UCSF Pharmacy Information Day - Part 2 - Pharmacist Panel

8:30 – 8:55 – REGISTRATION

It was quick and simple. Stand in line, say your last name, and then receive your packet. [More on the packet in a later post.]

9:00 – 9:15 – WELCOME

Also quick and simple. We just went over what was in the packet, and were given a reminder that there was a parking ticket voucher for anyone who parked in the garage.

9:15 – 10:15 - CAREER OPPORTUNITIES IN PHARMACY: A PHARMACIST PANEL

[Normal disclaimer: This is not word for word. I'm just doing the best I can to go off of my notes that I typed up while I was there. And I have to say that I loved hearing from these pharmacists, hearing about what it is that they do. I'm most familiar with what a community pharmacist does, and these people don't do that.]

Then we start off with the pharmacist panel! First here's our pharmacists:

1 - Shawn - District Pharmacy Supervisor of Walgreens
2 - Linda - Clinical Pharmacology Specialist Roche Palo Alto/Genetech
3 - Nam - Inpatient Clinical Pharmacist, Clinical Professor, UCSF School of Pharmacy
4 - Katherine - Manaer of Clinical Support Hills Physicians Medical Group

Q: Tell us about yourself. What goes on during a typical day?

4 - I work for the Hill Physicians Medical Group. I manage patients, and a network of physicians to service those patients. 8 pharmacists work in the medical group. If there was a typical day, I wouldn't be in manage care. Every day is different. It's about population based disease state management vs individual care. We view trends for about 300k patients. I look at diabetics to see if they're receiving certain drugs, what other drugs they can use to improve their health care quality, and work closely with physicians. Check on prescription patterns of physicians, and make sure they follow guidelines so it's all more consistent. Strive to improve quality. I work with a 50 million dollar drug budget. Develop guidelines, make sure drugs used appropriately, and work with the contract department for ancillary services.

3 - I work in the SF General Trauma Level 1, in-patient clinical pharmacy side. I work in a hospital. There are two main services: inpatient family medication and an acute care elders unit. I start at 7:30, and sit at a table with physicians, and we talk about our patients. They'll talk about what kind of medications they want to try, and sometimes I'll interject when it comes to dosing, when they may want to switch anti-biotics, or suggest other pain medications that may be more appropriate to an elderly person. I also make sure there are good drugs on the formulary list. We admit about 7 patients a day every day. After we talk about them, we go and meet the patients. That's important. We can see their weight, ethnicity, or if they're confused. In the afternoon, if I have students, I talk with them.

2 - I work for Roche/Genetech, a pharmaceutical company. Not many PharmD's do what I do. Although there are three in my department from UCSF, it's not something a lot of people [who go to pharmacy school] do. There are a lot of PhD's and MD's. I go to a lot of meetings about developing drugs, and don't see patients. Contract out studies. When we get drugs, they've usually gone through animals or lab tests, and the first thing we do is design a study for a single test in humans. Then based off that, other studies get done, and by the end it's a 10 year process. A lot of the time, you don't make it to the end. It will get canceled, or you get moved off the project. I want to make it from end to end. When you study PK [pharmacokinetics0 and PD [pharmacodynamics], you are very valuable.

1 - I supervise 35 community pharmacies, 200 pharmacists. My day is never the same. With 35 different pharmacies, instead of having patients, I have pharmacists. I help solve issues when they have ethical issues or problems. I deal with new negotiations. The Health Policy Management pathway helped with that. I help facilitate patient care programs, make sure people are trained appropriately, marketed, and set up guidelines. MTM programs. Help patients get more formulary drugs. My day is spent visiting all of my pharmacies. 25% is management and personnel issues.

Q: How did you decide to become a pharmacist?

1 – I originally wanted to be a vet, but eventually I became allergic to cats, so that didn't work out. It didn't happen 'til late in college. But I'd been working as a cashier for a pharmacist since I was 16. The pharmacist said I had common sense, I was great with patients, etc, and I should consider being a pharmacist. So I took a year off from college and thought about it. At this point I only had community pharmacy experience. No managed care or ____. I looked into it all, and I liked dealing with patients that you see on a regular basis, so I went into community pharmacy.

2 – I was an undergrad at UCLA, my major was chemistry. [Something about engineering...] ... worked for a semi-conductor company. What got me to apply to pharmacy school... well... I took some courses at a community college for some credits, and then when I talked to a counselor, he said I was wasting my time [because I already had a degree]. I told him I always wanted to go to UCSF, and it turned out pharmacy was the right one for me. I knew the pharmaceutical sciences pathway was the right path, and that community pharmacy was not the right one for me. I did sometimes like working in a pharmacy, but not 40 hours a week. Sometimes I float in the pharmacy just to see some patients.

3 – I have a lot of admiration for people who work and then go back to school. It's not easy. As an undergrad, I was interested in genetics. I love the theory of genetics. I worked in the genetics lab as an undergrad, did a lot of work, published a lot of studies, and did public health at UC Berkeley. I loved the science of drugs. The story of drugs, how drugs bind to enzymes, etc. I came back to be a TA for an undergrad program. I loved it. I come from a long line of pharmacists, and I've been working there since I was 17. I do not like retail, and I didn't think I could do that for the rest of my life. And I didn't want to be blinded and go there for the rest of my life just 'cause my family did. So that's why I explored genetics. But if I went down that way, it would be studying one protein for the rest of my life, and you may or may not discover something.

I do so many things in a given day. You are such a busy bee. I write a box for every task I do, and by the end of the day I'm like, "Wow, I did a lot today." I still go back to my drawings when I teach other students. You can do so many different things, and don't have to just do everything people typically think [a pharmacist] does. I'm the worst counter.

4 – I'm the first of 6 kids to graduate from high school. I also wanted to be a vet. Davis didn't want me. At UCSD I voluteered in a program at a pharmaceutical company. Pfizer owns it now. I enjoyed it. I got to work with animals, and I had a relationship with a high performance lipid chromatographer. I thought about getting a PhD. I looked into the PharmD program, and I liked that it was flexible. I didn't want to be stuck doing the same thing my whole life. If I got bored, I could switch after 10 years and still be working in the same field [Note: This is one of the very appealing aspects of pharmacy for me as well.] I called up and asked if there were pharm programs in California. There were only three at the time. UCSF was the only one that gave me an interview.

[The rest of the pharmacist panel to be continued next post.]