go on and on. I formed 4 friendships and bonds that will never be broken and spent 12 months with one of the most incredible women I know. You see, incidentally, that mentor during school turned into my preceptor and "boss lady" for the residency. 

During the last year, I participated in so many cool things. I've learned how to create business models that can potentially change the way the CVS' and Walgreens of the world eventually do business. As the only resident in the Kmart corporation, I have continued the tradition of attempting to create patient care programs that could possibly go live to the whole company! I created a research project from scratch and will hopefully publish the results of a smoking cessation study soon. I am working on a research article for MS that will hopefully be published and was able to educate fellow pharmacists on all that is going on with the disease state! I presented a research poster at a national pharmacy organization meeting. I worked 10 feet from the State Dept for 3 weeks while serving as a government affairs intern for a national pharmacy organization! I was able to teach students from my alma mater in both the classroom and experientially! I spent time in a homeless mental health clinic, a predominantly spanish-speaking free medical clinic, and another free clinic that became like a second family to me! That's just peek! Now you might know why I am so bad at returning phone calls..haha. 

The point is, I'm in love with what I do and all the wonderful places it takes me. I hope by giving you guys a glimpse into what I do more frequently, I'll be answering some of your questions and changing your view of pharmacists altogether. After finishing the residency, I was hired by Belmont University in Nashville, TN to do exactly what I've been trained to do in the last year. I've been charged to educate pharmacy students, both in the classroom and the pharmacy, how to create change in a very broken health care system and become competent, confident practitioners. Within my job, I'll be doing some research, working with patients, and maintaining leadership roles as service to my profession.  So far, we are 3 weeks in to the new semester and I'm thrilled with my choices! I have so many people to thank for the support along the way, but hopefully I've done that many times over already. If not, you should know who you are! 

So far, I've taught my first lecture to 75 students, helped make a brand new pharmacy operational for the first day of business and beyond, advised my first group of students, taken on the role of faculty advisor for a student organization, and participated in many other odds and ends of faculty life! I plan to update you frequently on all the exciting stuff I've got going on regularly, but there may be some time in between. It's pharmacy people, not country music ;)