Education and Practice

Member Spotlight!

Andrea Leone, PharmD, BCACP, has received the honor of being the final recipient for the 2016 New Practitioner Spotlight. Dr. Leone graduated with highest honors from Chapel Hill in 2010. In graduate school, her research focused on pain and palliative care working with a general medicine pain service at the university. After graduating, she took a position as a community pharmacist for two years with CVS. In 2012, she relocated to Utah and worked as a specialist in poison information with the Utah Poison Control Center and then an independent hospice pharmacy. She currently works for Blue Ridge Pharmacy, an independent Long term care pharmacy in Asheville, NC, where she has spent time as both a staff and consultant pharmacist.

Andrea is involved with implementing training policies and procedures for pharmacists at Blue Ridge Long-Term Care (LTC). Long term care pharmacy has some challenges since it’s not as well defined as retail or hospital. LTC merges elements from both which allows for many areas potential growth especially as the population ages. Andrea is also in the process of updating controlledsubstance policies for standing orders to reflect pain management guidelines. She hopes that obtaining a position with the NCAP Chronic Care Practice Forum will provide an opportunity to collaborate with others in LTC, geriatrics, and ambulatory care. Andrea became involved in the North Carolina Association of Pharmacists to network with others in her area of practice, stay current with guidelines, prescribing trends, and to advance the practice of pharmacy in the state of North Carolina.

Cindy Brasher, PharmD, MS, BCPS, is a pharmacy operations

manager at Mission Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina. She completed the Health Systems Pharmacy Administration PGY1 and PGY2 combined residency program at Mission Hospital and an MS in Pharmacy Administration through the University of North Carolina in 2016. She received her BS in Elementary Education from the University of Tennessee Martin and MA in Education from Cumberland University, and taught elementary education for 7 years. After making a career change to pharmacy, she received her PharmD from the University of Tennessee College of Pharmacy.

After completing her residency program, Cindy joined the leadership team at Mission. In her current position, she supports the pediatric, oncology, and medication distribution service lines at her institution. Cindy enjoys working with these special populations because of the challenges that arise from meeting the needs of the patients through compounding, special dosage forms, medication access, and education. She is also passionate about staff development and has been working with her teams to develop staff training and education to better meet the needs of the department and patients.

Promoting and developing the field of pharmacy is also very important to Cindy. She feels that organizational involvement at both the state level and national level are key to moving the profession of pharmacy forward. Currently, she serves on the NCAP Provider Status Task Force, ACCP Clinical Administration PRN Student and Resident Steering Committee, ACCP Publications Committee, and ASHP Section Advisory Group on Patient Care Quality. She appreciates being involved in NCAP due to their provision of continuing education for pharmacists and technicians and advocacy for key issues. The NCAP Provider Status Task Force is one example of local pharmacists collaborating with legislative members to improve access to care for our patients.