From the New Practitioner Network

Member Spotlight

Desiree Gaines, PharmD Clinical Pharmacist - Community Pharmacy and Ambulatory Care Rx Clinic Pharmacy and Carolina Family Healthcare

Desiree Gaines started her career in pharmacy as a technician at the age of 18. From there, she knew that a career in pharmacy was her dream. With many great mentors along the way, she later graduated with her degree from Wingate University School of Pharmacy in 2015. After graduating, she went on to complete a community pharmacy residency through the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy at Moose Pharmacy in Concord, NC. During her residency, she completed a project focusing on medication safety and take-back events, and she had the unique opportunity to learn new ways to provide excellent patient care through innovative services. Desiree currently has a unique clinical pharmacist role working with Rx Clinic Pharmacy, Moose Pharmacy, and an independent family practice medicine clinic, Carolina Family Healthcare. At Rx Clinic Pharmacy, Desiree works to provide Chronic Care Management, e-Care Plans, immunizations, Medication Therapy Management services, precepting, diabetic shoe fitting, and staffing. At Moose Pharmacy, Desiree works with CCNC to provide medication management for foster children and Transitions of Care services. At Carolina Family Healthcare, Desiree serves as the clinical pharmacist providing Annual Wellness Visits, Chronic Care Management, travel health consultations, diabetes education and Transitions of Care. Desiree says, “It’s challenging, but I love what I do! I wouldn’t have had these amazing opportunities without wonderful mentors in my life, while in school and during my residency.” Desiree enjoys precepting most of all. “Because I had some phenomenal preceptors and mentors, I feel that it’s now my responsibility to provide students with a unique rotation that will allow them the opportunity to experience a variety of clinical services.” Desiree serves on the Community Care Practice Forum. She says that she enjoys the NCAP annual convention because she has the opportunity to network with the amazing pharmacists in North Carolina and surrounding areas.

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Mentoring Student Pharmacists: Suggestions for New Practitioners

Megan Coleman Cortney Mospan

Introduction

Thinking through your professional development, more than likely, there were mentors who played a role in molding you and defining your professional path. As new practitioners gain experience, mentoring student pharmacists is a great way to give back to the profession and pay-it-forward! Many opportunities for mentoring exist, each with unique skills development and learning opportunities.

Student Organizations

Too often, student pharmacists do not fully grasp the immense development opportunities that student organizations offer. It is important to encourage students to attend professional meetings, especially state and local meetings, stressing the professional networks that these meetings facilitate. If you serve in a formal mentorship or advisor role to student organizations, there are additional opportunities. Patient outreach activities and inviting practitioners to share their experiences at chapter meetings can provide opportunities to work with students on their planning skills. Outreach events take much coordination between the site, finding a preceptor, and getting necessary supplies. You can work with students to create realistic time lines to ensure event success, review compliance with necessary laws and regulations (CLIA waivers, legal intern activities, etc.), and help them acquire necessary supplies in advance.

Naturally, conflict will arise between team members. Working with executive committees of student organizations, you can proactively create leadership development seminars by utilizing StrengthsFinders1, the Conflict Management Scale for Pharmacy2, and other resources.You can also individually coach students in areas they self-identify as opportunities for improvement.

Student Research

Engaging students in research efforts can be another avenue to mentor students in their professional growth, particularly those who are interested in residency training. By involving students in your research efforts, they can provide support in data collection, IRB submission, and writing the manuscript while gaining valuable skills along the way. Engaging students with practice areas similar to your own early

in the research project allows for students to see the process of development of a research idea from the generation of the hypothesis to conducting the background search, to running the project and working towards publication. Mentoring students through this process better prepares them for research as residents and helps to develop their writing and critical thinking skills prior to graduation, potentially enabling them to feel more comfortable with generating their research project idea as a resident.

Practice Experiences

During practice experiences, demonstrating appropriate time management of both practice and professional responsibilities, while maintaining patient care as the highest priority, is necessary to the professional development of students. As a mentor, opportunities may arise for you to work with a student on their time management skills to better balance and prioritize the demands of the profession. Additionally, modeling professionalism is essential as students often emulate behavior observed during practice experiences. tunity to assist students with career discovery. One tool that may be helpful for this particular discussion is the APhA Career Pathway Evaluation Program for Pharmacy Professionals3. Once students have identified an area of practice interest, working with them to foster this interest and develop career goals can be very rewarding.

Megan Coleman, PharmD, BCPS, CPP, is an NPN Executive Committee Member-atLarge and Assistant Professor of Pharmacy, Wingate University School of Pharmacy, m.coleman@wingate.edu

Cortney Mospan, PharmD, BCACP, BCGP, is an NPN Liaison to the Community Care Practice Forum and Assistant Professor of Pharmacy, Wingate University School of Pharmacy, c.mospan@wingate.edu

Drs. Coleman and Mospan have no potential or actual conflicts of interest in relation to this article.

References

1. Rath, Tom. Strengths Finder 2.0. New York: Gallup Press, 2007. Print. 2. Austin Z, Gregory PA, Martin C. A conflict management scale for pharmacy. Am J Pharm Educ 2009;73(7): Article 122. 3. “APhA Career Pathway Evaluation Program for Pharmacy Professionals.” American Pharmacists Association. Available at: www.pharmacist.com/pathway_survey. Accessed September 25, 2017.