EMERGING TREND PRACTICING AS A PROVIDER
CREATING THE “WHAT’S NEXT?” IN THE
PRACTICE OF PHARMACY By: Catherine Gilmore, PharmD, BCACP, Assistant Professor, UHSP, Beverly Hills Pharmacy
G
rowing up in a family full of educators, I knew there was one thing I did not want to do when I grew up: teach. Whether it was dealing with student behavior
issues or grading papers at 9 p.m., the drive to not be a teacher drove me more toward a career as a pharmacist. My mom started taking a brand-new injectable biologic in 2003, and back in those days (or so I’m told), there were a lot of “unknowns” when it came to coverage and aff ordability for these new types of medications. How long will it work for? Will it always be covered by insurance? Although this drug may work, will it be a fi nancial burden? T ese questions, and many more, raced
through my mom’s mind when she started this medication. But her mind was put at ease by a friendly Jewel-Osco pharmacist named Tom. His kindness, compassion, and willingness to educate and advocate for my mom’s benefi t made her new healthcare journey so much more manageable. It was on my monthly trips to the pharmacy with my mom to pick up her prescription that I realized how much of an impact Tom had on her care, and how much he cared for her well-being. It was on those monthly trips to the pharmacy that I decided I wanted to grow up to be a Tom. T e journey to pharmacy school and in
pharmacy school was fairly mid (Gen Z speak for “average”), so I’m not going to bore you with the details. I worked at Walgreens, I was involved in professional and university organizations, I was a decent student (not
Rho Chi, but also not “Low Chi”). It wasn’t until an international APPE in India that I realized I didn’t have a solid plan aſt er graduation. I liked working at Walgreens, I liked being involved as our school’s APhA- ASP Policy Vice President, and loved the advocacy work that the Illinois Pharmacists Association was doing (because I went to school in Illinois and was not a member of MPA, which is one of my deepest regrets in life). Aſt er deep refl ection, I knew the job I wanted didn’t exist, but I didn’t know what that job was. T e profession was on this cool trajectory that was advocating for this wild world of “provider status,” and there were awesome pharmacies in the US doing really cool and innovative things. And I knew that to prepare myself for this unknown job, I needed to do a pharmacy residency. While I loved my residency (spoiler) and
believe they are a great career pathway, I fully acknowledge that advanced training beyond pharmacy school is not for everyone and not doing a residency can still make you a phenomenal pharmacist. Some of the very best pharmacists I know did not do a residency and they are ROCKSTARS at what they do; it just happened to be the best path for me. I decided that a community-based pharmacy residency was what I needed to pursue to prepare me for this unknown job and equip me with a toolkit of skills to be able to tackle the unknown opportunities that pharmacists can do. My residency match day, March 13, 2020
(nothing notable about that day, except the day my immediate world shut down due to COVID), I matched with an amazing
independent pharmacy in Asheville, North Carolina through the University of North Carolina Eshelman School of Pharmacy PGY1 Community-based Pharmacy Residency Program. T is was the fi rst time I had ever stepped foot in an independent pharmacy. Sona Pharmacy + Clinic was a perfect fi t for me; a traditional independent pharmacy with transitions of care, medication adherence packaging, specialty pharmacy, compounding, a primary care clinic inside the pharmacy with a co-visit pharmacist/doctor model, a growing and robust clinical service, and a transparent PBM. It was the perfect place to build my toolkit and had an incredibly supportive staff to support my fi rst year as a pharmacist. Although many residency activities were re-prioritized because of the pandemic, I had the ability to do so much more than I originally intended. I stayed on for a year aſt er my residency
to help support the clinical initiatives at the pharmacy. We vaccinated 10% of our county, grew our reach to serve even more patients in our rural area, and started implementing new pharmacist-provided services, like prescribing hormonal contraceptives and administering long-acting injectables, when the Midwest came calling. I moved to St. Louis in August 2022 aſt er accepting a position as an assistant professor at St. Louis College of Pharmacy at UHSP with a practice site at a well-respected independent pharmacy, Beverly Hills Pharmacy. It has been such an honor to serve at these two renowned establishments, and I’ve grown so much during my short time here.
20 Missouri PHARMACIST | Volume 98, Issue II | Summer 2024
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