The Pharmacist - Spring 2021 by UIC Retzky College of Pharmacy

the

SPR I N G 2021 | VO LU M E 43 | I S SU E 2

THE MAGAZINE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS CHICAGO COLLEGE OF PHARMACY

Academic Detailing in the Fight Against Opioid Deaths Research Awards Open Research Opportunities Interprofessional Experience Is Key to Foundational Education

contents 02

Dean’s Letter

03 Events 04

College News

Student News

Partnering for Success

Riback and Vahlteich Opportunities

(Inter) Professional Realities

New Fellowship Training Program

Precision Medicine Preparation

UIC Launches COVID Task Force

Dr. Adesh Vora Is Reinventing Necessity

Illustrating the Role of Pharmacists

Alumni Profiles

A Few Words with Bill Lee, BS ’73

Alumni News

In Memoriam

In September of 1868, our college published the first issue of a trade journal simply named The Pharmacist. The magazine you see before you is named in honor of that historic journal.

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18 EDITORIAL CREDITS PUBLISHER Glen T. Schumock, PharmD, MBA, PhD Professor and Dean EDITORS Robert Hoff UIC Creative and Digital Services Ben Stickan Associate Dean of Advancement PROOFREADERS Nate Downing Deb Fox Chris Gummert Imani Watson CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Jessica Canlas Jacqueline Carey Sonya Collins Michael Dhar Sharon Parmet Daniel Smith PHOTOGRAPHY Barry Donald Jim Young DESIGN Godfrey Carmona UIC Creative and Digital Services

FROM THE DEAN

Hope Springs Eternal BY DE AN GLEN SCHUMOCK Welcome to the spring 2021 issue of The Pharmacist magazine. Spring is a time of renewal and hope— something we all needed after a long and difficult year. A year marked by a pandemic that caused significant health and economic hardship, police killings that sparked protest over racism, and unimaginable political discord. But with 2021 in full swing, the winter behind us, and hope for an end to the pandemic accelerated by the vaccine rollout, we have much to be thankful for. As we move forward, we carry with us many lessons from 2020—innovative and more efficient ways of doing business, new appreciation for in-person interaction and togetherness, and the importance of science, tolerance, and equality. A silver lining of the COVID-19 pandemic has been the new societal understanding of the value of pharmacists and pharmacies to public health, as highlighted in the article within featuring alumna Jasmina Bjegovic, PharmD ’12. On the frontlines of care from the start, the standing of pharmacists and pharmaceutical scientists has been especially elevated by our role in the development, distribution, preparation, and administration of the vaccine. Pharmacists and pharmacy students at UIC were front and center in these efforts. Our faculty stepped up to lead the implementation of COVID-19 testing sites and then pivoted to do the same for vaccination clinics on campus in Chicago, for Winnebago County in Rockford, and elsewhere. They were integral to planning and scientific decision-making for state, county, and city governments—like the Illinois COVID-19 Pharmacy Vaccine Task Force described in this

Online pharmacy.uic.edu go.uic.edu/PharmFBChicago go.uic.edu/PharmFBRockford go.uic.edu/PharmTwitter go.uic.edu/PharmLinkedIn go.uic.edu/PharmInstagram go.uic.edu/PharmYouTube

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issue. And whether in our pharmacies, clinics, or inpatient medical units, our pharmacists and students responded with new and innovative ways to connect patients with needed medications and pharmaceutical care. It is how we roll at UIC. Advancing the practice of pharmacy is in our DNA. In this issue of The Pharmacist you will read of other examples, like the program called Illinois ADVANCE, which uses pharmacist academic detailing to help solve major health problems like the opioid epidemic. Academic detailing services started at UIC when Drs. Simon Pickard and Todd Lee in the Department of Pharmacy Systems, Outcomes, and Policy collaborated with the AMITA Medical Group on a CDCfunded project to study its impact on opioid prescribing. Efforts were expanded through the work of Mary Moody, associate dean for professional and governmental affairs, who now oversees 30 pharmacists conducting academic detailing under a partnership with the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services. One of the largest such programs in the country, it is an example of how this college moves the needle for the profession and for the health of the public. Programs like Illinois ADVANCE require pharmacists to work together with physicians and other healthcare providers. Interdisciplinary care like this is vital for optimal patient outcomes, and it is why the UIC College of Pharmacy is investing time and talent to provide interprofessional education (IPE) to the next generation of pharmacists. Dr. Mike Koronokowski—our new director of IPE—is working with a team of faculty

Got News? Change jobs? Get a promotion? Publish a paper? Publish a book? Get married? Have a baby? We want to hear about it all! Now you can send your news directly to the magazine editor Ben Stickan (bstickan@uic.edu). We’ll do our best to fit it into our publications and/or social media! If you don’t see it in The Pharmacist, please go to go.uic.edu/PharmNews.

dedicated to this, as you will read in the article on the subject in this issue of The Pharmacist. Like usual, there are many stories in this issue of The Pharmacist about the successes of our faculty, staff, students, and alumni. These successes keep us motivated to do even more. They demonstrate the resilience and progressiveness of the UIC College of Pharmacy community. That in the face of a pandemic, social and political unrest, and more–we continued to excel. And with spring comes even more hope and optimism that together we can rise above. And “Rising Above” is the title of a video we created, which speaks to the societal events and the college’s actions and accomplishments in 2020 and which looks ahead to our plans for 2021. You can view it at go.uic.edu /RisingAbove.

The University of Illinois Chicago College of Pharmacy Office of Continuing Education and Meeting Services (OCEMS) has released the following programs:

EVENTS

Continung Education Opportunities

PH A R M ACY TECHNICI A N CE PROGR A M S Twenty-two ACPE-approved pharmacy technician continuing education programs. For more information, please visit go.uic.edu/PharmTechCE. PH A R M ACY TECHNICI A N CE PROGR A M S

Twenty-nine ACPE-approved pharmacist continuing education programs. For more information, please visit go.uic.edu/PharmacistCE.

FIVE-POINT VISION

Provide unparalleled pharmacy education and training

Advance the profession through leadership and advocacy

Lead the nation in pharmaceutical research that impacts health

Foster a culture of excellence, collaboration, and inclusiveness

Be the epicenter of innovative pharmacy services

Our Digital Edition issuu.com/uicpharmacy

SPRING 2021

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COLLEGE NEWS

Dr. MELISSA BADOWSKI, clinical associate professor, Department of Pharmacy Practice, was recently appointed vice chair of Vizient’s Pharmacy Research Committee.

and member of the Editorial Advisory Board for the Journal of the American Pharmacists Association (JAPhA).

Dr. Robert DiDomenico Dr. Maya Campara

Dr. MAYA CAMPARA, clinical associate professor, Department of Pharmacy Practice, received the UI Health CARE Award. The CARE Award recognizes employees who demonstrate the core values of UI Health, display a job performance that goes above and beyond expected performance, exhibit a patient-first mentality, are motivated and strive for excellence, contribute to the positive culture in the department and organization, and have made a difference in the life of a patient, visitor, or peer.

Dr. Stephanie Crawford

Dr. STEPHANIE CRAWFORD, executive associate dean for faculty affairs and strategic initiatives, was recently selected as a member of the Chicago Scientific COVID-19 Vaccine Work Group. The group is charged with independently assessing whether or not the proper scientific and regulatory review has taken place for authorizing emergency use for COVID-19 vaccines. Dr. Crawford was also recently selected as a 2021 APhA fellow in recognition for her persistent support and membership, including serving as an outstanding reviewer

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Dr. ROBERT DIDOMENICO, assistant professor, Department of Pharmacy Practice, and assistant head for research, received new funding as co-PI from the Otho S. A. Sprague Memorial Institute along with Matt Siemer, co-PI from Mobile Care Chicago. The title of the project is “Program to Educate & VaccenatE uNderserved members of The public (PREVENT) Pilot.” Collaborators include Drs. CHARLES MCPHERSON, JEWEL YOUNGE, AMINA GASSAM, and COLIN HUBBARD. Together, they will develop educational programming and vaccination outreach for seasonal vaccines (e.g., influenza) in the South Shore community, establishing a framework for doing the same with the COVID-19 vaccines. DUSTIN DIETRICH, IT technology associate, was recently acknowledged as a Rockford Rock Star with an award in acknowledgement of his outstanding contributions to the work of the university by members of the staff.

Dr. Marlowe Djuric-Kachlic

Drs. MARLOWE DJURICKACHLIC, and SHEILA ALLEN, assistant professors, Department

of Pharmacy Practice, along with colleagues from University of Kentucky College of Pharmacy, Purdue University College of Pharmacy, and University of Florida College of Pharmacy, published a paper titled “Student Pharmacists’ Ability to Impact the Administration of Complex Prescription Regimens According to the Universal Medication Schedule.” Dr. ALAN GROSS was elected to serve as a delegate from Illinois to the American Society of HealthSystem Pharmacists (ASHP) House of Delegates for a two-year term, 2021–2022.

Dr. William Fitzsimmons

Dr. Clara Okorie-Awe

Drs. WILLIAM FITZSIMMONS, BS ’83, executive in residence, Department of Pharmacy Systems, Outcomes, and Policy (PSOP), and CLARA OKORIE‑AWE, associate dean for diversity and inclusion, wrote a letter to the editor in the most recent edition of Therapeutic Innovation & Regulatory Science, the official scientific journal of the Drug Information Association (DIA). In their letter “Ensuring Black Lives Matter in Drug Development,” Drs. Fitzsimmons and Okorie‑Awe wrote about how the pharmaceutical industry should strive to address and correct factors that contribute to low numbers of Black participants in clinical trials.

congratulations UIC PHARMACY @ AACP | OCTOBER 19–30 Please visit lnkd.in/eyvAjUX to read about the many awards, presentations, and posters featuring faculty from the UIC College of Pharmacy Department of Pharmacy Practice at the 2020 American College of Clinical Pharmacy Annual Meeting. Congratulations to Drs.: Lauren Andrews

David Choi

Alice Hemenway

Sarah Michienzi

Paul Stranges

Melissa Badowski

Robert DiDomenico

Jennie Jarrett

Kaitlin Miles

Elizabeth Van Dril

Jerry Bauman

Beatrice Drambarean

Edith Nutescu

Eric Wenzler

Jamie Benken

Janet Engle

Stephanie Dwyer Kaluzna

Hannah Whittemore

Maya Campara

Vicki Groo

James Lee

Kirsten Ohler Erin Pozzolano

Lori Wilken

Erin Carson

Alan Gross

Ryan Rodrigues

Bryan Zobek

Juliana Chan

Ajna Hamidovic

Thomas Chiampas

Jin Han

Alicia Lichvar Michelle Martin Brianna McQuade

Nicole Saccone Nancy Shapiro

RECENT ACCP LEADERSHIP APPOINTMENTS Dr. JULIANA CHAN, clinical associate professor, Department of Pharmacy Practice, was appointed a member of the 2021 American College of Clinical Pharmacy Credentials Fellowship Committee. Dr. ERIC WENZLER, clinical pharmacist, Department of Pharmacy Practice, was appointed a member of the 2021 American College of Clinical Pharmacy Research Fellowship Program Peer Review Committee. Dr. MICHAEL GABAY, clinical associate professor, Department of Pharmacy Practice, was appointed to serve as a member of the 2021 American College of Clinical Pharmacy Credentials Fellowship Committee.

Dr. VICKI GROO was elected secretary/ treasurer of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy Cardiology Practice and Research Network (PRN) for 2020–2021. Dr. JENNIE JARRETT, assistant professor, Department of Pharmacy Practice, was appointed vice chair of the 2021 American College of Clinical Pharmacy Research Fellowship Program Review Committee. Dr. SARAH MICHIENZI, visiting clinical assistant professor, Department of Pharmacy Practice, was elected chair elect of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy HIV Practice and Research Network (PRN) for 2020–2021.

Dr. NANCY SHAPIRO, clinical professor, Department of Pharmacy Practice, was appointed a member of the 2021 American College of Clinical Pharmacy Awards Committee. Dr. LIZ VAN DRIL, clinical assistant professor, Department of Pharmacy Practice, was elected as the secretary/treasurer of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy Endocrine and Metabolism Practice and Research Network (PRN) for 2020–2021. Dr. ERIC WENZLER was appointed chair of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy Infectious Disease Practice and Research Network Awards Committee.

UIC PHARMACY @ ASHP | DECEMBER 6-10 Please visit lnkd.in/eVrGwkj, to read about the many presentations and posters featuring our UIC College of Pharmacy Department of Pharmacy Practice Faculty at the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists Midyear 2020 Virtual Meeting. Congratulations to Drs.: Rebekah Anguiano

Renee Petzel Gimbar

Alicia Lichvar

Matthew Rim

Paul Stranges

Evan Atchley

Vicki Groo

Michelle Martin

Caleb Rux

JoAnn Stubbings

Melissa Badowski

Annette Hays

Brianna McQuade

Kevin Rynn

Eljim Tesoro

Alice Hemenway

Sarah Michienzi

Nicole Saccone

Mathew Thambi

Maya Campara

Erin Hermes

Mary Moody

Sarvnaz Sadrameli

Alex Thorp

David Choi

Niha Idrees

Heidi Olson

Monazzah Sarwar

Elizabeth Van Dril

Fiona Costello

Jennie Jarrett

Kenil Patel

Veranika Sasnovskaya

Emily Viehl

Lauren Cunningham

Stephanie Dwyer Kaluzna

Rucha Patel

Chris Schriever

Eric Wenzler

Robert DiDomenico

Eden Keller

Gabrielle Pierce

Gwen Seamon

Lori Wilken

Anastasia Engeleit

Lisa Kumor

Marianne Pop

John Shilka

Jewel Younge

Michael Gannon

Nehrin Khamo

Drew Posen

Renata Smith

Tracy Zhang

Sophia Gilardone

James Lee

Sandra Cuellar Puri

Samantha Socco

Hali Ramirez

Lauren Speakman

Scott Benken

Matthew Gimbar

W EG R 2021 S PI N R TI N

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NATE DOWNING, director of development, and wife, Hannah, welcomed their second child, son Caden Joseph, who was born on October 8. He joins big brother Avery (3). Faculty members, AMANDA EADES, assistant professor, Department of Pharmacy Practice, and KYLE MORK, clinical instructor, Department of Pharmacy Practice, welcomed their second child. Daughter Willa Fawn was born on October 7 weighing 6 lbs 12 oz. Dr. SAMANTHA SPENCER, clinical assistant professor, Department of Pharmacy Practice, and the Spencer family welcomed a son, Wesley Spencer, on December 17, 2020.

Wesley Spencer

Caden Joseph Downing

Clinical Practice in Infectious Diseases Pharmacotherapy Award from the Society of Infectious Diseases Pharmacists.

Dr. James Lee Dr. Vicki Groo

Dr. VICKI GROO, clinical associate professor, Department of Pharmacy Practice, was awarded the 2020 Frederick P. Siegel Innovative Teaching Award for developing and integrating innovative teaching or learning strategies in the PharmD curriculum. Dr. Groo presented her work during the UIC College of Pharmacy faculty meeting on November 4. Dr. ALAN GROSS, clinical associate professor, Department of Pharmacy Practice, received the Outstanding

Dr. Les Hanakahi

Dr. LES HANAKAHI, associate professor, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, received the Award for Excellence in Teaching from the UIC. A UIC honor that highlights some of our most dedicated and outstanding educators.

Drs. JAMES LEE and ALAN GROSS were named fellows of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy (ACCP) at the 2020 ACCP Annual Meeting in October. FCCP recognizes excellence in the practice and science of clinical

Dr. Alan Gross

Congratulations to EDITH A. NUTESCU, PharmD, MS, FCCP, on receiving American College of Clinical Pharmacy’s 2020 Therapeutic Frontiers Lecture Award. The award recognizes an individual, who has made outstanding contributions to pharmacotherapeutics in her or his field.

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pharmacy. The fellowship is awarded to individuals who have made sustained contributions to the ACCP and who have demonstrated exceptional performance in clinical pharmacy practice and/or research. Associate Dean MARY MOODY was recently elected as an alternate delegate from Illinois for the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) House of Delegates for 2021.

Dr. Jeffrey Mucksavage

Dr. JEFFREY MUCKSAVAGE, clinical pharmacist, Department of Pharmacy Practice, was appointed incoming chair-elect for the Pharmacy Section of the Neurocritical Care Society Annual Meeting Committee. Dr. JAMIE PAEK, associate director for medication use policy and pharmacy IT, Department of Pharmacy Practice, was honored with the Chancellor’s COVID-19 Response Award (CCRA) for her many contributions as a first responder and service in maintaining campus operations during this unprecedented time. The award is a university-wide honor

Dr. Jamie Paek

available to UIC faculty, academic professionals, and civil service staff who exhibit exceptional service, commitment, and dedication to UIC/UI Health. Employees honored with this award have demonstrated extraordinary efforts to maintain critical operations, assist students in transitioning to online classes, provide outstanding care and kindness to patients and their families, deliver innovative and quality virtual instruction, and ensure the safety and well-being of others.

Her scholarship contributions focus on women’s health issues, and she received many accolades and recognition for clinical, teaching, scholarship, and service contributions.

Dr. Sandra Cuellar Puri

Dr. Louise Parent-Stevens

After nearly 35 years of service to the department, Dr. LOUISE PARENT-STEVENS, clinical assistant professor, clinical pharmacist, and assistant director for introductory pharmacy practice experiences, retired on January 15. During her tenure at UIC, Louise has led the development of our clinical practice sites and delivery of disease and medication management services at the UI Health Family Medicine and Arthritis Centers. She has contributed extensively to our didactic and experiential teaching programs and has served as a mentor to countless students and residents.

Dr. SANDRA CUELLAR PURI, Oncology PGY2 Residency director and clinical assistant professor, Department of Pharmacy Practice, was featured on OncLive TV where she discussed challenges with data extrapolation for biosimilars.

Dr. Eljim Tesoro

Dr. ELJIM TESORO, clinical associate professor, Department of Pharmacy Practice, was appointed to the Neurocritical Care Training Committee, as well as the Executive Committee, of the Neurocritical Care Society.

MICHAEL FLAVIN, PhD ’84, was recently appointed as the interim director of UICentre, the academic drug discovery initiative at UIC. The campuswide program centers on collaborative engagement designed to stimulate the application of pharmaceutical and translational knowledge in order to generate novel therapeutic compounds. Dr. Flavin, a visiting research professor with the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, is an experienced scientist and entrepreneur who had significant pharmaceutical industry experience before launching several of his own drug companies. As interim director, Dr. Flavin will work with researchers across campus involved in drug discovery and development, ensure continuation and growth of UICentre activities, and help plan continued success in this area along with campus partners and university leadership.

WINTER 2021

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COLLEGE NEWS

BRIDGE PROGRAMS The UIC College of Pharmacy is now an American Chemical Society Bridge Program (ACS-BP) partner institution. We are the only ACS-BP institution in the nation from a college of pharmacy. The ACSBP’s mission is to strengthen the chemical sciences in the United States by increasing the number of underrepresented minority students who receive doctoral degrees in chemical sciences. As part of the UIC Bridge to Faculty Scholars Program, the college is further seeking diverse, underrepresented candidates to support and mentor as postdoctoral research associates with the opportunity to transition to a research-active, tenure-track position. UIC SETS NEW RESEARCH RECORD IN FISCAL YEAR 2020 A new record was set with sponsored research awards surpassing the $400 million mark for the first time in the university’s history. The $410 million in support represents a 7 percent increase over fiscal year 2019 and 22 percent increase over fiscal year 2018 and provides support for approximately 9,400 faculty, students, and staff working on 1,800 different research projects. “The growth of our research portfolio reflects our collective commitment across the university to the creation and application of new knowledge. It further demonstrates our researchers’ dedication and determination to solve some of the world’s greatest challenges and places UIC among the top research universities in the world,” said UIC chancellor Michael Amiridis. Read more at today.uic.edu/uic-reports-record-410 -million-in-annual-sponsored-research-awards.

Dr. Chun-Tao Che

Dr. Guido F. Pauli

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WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION (WHO) COLLABORATING CENTER FOR HERBAL MEDICINE The UIC College of Pharmacy was recently redesignated as a World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Center for Herbal Medicine. Drs. CHUN-TAO CHE; HARRY H. S. FONG, professor of pharmacognosy, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences; and GUIDO F. PAULI, Norman R. Farnsworth Endowed Professor of Pharmacognosy, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, have been named as the directors of the center. WHO collaborating centers are institutions such as research institutes, units of universities, or academies that are designated by the director-general to carry out activities in support of the organization’s programs.

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NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE (NCI) RENEWS ANTICANCER DRUG RESEARCH The UIC College of Pharmacy and the Ohio State University College of Pharmacy have been awarded a five-year, $7 million competitive Program Project Grant (PPG) renewal from the National Cancer Institute (NCI). This multidisciplinary project grant is the only PPG funded by NCI in the nation led by a pharmacy investigator and will allow teams at UIC, OSU, and UNC to continue investigating potential anticancer drug leads based on compounds from tropical plants, coastal lichens, cultured cyanobacteria, and filamentous fungi. PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP TO COORDINATE COVID-19 TREATMENT AND VACCINE OPTIONS UIC was awarded $3.4 million to serve as an ILLINOIS CLINICAL COORDINATING CENTER for other sites in Illinois to participate as clinical enrollment sites for the ACTIV-4 Outpatient study. Pharmacy research team members include Drs. ERIKA HELLENBART, KERI KIM, ANN KUTCHA, JAMES LEE, and NANCY SHAPIRO. The NIH announced the ACTIV public-private partnership in April 2020 to develop a coordinated national research response to accelerate COVID-19 treatment and vaccine options. As part of this partnership, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Pfizer have agreed to donate antithrombotic treatments for the ACTIV-4 outpatient and postdischarge studies. DR. SWEISS TO BE CO-PI ON NEW GRANT Dr. KAREN SWEISS, clinical assistant professor, Department of Pharmacy Practice, will serve as coprincipal investigator on a new two-year, $45,000 grant funded by the University of Illinois Cancer Center Stimulus Grant. The project is titled “Personalized Autologous Transplant: Phase 1 of Exposure Targeted Melphalan Dosing.” The grant is in collaboration with UIC College of Medicine co-PI Dr. Pritesh Patel. UI HEALTH MOVED TO A NEW ELECTRONIC HEALTH RECORD SYSTEM College leadership is excited to see this two-year transition become a reality. “The transition is ‘Epic’ not just in name. It has been a herculean effort on the part of our pharmacy faculty, staff, and student workers,” says Dr. GLEN SCHUMOCK, dean of the UIC College of Pharmacy. “The time and effort spent over months of planning, training, and execution of this is immeasurable. Thank you to everyone.” Dr. ANDREW DONNELLY, director of pharmacy at UI Health and assistant dean for clinical affairs, also shares his thanks. “Our transition to Epic has been a two-year journey, but go-live is finally here! We’re all excited about the robust functionality.”

vaccination planning and service In a year unlike any other, our faculty and staff never wavered from our mission . . . and we thank each and every one for their hard work and noteworthy example. Register to join the Illinois Pharmacy Response to COVID‑19 throughout the state by visiting covidpharmil.org.

Congratulations to Drs. CHRIS SCHRIEVER, clinical

The first vaccine shipment arrived at UI Health! Andre

assistant professor; MARIANNE POP, assistant

Reed, UI Health pharmacy technician, unloaded it. At

professor; and ALEX THORP, pharmacy resident, from

the same time, Dr. ANDREW DONNELLY signed for

the Department of Pharmacy Practice for their work with

the shipment, and Dr. MATTHEW GIMBAR, associate

the Winnebago County Health Department on COVID-19

director, hospital pharmacy operations and clinical

vaccination planning.

assistant professor, Department of Pharmacy Practice, was on site for the rollout of the first round of the Pfizer vaccine to UI Health and Region 11.

SPRING 2021

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STUDENT NEWS

JOSE COLINA, PhD candidate in pharmaceutical sciences, won this year’s Gary Kruh Virtual Poster Competition in the category of Cancer Biology for his research, “Role of Hyperandrogenism in the Development of Fallopian Tube Derived High Grade Serous Ovarian Cancer.” P4s NICOLE FUCHS and ALEC THOMPSON recently wrote an article titled “Our Path to Industry” for The MSL—Journal of the Medical Science Liaison Society sharing their unique summer internship experiences and the value of gaining real-world experience. KURT GILLMEISTER, P2 student pharmacist and VP of Operation Diabetes for APhA-ASP, created a video to educate people on diabetes risk assessment during American Diabetes Month. RACHEL GOLDBERG, P3 student pharmacist, wrote an article for KeePosted, the official newsletter of the Illinois Council of HealthSystem Pharmacists, about the importance of staying engaged in student organizations virtually during this difficult time.

SYLVIA HO, P3, and STEVEN ZIELINSKI, BS ’77, director of industry relations at Kalderos, are making connections. Following an introduction at an alumni gathering, Sylvia circled back to Steve when it came time to solidify a summer internship. Their initial exchange and a bit of follow-up would lead to her securing a Customer Success Internship at Kalderos, highlighting the power of our alumni network—10,000+ strong. MEGAN MALONE and AISHA SHAJEE, P4 student pharmacists, tied to win the Illinois Council of HealthSystem Pharmacists 2020 Outstanding Platform Presentation Award. OLGA PIATEK and JAMES NING, P4 student pharmacists, and PSOP

professor Dr. DANIEL TOUCHETTE wrote an article for the American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy to propose a comprehensive model to monitor and address critical drug shortages caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. ERIK STOJANOFF, P3 student pharmacist, is using his pharmacy knowledge to help him with his latest venture—a men’s beard and skincare company called Bucking Beards that will offer “scientifically and pharmaceutically designed” products. “I chose to go down the nontraditional path and utilize my PharmD education from UIC to bring a specialized product to an underserved population,” says Erik. A poster submitted by Drs. KAY YAMAMOTO, pharmacy resident, Department of Pharmacy Practice, and ADAM BURSUA on barcode scanning rapid cycle improvements after Epic go-live was selected as a “best poster” at the recent 2020 UI Health Quality and Safety Fair.

Erik Stojanoff’s Bucking Beards ad

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UIC KEEPS RAKING IN THE RANKINGS The UIC College of Pharmacy was featured in College Magazine’s Top 10 Best Pharmacy Schools in the Nation. “It’s so easy to get caught up with schoolwork, but the student organizations at UIC have provided me with an outlet to serve as a reminder as to why I am in pharmacy school,” University of Illinois Chicago P2 student Dagmara Kutrzuba noted in the piece. The ranking story also noted, “Besides working alongside peers in student organizations, students at UIC additionally receive opportunities to participate in peer mentorship and alumni mentorship programs, such as PhLAMES. The Pharmacy Learning, Advising, Mentoring, and Engagement for Students allows students to create connections with faculty mentors and student pharmacists. These connections lead to professional development and career opportunities. The College of Pharmacy’s alumni mentorship pairs students with alumni to assist them with professional guidance and networking contacts.”

“…the University of Illinois at Chicago’s College of Pharmacy provides an education that sets future pharmacists up for success.”

PHARMACY TIMES SPOTLIGHTS MICHAEL FORST, P3, JOSIAH BAKER, P4, and RACHEL GOLDBERG, P3, were featured on the Pharmacy Times YouTube channel discussing how COVID-19 has impacted their course work, internships, and jobs. HAMNA KHAN, P2, was interviewed by Pharmacy Times. Khan is currently a pharmacy intern at Walgreens and a pharmacy technician at Jesse Brown VA Medical Center.

Khan discussed how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected her experience as a pharmacy student thus far and how she’s been able to manage stress during this time. SNPHA COMMUNITY SUPPORT INITIATIVES STUDENT NATIONAL PHARMACEUTICAL ASSOCIATION (SNPhA) raised over $1,100 with their grocery initiative to assist people who have limited access to grocery stores or have difficulty affording groceries due to COVID-19 financial issues. They provided groceries to 25 people in need and were able to donate $300 to Chicago Birthworks Collective, a company that provides prenatal and postpartum care to families of color. They also donated $300 to I Grow Chicago, a nonprofit organization whose mission is “to grow Englewood from surviving to thriving through community connection, skill building, and opportunity.”

student leaders of the month AUGUST

SEPTEMBER

OCTOBER

N OV E M B E R

Silvia Elakatt (P2)

Angi Bayko (P3)

Justin Chhoeun (P1)

Mezhgan Aslamy (P2)

Samaneth Ghassemi (P3)

Eden Gebre (P2)

Layth Qaseem (P2)

Michael Do (P2)

Joann Huynh (P3) Kelsey LaMartina (P3) Brooke Williams (P3)

Cat Hayes (P2)

Cayley Krkljes (P2)

Juliann Zhu (P2)

Matt Odishoo (P2)

DECEMBER/ J A N U A RY Tuyet Tran (P3) Yekaterina Antonishina (P2)

Yvonne Yen (P3) Donna Vazimia (P4)

SPRING 2021

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ED M A H S, OW N D L PH L O L AN TI L BA RG FE A Y O S C CA L I I E AC G C M UN ED UE M EN M AR I D M E R ISC CO NC AI PU H E C D T · L RA FI ID H N E I V T T O I E TH · W IS D EN A G I L H P I T I C R L C · HU R O E SH C S A W C A W E N OF EN AL IO SS LO ES E T E L A R CI A R EG FE · M ES ER H Y LL ER P P M R I IT Y O O O T A H C W C S & S T S P DU TT HI OW GY OU L E S E IN L AL L E AT ND US OW IC F R A H L US D T C G L S E D S A N S M FE IC IN NI AL SS ER A M S L N A D G O E A A T E C · M NC ON Y PL TI RU AK E C S I U T · Y E N OG L E C H S L P O C S O P A IT IR TI H EN M W NC SU FA LT S R RA P F O A S A L E I L A N S HE PH OP SH CA TI JA AL I S L D W R C H A R I A O IN AN , IT IC LL ED GE CL OV W Y E T CH N M C Y F P U OF R L A I Y R E L A IP E H I M G · U E H L G S O D S A AR ES LE LI W OL OW L R UR W FD E T O L P O · O L L A L E L · C L A P M L FE LY TH P IC FE HI TS FE HE IL Y D D S T Y L T E Y B I E R W I AN IB AR RS OM US ST EL S LO I U N E LY L U H I B E ER C D L IV TH SQ F TI R I A Y P N N I I U S S O S M W U C E F L R N AS IS IP S O L alumni A C and friends, particularly in times of acute IO YE C A We Sare O N continually M D E H T I humbled by the generosity of our T I M T · S T T C R R IS U EU UL AL IT OW RA FE HA BR AS C T C L F M E P I A L ’76) and S thank M P Mrs. T We can’t I D K Dr. John (BS Clare Plachetka enough for their generous support J E need. E S N O N E I S F I SH M ER TH S E AS DI G P I · W I G C Y R U T D T H O Nduring G scholarships R of need-based P O R O OM L U I S A this health and economic crisis. Their support for 50 student’s O D A N L V W PR IL EL EN T· R SH O O O O F G L G C V I L C W N A I O L V O NG UR Y they DU H ON T as M OisF inspiring. U R challenges FE and And, they are not alone. C Iface Eunexpected LL · N basic C Oneeds I T education I T S N E M A S S R A W U A F M O E M P N N S D Y C P R E & IO C E Mr.O FTony Felder H NC IN HI N Z JustA Tthis Nand A L’76);S Dr. fall, (BS (BS H ADr. Shirley S ’84) A F William (BS ’83) and Mrs. I T ENG L IE E A P C S S A C I C W G E I C IL C S NT ED FI ND TI S IP TI IG H CC UN E A Y O H U M T V A I L M Denise L Fitzsimmons; Dr.C OKennetth Drs. E R (PharmD ’98 and ’97); and S Al and E N , Nancy T Martin Y T A Joseph; A G M C S A T W E N T A , P N A O K HE FE CO L M OA IO RU YO LL RM ACoB D R’95) AR T C · S ADr. Audra E K A B AL A N (PharmD and Mr. Anthony Thomas (Gies ’93) endowed to support G A A M F A Uscholarships M L AL IC AN PH LO S NT PH R Y R A C S N E E G D I S I B U AC HA ND S NC HI Mto these AT E Rcurrent ED U E amazing Pstudents. L O and Afutures thanks student M Our Cadvocates! E C OF I M G D I M I R G Y G I T T O R C Y A , E T R U U T C S U DA PH YO FE SI H NC PE BU · R · P IC H A K T R E F A S F T L S I N I O R ID VE AN TT W E EA NT SO HE UG PI EV NI -S H G I E P T I I R I U E A D D L D · G OF LI CH SC SH RL H AN OL Y · T E E W CS O C T C C I Y I S O M R W T N LL L AC TS RS ZY EA IE ON EU E A T I E M N S C F T E V R E S A RE RE NI US RY HA R I G AL ER S H T P F E C P · U E C S I Y O O OF SA OM DU BA ED & AN S E C N S M Y I A T G IP H M S, EG LE AL OU SH IT R T L I C A W A TI R ND OW CO IP FF S L LT O C SS T E N DS OAW E D S C H O L A R S H I P S , P L E A S E C O N T A C T EI U A H D S C U S T E S L T F A AL IC C A A SRSYO C I ARTME D E AC IN B EONM S T I C K A N A T 3 1 2 . 6 3 9 . 9 0 6 9 O R B S T I C K A N @ U I C . E D U . OW I L R T A L E ED ON M US FE PH M C D M S E A IN CO ER ED L TH G Y K L A WINTER 2021 T H E P H A R M A C I ST A IC UT EA OG R L H UT · O PH

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partne for su Through ACADEMIC DETAILING , UIC collaborates with the State of Illinois and health systems to improve opioid prescribing.

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nering success B

Enough was enough.

By 2017, the number of overdose deaths in Illinois involving opioids had reached an all-time high, approximately 2,200 fatalities in the state according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. While heroin or synthetic opioids accounted for most of those fatalities, deaths related to prescription opioids had continued to climb steadily since 2012 and claimed some 550 lives in 2017 alone.

“An array of social, clinical, and economic forces conspired to create the opioid epidemic and it showed no signs of relenting,” says Dr. Simon Pickard, a professor in the college’s Department of Pharmacy Systems, Outcomes, and Policy (PSOP). Illinois public health leaders, including administrators at the Illinois Prescription Monitoring Program (PMP) that collect information on Schedule II-V prescriptions written by licensed prescribers and dispensed by Illinois retail pharmacies, noted the disturbing trend, too. With an eye on implementing community and health system–level interventions as part of the state’s multifaceted approach to fight the opioid epidemic, PMP leaders reached out to Pickard and PSOP department head Dr. Todd Lee about implementing an educational outreach program.

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“They had the knowledge, skill set, and expertise to help us,” PMP clinical director Dr. Sarah Pointer says of the UIC faculty tandem that had been collaborating with the state on preventative approaches to address the opioid epidemic since 2015.

It didn’t take Pickard and Lee long to present a compelling option: academic detailing, a novel method of educational outreach designed to arm providers with current evidencebased information through individual, face-to-face visits with specially trained personnel, namely pharmacists. “We have the expertise and depth to do this kind of work, and that gave us confidence to suggest academic detailing,” Pickard says. “We know how to design research that generates quality insights, how to evaluate drug treatment patterns, understand how to interpret data, and have a good grasp on how to educate physicians with evidence.” In the subsequent years, UIC’s innovative work with the Illinois PMP has morphed from a fruitful Centers for Disease Control–funded pilot program with one of the Chicago area’s largest healthcare systems into a current three-year grant expanding opioid-related academic detailing across Illinois and helping to curb prescription opioid abuse.

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L AY I N G T H E G R O U N D W O R K Before the UIC team could roll out academic detailing and evaluate its impact on opioid prescribing activities, it first needed buy-in from a healthcare system. With an assist from PMP leadership, UIC teamed with AMITA Health, a Chicago-based enterprise that operates 19 hospitals across the Chicago metropolitan area. With AMITA on board, Pickard and Lee developed the academic detailing program, which included training UIC pharmacy students like then-P2 student Victoria Kulbokas, PharmD ’20, to execute the one-on-one detailing visits. Thereafter, PSOP PhD student Dr. Mary Smart formulated outreach plans and prepared the educational materials for visits. “This was a unique opportunity to get involved in research, interact with providers, and apply the knowledge I was gaining in my studies to a professional setting,” Kulbokas says of her involvement in the project. Over a 14-week period in the summer of 2018, UICtrained academic detailers visited 183 physicians across the AMITA Health Medical Group. In those initial 20-minute encounters, academic detailers discussed CDC guidelines for appropriate treatment of patients with chronic noncancer pain. Introductory visits also included outlining available resources, such as treatment options for opioid use disorder as well as the Illinois prescription database that enables providers to evaluate their own prescribing patterns. In addition, detailers documented individual challenges related to safe and appropriate opioid prescribing practices, insights that helped them to tailor content during 158 follow-up visits. “Physicians are always getting so much thrown at them, so it’s helpful to get the right information in the right format,” AMITA’s chief population health officer Dr. Reinhold Llerena (COM ’95) says. “In this case, UIC was a collaborative, willing, and patient partner that gave our physicians focused information practical to their day-today prescribing of opioids.”

E VA L UAT I N G I M PAC T Aiming to understand academic detailing’s impact on opioid prescribing behavior, the UIC collective evaluated the impact on prescribing patterns among AMITA providers who participated in the program

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compared to a control group. Using PMP data, the researchers compared changes in opioid prescribing in the six months prior to the intervention against the six-month period following the intervention. Within the intervention group, opioid prescribing dropped nearly one prescription per provider per month following the academic detailing sessions. “We demonstrated that this was feasible and, even more, could have a positive impact on high-dose opioid prescribing,” Pickard says. “It’s a surrogate indicator of what can likely save lives.” Llerena credits the academic detailing with informing the work of AMITA’s physicians, heightening awareness about opioid prescribing and resources, and, most importantly, improving patient care. “These visits have helped physicians at all levels become more in tune with what’s current in opioids, and having that access to effective resources and up-todate knowledge allows us to create better strategies to manage patients,” says Llerena, adding that 90 percent of physicians expressed satisfaction with their initial academic detailing visit. Pickard calls the project a case study in the importance of bringing together stakeholders in healthcare—state government, universities, health systems—to achieve aims only possible through collaboration and teamwork. “It also highlights how critical it is to have communityminded leadership in health systems like AMITA, where physicians like Dr. Llerena take action and get behind initiatives for the greater good,” Pickard notes. Beyond the clinical benefit, the project ignited another important outcome—and one in line with UIC’s academic mission. It granted College of Pharmacy students such as Kulbokas and Smart intimate exposure to research that impacts clinical practice. The project, in fact, propelled Kulbokas into PhD work in outcomes research at UIC, while providing Smart valuable experience in organizing an outreach endeavor supporting patients, providers, and healthcare systems. “This is the UIC advantage,” Pickard says, adding that “several dozen students” have worked on opioid-related research projects since he and Lee began collaborating with the Illinois PMP in 2015.

E XPANDING THE EFFORT Spurred by the results of its initial academic detailing project with AMITA, UIC and the PMP are now conducting a three-year, CDC-funded effort to expand and evaluate the academic detailing program at AMITA and additional Illinois-based healthcare systems. While continuing to assess the effect of academic detailing

with prescribers, the current project extends the work to dispensers as well, aiming to help pharmacists across the state increase their queries to the PMP and become more informed practitioners with respect to opioids. “There’s a definite disconnect that needs to be filled and UIC is coming in with this education to help produce more coordinated opioid prescriptions,” Pointer says. To that point, the PMP reports an increase in queries since the academic detailing intervention began in 2018, a data point underscoring the work’s effectiveness. “We have clearly seen the impact of the one-on-one relationship and academic detailing as a great resource

and valuable way to reach providers,” Pointer says. Rooted in trust and ongoing relationships focused on education, not solicitation, “our goal is to provide education and promote evidence-based practices, not to dictate prescribing,” Smart reminds. The academic detailing visits stand as a promising intervention in the critical and ongoing battle against opioid abuse. “There’s limited evidence into how long-term educational outreach programs like ours impact opioid prescriptions, but we’re seeing positive and encouraging results here,” Lee says. “Now, we just keep marching ahead with more outreach and more evaluation.”

Academic detailing’s rising role at UIC At the UIC College of Pharmacy, associate dean for professional and governmental affairs Mary Moody oversees a group of 30 pharmacists trained to conduct academic detailing visits. Illinois ADVANCE (Academic Detailing Visits and New Evidence Center) is the nation’s largest such program and one with a swelling reputation for delivering quality, evidencebased drug information to providers. Prompted by a 2019 Illinois law that required the establishment of an evidence-based, noncommercial education program for the state’s Medicaid prescribers, Illinois ADVANCE provides unbiased, up-to-date drug information via one-on-one educational meetings with clinicians. “We’re not promoting one specific therapy over another, but rather helping prescribers become more aware and informed when prescribing,” Moody says. Academic detailing borrows its model from pharmaceutical manufacturers, whose oneon-one encounters with providers was shown to influence prescribing practices. “The idea was, ‘Let’s use evidence-based literature to inform prescribing as well,’” says Moody of the academic detailing movement that began at Harvard University about 30

years ago and is now sharpened by the Boston-based National Resource Center for Academic Detailing. Through brief, ongoing visits, academic detailers supply busy providers with accurate and current data about comparative effectiveness, safety, and other pertinent information and resources about specific prescriptions, diagnoses, and healthcare activities. Though still a relatively novel intervention, it is nevertheless one with a growing reputation for effectiveness. “There’s more and more evidence regarding the value of academic detailing on prescribing,” reports Moody, whose team operates a toll-free drug information hotline and hosts continuing education programs for prescribers in addition to conducting the academic detailing visits.

says Moody, who has been working with health system leadership, the Illinois Academy of Family Practice, and the Illinois Hospital Association to broaden the scope of Illinois ADVANCE’s work. “We want to continue to collaborate and show the value of academic detailing as an important and valuable service.” Moody also touts academic detailing as a compelling opportunity for pharmacists to use their skills beyond traditional retail or clinical settings. “This is a new role for pharmacists and an opportunity for them to grow and develop in their careers in a different way,” Moody says.

While the center’s one-on-one visits have thus far centered around opioids—efforts connected to the work of professors Simon Pickard and Todd Lee—the center will soon add diabetes to its workload before rolling in other chronic diseases, such as hypertension and drugs for high lipids. “The goal is to add a new disease every six months and see prescribers twice each year,” ASSOCIATE DEAN MARY MOODY

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BY JESSICA CANL AS

Ruixuan Jiang, PharmD ’15, PhD ’19, is a self-confessed germophobe. This posed a conundrum for her as a student interested in pursuing a career in healthcare—choosing a career path in the medical field where human contact isn’t required.

DR. RUIXUAN JIANG

After considering her options, Jiang landed on her solution. Pharmacy. “I could be involved in medical healthcare, but I wouldn’t have to touch people,” she had reasoned. It seemed like the perfect fit. Little did she know about a growing trend that would profoundly impact the profession’s status quo. So, Jiang started college with the intent of one day becoming a pharmacist who would never have physical contact with a patient. By the time she entered pharmacy school, however, the now-common practice of administering flu shots was on the rise. By this point, however, there was no turning back. Jiang was enjoying her clinical training in pharmacy and had discovered a synergy in her chosen field that suited her even better. With a bachelor’s degree in biological sciences and chemistry, she’d had some previous experience in the lab that had piqued her interest in research. She had even considered UIC’s joint PharmD/PhD program to pursue that interest. After foregoing the basic science path, Jiang decided to join up with some extracurricular professional organizations to explore her options.

As a P1, Jiang participated in the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy’s Pharmacy & Therapeutics (P&T) Competition. An annual event held nationally, pharmacy students compete in teams of four in an immersive experience designed to develop the skills necessary for effective formulary review and management. “I was really enamored by the process and thought it would be something I’d like to stay involved with,” Jiang recalls. She eventually connected the dots between her P&T experience and the work of the Department of Pharmacy Systems, Outcomes, and Policy (PSOP), which led her to a new path. “I realized I wanted to continue with my research route. So the Riback Fellowship was a great opportunity.” The David J. Riback Research Predoctoral Fellowship is a 10-week summer program intended to provide opportunities for motivated PharmD students interested in research careers in biomedical sciences. The program is funded by an endowment created by Aaron E. Kaplan, BS Pharm ’47, in honor of his uncle David, who graduated from the college in 1927. “It was recognized that there was a need for researchers who have both the PharmD and clinical background who could then apply that in a research setting,” explains Dean Glen Schumock. “[Riback] gives them the experience to decide if that’s something they want to move on with as a career.” During the Riback application process, which opens in November, students must identify a faculty mentor

Unique research-funding oportunities at the College the future for ambitious 18

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and submit a letter of intent and an application, which includes, among other things, a research project proposal and letter of recommendation. The selection process, which is overseen by Lindsey McQuade, director of research and graduate resources, involves a review committee of faculty members within the college. Applications are due in March, and fellows are notified by mid-April. According to McQuade, an average of six fellowships are awarded each year. The fellowship term runs from May to August and provides a stipend of $5,000 for the student and an additional $1,000 for supplies. Fellows work on their projects with mentors in their labs or clinical practices and present final results at a minisymposium held in early August and again at the annual COP Research Day that following November. Joanna Burdette, associate dean for research and graduate programs, believes that the research experience can be beneficial for PharmD students on a number of levels. “Important basic science questions become more clear when you work in a lab,” she explains. “Questions like, ‘How did that drug get created? Why is it encapsulated? Why is it administered IV instead of orally?’ ” Burdette also believes having an experience like Riback can give students an advantage in the job market by adding unique aspects of training—and a faculty mentor who can speak to that—to their credentials.

“Opportunities are more competitive if you want to stay in certain markets. If you want those jobs, you have to edge out a few people.” says Burdette. “A lot of PharmDs are realizing that there’s a place for them in the pharmaceutical industry, and if they have training in research, they’re more likely to be competitive for those jobs that are located in the places they want to live.” Jiang, who became a 2013 Riback fellow in PSOP with the help of faculty mentor Simon Pickard, completed her PharmD and went on to earn her PhD in general health economics and outcomes research in that same department. Today, she is associate director of the Center for Observational and Real-World EvidenceOncology at Merck.

DR. BRENTON BIALIK

“Riback really cemented where I wanted to take my career,” Jiang recalls. “I really felt like I came into my own during that project, and I had a lot of experience to speak of during the later parts of my academic career.” Riback fellow Brenton Bialik, PharmD ’14, was originally drawn to pharmacy by his experience with the independent pharmacy in his small Michigan hometown, but he soon realized that community pharmacy wasn’t the path for him. He’d had some bench research experience in college and, as a P1, approached Les Hanakahi, associate professor, seeking guidance in developing those skills while exploring the diverse range of options available to him in pharmacy school. The Riback Fellowship allowed him to join her in the lab investigating DNA repair pathways as potential targets for cancer-therapy drugs.

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Besides fulfilling his interest in a well-rounded educational experience, Riback introduced Bialik to the strengths found in a cohesive, supportive work environment. “Kudos to Dr. Hanakahi,” he says. “She really equipped her lab with great diversity of experience in a familylike atmosphere. She set up an environment where differences are not only encouraged, but are seen as advantageous.”

The Vahlteich Award can help early-career researchers build their programs, hire students, and put together useful data to write a successful grant.

Bialik leveraged those experiences to forge his own career path and now works as assistant scientific director of medical affairs immunology in cross-franchise and biotherapeutics at AbbVie in suburban Chicago. “I wanted to know a lot about one thing and excel in one area—that’s what drew me to research,” he recalls. “In the work we do now, we educate the scientific community as a whole on a very specific target. I get to be an expert in a narrow area, but have widespread impact.” Shilpa Paul, PharmD ’12, was attracted to research for similar reasons. She was introduced to the Riback Fellowship by happenstance while working late in the computer lab. Fellows were presenting their work, and she was amazed at what pharmacy students and researchers were doing. “I thought that I would love to apply my knowledge and actually put work out there that could be useful, clinically, to the world,” she recalls. “I vividly remember thinking, ‘I want one of my posters to be here one day to be able to talk about my work.’ ” Paul, who had no previous research experience, investigated Riback and paired with Professor Edith Nutescu. “She took me under her wing and taught me through the process,” says Paul, who believes her experience prepared her for residency and, eventually, writing a grant for Pfizer that got accepted. “With a program like Riback, you get to work with true researchers who help you put out impactful work,” Paul says. “It increases the excellence of the experience and the knowledge you gain at the college. “I had an experience that I got to make use of in residency, that, to this day, I still use.” Paul, who entered pharmacy school with a strong desire to be on the front line of patient care, is now a clinical pharmacy specialist at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. One of the inaugural Riback fellows in 2009, Jin Han, PharmD ’12, came to UIC with a PhD in immunology and an interest in providing direct patient care. He was

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hoping to be able to flex his research muscles while learning the ins and outs of clinical practice. Riback affirmed that he could do both in a complementary way. “When I was a pure researcher, I was doing research just for the sake of research,” Han recalls. “But after I spent a year in pharmacy school, I felt some research questions could be really helpful in the clinical field. That’s the beauty of doing research. In the end, if we find something interesting, we can apply that knowledge back to patient care. “That’s the ultimate goal, to make our research relevant.” As a student, Han was mentored by Douglas Thomas, associate professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, on an investigation of nitric oxide-driven resistance to chemotherapeutic drugs. Today, the two are colleagues as Han now holds a position as associate professor in the Department of Pharmacy Practice. Thomas, who’s been a member of UIC’s faculty since 2007, continues to work in cancer research and has himself benefited from another program designed to support research at the College of Pharmacy—the Vahlteich Award. Established in 1993, the Vahlteich Research Scholar Award commemorates Hans W. Vahlteich, a research chemist who earned his Graduate in Pharmacy (PhG) and Pharmaceutical Chemist (PhC) degrees from the college in 1917 and 1918. Vahlteich spent most of his career at Best Foods, Inc., where he patented work that led to the development and public acceptance of commercial margarine. The award supports research by early-career, tenure-track College of Pharmacy faculty members and is financed by income generated from the Hans and Ella McCollum Vahlteich Endowment Fund. “When young faculty are getting started, the hardest thing about getting a grant is writing a grant,” says McQuade. “Grant reviewers want to know that this proposal is going to be successful, so they need to see some sort of starting data.” The Vahlteich Award can help early-career researchers build their programs, hire students, and put together useful data to write a successful grant, she explains. In fact, the application process itself, which includes a letter of intent, budget proposal, specific aims meeting, and a review panel composed of internal and external experts, is designed to be analogous to the grant review process at the National Institutes of Health. Of the 36 Vahlteich recipients prior to the 2019–20 giving cycle, 75 percent have gone on to receive NIH funding. According to Burdette, one of the aspects of the Vahlteich process that may be even more valuable to a junior investigator than the actual money is the feedback they receive from the review panel.

Sanchez saw the Vahlteich Award as an excellent opportunity for securing preliminary funding for a speculative project like hers where “there’s not a wealth of existing data to show whether this is or isn’t going to work.” Subsequently, Vahlteich allowed her the freedom to pursue data avenues she would not have been able to explore, and the work conducted by the student she hired is now being used to apply for larger funding. “Even with internal funding [like Vahlteich], when granting agencies see that someone has taken a chance on you, that can help leverage a lot of other things,” explains Sanchez. “For me, Vahlteich has opened other doors.” The award jump-started Greg Calip’s project, “Commonly Used Medications and Multiple Myeloma Risk,” during his first year as assistant professor at the college in 2015. A 2008 graduate of the PharmD program, Calip says the Vahlteich Award gave him “the opportunity to make things happen early on. It really created the early momentum that I needed.” Since then, Calip, whose home department is PSOP, has since been awarded two NIH grants and has used that initial data funded by Vahlteich for more than 10 publications. “It was something that I could just keep building on, which was great.” Thomas also went on to subsequently receive NIH funding after his initial Vahlteich Award. But, more recently, when those vital funds began to dwindle, he was grateful to benefit from a newer support mechanism provided by the Vahlteich Endowment, its bridge funding. “One of the things we started to see is that some investigators would lose funding for a period of time,” explains Burdette. “We saw NIH cutting budgets, and it was tough for some people to get re-funded.” With Vahlteich bridge funding, Thomas was able to maintain lab operations, continue conducting research—and have peace of mind—while seeking more funding. “Your lab is like a small business,” explains Thomas. “Your products are research and data. You have employees. It’s not just your career at stake. You have students counting on you—there’s a bigger picture.

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Laura Sanchez, former associate professor in pharmaceutical sciences, found this particularly beneficial when she reapplied for Vahlteich after not being selected for funding initially. She was finally awarded in 2018 for her project titled “Dissecting Host-Microbe Chemical Communication in Pathogenic Relationships.”

DR. JENNIE JARRETT / 2019

Entrustable Professional Activities Assessment within Experiential Curricula: A Primer for Evaluation

DR. ANDREW RILEY / 2019

Biasing Partial MOR Agonists to Improve Opioid Substitution Therapy This was the first external injection of money for my lab. It allowed me to set up and get going on studies I may have had to wait on. But with unrestricted funds, I was able to get moving on some of the chemistry. Working with collaborators, I was able to have results for them to move forward with as well. It’s been the catalyst for everything that my lab’s been able to do up until now. Vahlteich has also enabled me as a very young scientist to explore my ability to write grants, but also to be creative in doing so. I don’t necessarily have to propose things that I know that are going to work. I don’t necessarily have to have preliminary data. Vahlteich allows me to be creative. Creativity in science ultimately leads to excellence. If I just keep doing things that have been done before, I’m never going to raise the bar or advance the field.

One of the challenges in pharmacy is the limited funding for educational research. Vahlteich allowed me to begin building a unique mechanism to ask questions and develop answers that could support our curriculum and curricula across the nation, elevating pharmacy education and, ultimately, building the best pharmacists. Because of the competitive nature of this award, it pushed me to improve my grant writing and not only my writing, but to consider what methodologies I was using. Were they innovative and novel? Do I have an opportunity to make an impact? I also appreciated the ability of the Vahlteich Award in fostering mentorship in the college and university. As a new faculty member who didn’t train at UIC, I didn’t have a ton of strong relationships when I got here. The Vahlteich was a great way for me to build relationships within the college and find strong mentors to support what I was doing and continuously challenge me. That, in itself, enhances excellence in the college through a focus on mentored research and collaboration.

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“If you start running out of money, you can’t keep the business afloat.” Besides the practical aspect of the Vahlteich Award, Thomas is grateful for the internal support. “It’s an affirmation that the college is willing to invest in you, that they think what you’re doing is relevant and believe you’re going to be successful and eventually get funded. In that aspect, it gives you confidence to know that you do have support.”

Thanks to the beneficence of generous donors, future healthcare professionals as well as established researchers can find support at the College of Pharmacy to make discoveries about themselves and the world around them. “The Riback program is about opening the eyes of students to the potential of a research career and creating a pipeline of future research scientists that is much needed,” says Schumock. “Vahlteich is ultimately about making our faculty successful, elevating the quality of research they are able to conduct—and thus promote the excellence of our research enterprise.”

W H AT I L E A R N E D F R O M M Y R I B A C K F E L L O W S H I P MICHELLE LEE · P4 / 2019

NICHOLAS MOFFETT · P4 / 2019

Activity of Aztreonam in Combination with

Cofactor Requirements of Etoposide Hypersensitive

Ceftazidime-Avibactam Against Metallo- and Serine-

Human Top2ß Mutant Proteins.

ß-Lactamase-Producing Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

you need, generally speaking, that are applicable in

to take the first stab at writing a publication, the

most careers. Skills like the ability lay out a question,

manuscript for this research, solidifying my research

how to plan and organize the steps you will take to

skills that I’ve developed over past few years,

answer that question. Another thing it also taught me

presenting my poster at the ACCP annual meeting

is critical thinking. There were multiple times through

last year—all that’s been really helpful in building my

my project where I struggled to identify what went

confidence as I move forward in my career.

wrong and why I didn’t get the results I anticipated.

MICHELLE LEE

I think, if I didn’t have the experience with research and having to read publications, I wouldn’t really appreciate the work that goes into it. It’s just really rewarding, being able to find these questions that

a lot more failed experiments than successful ones. It was frustrating. So I learned the importance of having patience with myself. I also came to realize that, one day, I’m going to get

to figure out what it really means.

to a point where people are going to rely on me to

I think it helps future pharmacists develop a better sense of reading new trials and understand how effective a medication is for my patient with this disease state. It allows us to become better pharmacists and, ultimately, provide better patient care.

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And then interpret the results that I did receive. I had

you’re curious about and being able to do the work

Research is really important in the PharmD program.

Working in research teaches you a number of skills

Riback has solidified what I want to do. Being able

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be the expert. It’s important for pharmacists to be able to critically think about the scenario beyond the surface level. Why are they asking? What are the results and outcomes so far? What can I do to go above and beyond?

Community Pharmacists Are Frontline Healthcare Workers During Pandemic B Y S O N YA C O L L I N S

On Friday, March 13, President Trump declared the coronavirus pandemic a national emergency. By Monday, March 16, Walgreens began training pharmacists to administer COVID-19 nasopharyngeal swab tests. Since then, Walgreens pharmacists have administered more than one million COVID-19 tests—joining physicians, nurses, physician assistants, and other clinicians on the front lines in the fight against COVID-19. “Many pharmacists volunteered to administer tests,” said Jasmina Bjegovic, PharmD ’12, manager of pharmacy operations at Walgreens. “They wanted to contribute and serve during this time. Like their clinician colleagues, pharmacists screen patients for eligibility for the COVID-19 test. They counsel them on self-administration of the test and what to do if they get a positive or negative result. They educate patients on handwashing, mask use, and social distancing. And like other providers, many pharmacists have stepped out of their daily routines and stepped up to play a crucial role during the pandemic. But unlike other providers, CMS does not recognize pharmacists’ patient-care services for payment in Medicare Part B. Pharmacists have fought for years to change this position. The pandemic may make the best argument so far. “What pharmacists are doing as a part of providing COVID-19 tests isn’t any different from what other providers are doing. They are just stepping up as frontline providers and helping patients,” Bjegovic said.

Stepping up At Walgreens pharmacies across the country, pharmacists have stepped up to support and coach patients on getting tested for COVID-19. Pharmacists at the Walgreens testing sites focus on patient care by listening to patients’ needs, supporting them through the testing process, and educating them on how to best care for themselves and their loved ones. “They are there to help and counsel patients during this high-anxiety, uncertain time when patients need extra support and have a lot of questions,” Bjegovic said. The one-million-plus patients who have been tested at

Walgreens pharmacies are one million patients who have not lined up outside of over-burdened healthcare facilities to get tests.

Reprinted with permission from APhA Pharmacy Today Provider Status Profile, Volume 26, Issue 10, P. 48, October 1, 2020.

With COVID-19 pushing the health system to its limits, pharmacists’ accessibility is more valuable than ever. They may be stepping in for overtaxed providers in ways those providers don’t even see. “Patients may go to the pharmacy for questions and concerns they’d usually call their doctor about, as the pandemic has left people either afraid to go into a doctor’s office or worried their concern isn’t serious enough to warrant the visit during this time,” Bjegovic said. “That’s a need that pharmacists are ready to meet. What’s more, as misinformation and often-changing recommendations add to public confusion and possible mistrust of public health authorities, community pharmacists are well positioned and trained to disseminate clear and accurate information to patients. “We are doing what we’ve been clinically trained to do, which is to listen, educate and provide valuable information to patients,” she said. “That’s our niche as the provider who is often the patient’s first and last contact with the healthcare system.

Value beyond the pandemic Pharmacists’ crucial role won’t end with COVID-19 testing. Communities will soon brace themselves for flu season, along with fears of how it will clash with the pandemic. Community pharmacists will be administering flu shots and educating patients on important clinical information. When a COVID-19 vaccine becomes available, they will do the same. “A pandemic, or any other emergency, may make the case for a temporary expansion of pharmacists’ scope of practice,” said Bjegovic, “but we have demonstrated the value that we bring to healthcare far beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. We need sustainable payment models to support pharmacists’ contributions to fully leverage pharmacists’ expertise and create sustainability and scalability of pharmacists’ services.

Provider Status Stories Pharmacists are healthcare providers. In a series of profiles appearing in Pharmacy Today and on pharmacist.com, pharmacists explain how their patients would benefit from provider status. And as part of our campaign for provider status, APhA has asked pharmacists to share stories of how they provide care to their patients and how provider status will improve healthcare. These stories are collected on the APhA YouTube channel at youtube.com/user/aphapharmacists/playlists. If you would like to share your story, please visit PharmacistsProvideCare.com.

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PROFESSIONAL REALITIES

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“All members of the healthcare team must be aware of the value others bring to inform care,” Schumock says. “By providing this interprofessional training to our students early on and preparing them for these interactions, they will be better prepared to move forward in the practice world,” Schumock says.

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“The opportunity to contribute in this space at UIC is tremendous, both in the classroom and in the field,” Koronkowski says.

To be certain, the College of Pharmacy had been growing its portfolio of interprofessional learning opportunities over recent years, eager to place its students alongside peers from medicine, public health, nursing, and other health disciplines to generate rich learning opportunities.

Interprofessional in the classroom E

UIC College of Pharmacy dean Glen Schumock calls interprofessional education a key priority for the college and the precise reason why the college invested in Koronkowski’s position in 2020. Simply put: modernday pharmacists need to understand how to work alongside their healthcare colleagues to pursue optimal health outcomes.

With a total of seven health-science colleges, as well as deep community partnerships with public health agencies, health systems, nonprofits, and others, UIC is uniquely positioned to address societal needs while arming its students in pharmacy and the affiliated health sciences with the skills and knowledge to succeed in interdisciplinary, team-based practice environments.

An intensifying priority

“The significant and pressing public health problems we face in this world are not solved by any one discipline alone,” Koronkowski says. “It takes a collaborative effort to meet this need and that’s why interprofessional education is so important.” K

“With purpose and an outcomes-based approach, we’re going to become a leader in interprofessional education,” says Koronkowski, a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Pharmacy Practice.

KOWSKI

Bolstered by deep-rooted relationships between the College of Pharmacy and its fellow UIC health-science colleges, as well as a diverse array of community partners, Koronkowski is supercharging collaborative, team-based education as the college’s first-ever director of interprofessional education. Broadening curriculum options and expanding experiential opportunities through community partnerships and collaborations, Koronkowski says UIC pharmacy students will be armed with relevant, interprofessional training that advances patient-centered care, addresses disparities, and cements the college’s commitment to tackling urgent public health concerns.

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This, Dr. Mike Koronkowski assures, will not be the case at the UIC College of Pharmacy.

Other key factors are at play as well, including accreditation. Health-science education standards increasingly expect team-based care as a standard of practice. Beyond that, there stand frameworks from the World Health Organization and the National Academy of Sciences as well as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Healthy People 2030 initiative designed to promote, strengthen, and evaluate the nation’s efforts to improve the health and well-being of all people and communities. Through community partnerships, targeted interventions, and a shared vision, Koronkowski says coordinated and vibrant healthcare collaboration can help reduce health disparities, achieve health equity, and bolster health literacy.

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Though a mounting collection of evidence supports the usefulness of interprofessional training for effective healthcare delivery and even as the healthcarepractice world increasingly embraces team-based care, traditional health-professions education continues to take place in silos. Doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and other health professionals-in-training have limited opportunity to learn and practice in interprofessional teams during their formative years, a reality that subsequently hampers their ability to maximize collaborative interactions and enhance patient care as working professionals.

College of Pharmacy committed to growing interprofessional education that prepares students for team-based practice and addresses societal needs

Three years ago, faculty from UIC’s Interprofessional Collaborative Practice Workgroup teamed up to launch a pilot course on interprofessional collaboration. That course, Foundations of Interprofessional Collaborative Practice, has since evolved to include all seven healthscience colleges at UIC and is now a required course for all first-year pharmacy students.

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“This helps all students understand how they’re going to HL IC work together and communicate as a team, while also positioning them to begin defining their own professional identity,” says Dr. Kristen Goliak, PharmD ’98, a clinical associate professor in the Department of Pharmacy Practice and the college’s associate dean for academic affairs.

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In the one-semester course, students initially explore the roles and responsibilities of each discipline as well as effective strategies for teamwork and collaboration. Students are later placed into interdisciplinary groups of 10–20 individuals and tasked to review a case study in chronic pain management through discussions, exercises, and reflection activities with a faculty facilitator. Goliak, who guides the course alongside other UIC health-science faculty, says the foundational course holds strong value for pharmacy students. In particular, it spotlights the key role pharmacists play on interdisciplinary healthcare teams. “Pharmacists are so much more a part of the team than they were 30 years ago, and this course sets the stage for all students to understand that and carry that knowledge forward with them,” Goliak says.

Understanding what our healthcare colleagues can do is insightful and powerful and fosters improved outcomes.

Building on that foundational course, Dr. Kevin Rynn, vice dean of the College of Pharmacy’s Rockford campus, has spearheaded the movement toward interprofessional courses offering tabletop, simulatedpatient, and mannequin-based exercises designed to drive home clinical content alongside interprofessional education collaborative (IPEC) competencies that encourage students from multiple professions to “learn about, from, and with each other to enable effective collaboration and improve health outcomes.” “Simply having a lecture together is not enough, and that’s why we’re continually working to develop opportunities for students from multiple disciplines to work together regularly in these more interactive settings,” Rynn says. “This will help them recognize the talents and skills others possess and learn when and how to rely on their other healthcare colleagues.”

The classroom in the community

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During the two-semester course, an interdisciplinary team of students attach themselves to a community partner working with a marginalized population— the homeless, HIV patients, immigrant refugees, or the incarcerated, for example. Students conduct a community needs assessment before developing a tangible work product to address a notable gap in care. One IAHD project, for instance, educated case managers in a homeless shelter about the safe use of naloxone in the event of an opioid overdose. Amid COVID-19, many teams pivoted to developing telehealth projects to provide ongoing care in different at-risk populations. “This brings the classroom to the community,” Koronkowski says. “Students learn to work better as a team and respect the scope and role of others. The hope is that some go into practice in these areas and become leaders where these pressing needs exist.” Applying interprofessional education in a real-world setting also remains a hallmark of the longstanding Rural Health Program at UIC’s E N Rockford campus in which N IE JA pharmacy, nursing, and medical RR ETT students learn side-by-side about the provision of care in rural populations. It includes a capstone project in which teams of students develop and execute an activity targeting health needs in a specific rural community. J

Koronkowski, alongside fellow Department of Pharmacy Practice faculty member Dr. Jennie Jarrett, also oversees Interprofessional Approaches to Health Disparities (IAHD). The longitudinal course equips learners from UIC health-science colleges with essential skills to improve healthcare for underserved populations and to transform health disparities through interprofessional education, research, and practice.

Six years ago, for instance, Koronkowski led the launch of Engage-IL, an interprofessional education and practice initiative focused on seniors. Pharmacy students work alongside peers from other UIC healthscience colleges to develop education and training

“Collaborating with UIC, we’re able to benefit older adults while also imparting valuable knowledge and information to those coming up in allied health professions,” says Elizabeth Cagan, the executive director of Chicago-based White Crane Wellness Center, a nonprofit organization that works to improve the health and well-being of older adults through a variety of evidence-based programs and services. “It’s a true win-win relationship.”

The College of Pharmacy has also worked to inject interprofessional education into experiential learning, providing students hands-on training to prepare them for the realities of professional practice.

materials to spur improved patient and family-centered care for older adults. The Engage-IL experience not only grounds students in interprofessional collaboration and work with community partners, but also propels the efforts of those working with a high-risk population.

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collaboration with community partners that enrich the learning experience and address gaps in care.

According to Koronkowski, pharmacy students have been increasingly drawn to such experiential, interprofessional opportunities because of their collaborative, entrepreneurial bent that engenders real-world impact.

An essential cross-campus pharmacy interprofessional working group was established and charged to lead innovations, broaden curricular and experiential opportunities for students, strengthen alignment with IPEC competencies, and produce evidence-based work that demonstrates the critical importance and value of interprofessional education. In addition to Koronkowski, Rynn, Goliak, and Jarrett, that working group includes College of Pharmacy team members Drs. Marlowe Djuric Kachlic, Marianne Pop, Rosalyn Vellurattil, and Benjamin Shultz as well as Megan Magnuson and Mary Sullivan Kopale.

A commitment to interprofessional education Recognizing that new models of healthcare delivery require careful integration with innovative models of health-professions education, Koronkowski stands committed to advancing the College of Pharmacy’s work in interprofessional education. He promises innovative, team-based study that helps pharmacy students discover the breadth and scope of other professions as well as

“We don’t need to work in silos,” Koronkowski says. “Understanding what our healthcare colleagues can do is insightful and powerful and fosters improved outcomes.”

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“This helps students see that wherever pharmacists go they can be collaborators and changemakers who create effective, sustainable programs that help people,” he says.

“This prepares our students to be in tune with other healthcare partners so they can tap into different resources and drive patient care, which is incredibly important in rural settings,” Rynn says, noting that 60 percent of Rural Pharmacy Program graduates later practice in rural areas. “We’re preparing them for the roles they’re going to fill.”

“We have a bedrock of work we are establishing here at the College of Pharmacy and are going to continue leveraging that in a thoughtful, strategic way with our partners so our students have unparalleled experiences and UIC emerges as a leader in interprofessional education and team-based practice,” Koronkowski says.

on the frontlines

College of Pharmacy alumnus takes the lessons of interprofessional education to heart In 2017, Dr. Benito Valdepenas, PharmD ’18, joined the inaugural class of Scholars and Leaders in Interprofessional Geriatrics (SLIG), an intensive six-week course under the Engage-IL banner. Each year, only 12 students—two each from six different UIC health-science colleges—earn entry into the experiential course focused on demonstrating how an integrated team of interprofessional practitioners can optimize the health, wellbeing, and quality of life for older adults. Valdepenas, who also completed PGY1 and PGY2 residencies at UIC in 2019 and 2020, respectively, reflects on his experience in SLIG, including how the unique course prepared him for his current role as a clinical pharmacy specialist in liver and intestinal transplantation at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.

WHAT MOTIVATED YOU TO ENROLL IN SLIG? The ability to provide quality, safe, and evidence-based healthcare relies heavily on an interdisciplinary healthcare team. When the team operates like a well-oiled machine, we can achieve the best health outcomes for our patients. If it is that simple, though, then why do we fail? How can we enrich the dynamics of the team to better serve our patients? I applied to SLIG motivated to explore those questions.

WHAT KEY LESSONS DID YOU TAKE AWAY FROM THE SLIG COURSE? The academic experience allowed me to hone my skills so that I could better navigate a multidisciplinary healthcare system, while it also molded my creativity, ability to think, and maintain an open mind. My biggest takeaway from the course, however, was that everyone has a place at the table. Even as a student,

I saw I could have impactful contributions toward the shared goal of delivering safe, evidence-based healthcare.

HOW HAVE YOU BEEN ABLE TO APPLY YOUR SLIG EXPERIENCE TO PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE? I work very closely with doctors, nurses, social workers, nutritionists, and other healthcare professionals today, and our patients and their families are at the center of our efforts. In this pursuit, every team member must be engaged and invested with their thoughts and opinions valued by others on the team. It seems simple, but it can be easily forgotten in a fast-paced environment. When members of the team feel restricted and undervalued, this becomes a catalyst for failure to thrive, so I try hard to be encouraging and supportive of my fellow team members and to reject any dysfunctional team dynamics because that’s what our patients and their families need.

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Critical Care & Infectious Disease Pharmacotherapy Fellowship Training BY JESSICA CANLAS

Drs. Scott Benken, Lauren Andrews, and Eric Wenzler

Dr. Lauren Andrews wasn’t originally planning on pursuing a fellowship at UIC. But when the coronavirus pandemic interrupted her job hunt as she was finishing up her residency, she found herself shifting her vision for the future. A native of Memphis, Tennessee, Andrews completed her PGY1 in pharmacy practice at the University of Kansas Health System and her PGY2 in critical care at UIC. When she was approached by Drs. Scott Benken and Eric Wenzler to consider a new fellowship that would bring together critical care and infectious diseases, she was pleased to continue her training at UIC, where she felt welcomed “more like a colleague” during her residency. “Being the largest post-PharmD training program in terms of residencies and fellowships, we have the expertise to provide this training,” says Dr. Edith Nutescu, head of the Department Pharmacy Practice. “The niche of research training combining critical care and infectious diseases was missing, not only locally but also nationally.”

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For example, Wenzler explains, for the fellow interested in pursuing a tenure-track academic career, the program would involve more grant writing and bench research. If the fellow is seeking a clinically focused path, the training would involve more clinical work and clinical translational research. “We’ll be working with all four phases of clinical trials with patients—it will be a step up in the rigor of the research,” Wenzler says. “All of these things will set Lauren and our future trainees apart.” Benken, who practices at the UI Health Medical and Cardiothoracic Surgery Intensive Care Unit, believes that he and Wenzler offer a good balance between both the clinical bedside and pure research perspectives.

Under the combined direction of clinical associate professor Benken and assistant professor Wenzler, the program brings together two different areas of research and practice as well as featuring a unique collaboration between clinical and research-based tenure-track comentors.

“One of our requirements is that the fellow has completed a specialty residency in critical care or infectious disease,” Benken says. Because of that clinical foundation and deep understanding of research needs across both disciplines, he explains, the avenues for research are “almost endless.”

“Most post-PharmD training programs focus on either the clinical side or research, and the uniqueness of this program is that it combines both in an area of practice and research need, filling a gap,” Nutescu explains.

Their aim is to offer, from a research standpoint, an in-depth look at the intersection of critical care and infectious disease.

Wenzler, a clinical-scientist researcher and boardcertified infectious disease pharmacist, believes the program will offer fellows the opportunity to develop avaluable and diverse skill set, making them competitive

clinical scientists. He believes that, because of the uniqueness of the program, he and Benken will be able to rely on one another’s expertise to tailor the training toward the specific career goals of the fellow.

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“I’m excited to work with someone like Eric who’s passionate about his research and gifted in his knowledge and the way he can teach—both to the fellow and me,” Benken says. “It’s a good marriage, so to speak, and we couldn’t have found a better first fellow for our program.”

Precision Medicine Preparation UIC teams with NorthShore University HealthSystem to launch the nation’s first dual-site pharmacogenomics residency B Y D A N I E L P. S M I T H

A new residency program at the UIC College of Pharmacy will bring aspiring clinical pharmacists into the surging field of pharmacogenomics and leverage the collective strengths of the college and NorthShore University HealthSystem. During the 12-month PGY2 residency, the nation’s first dual-site pharmacogenomics residency program, residents—the first of whom will start in summer 2021—will develop knowledge and skills in clinical pharmacogenomics by blending educational, practicedevelopment, and scholarly activities with clinical service at UIC and NorthShore. “By combining the two sites, our residents will gain robust experience in pharmacogenomics and be exposed to diverse areas of pharmacogenomics to drive their careers,” says Dr. Mark Dunnenberger, director of personalized medicine and pharmacogenomics at NorthShore and the residency’s codirector alongside UIC’s Dr. James Lee. Both institutions boast longstanding ties as well as complementary approaches to the evolving pharmacogenomics field. UIC was among the first U.S. medical centers to implement pharmacogenomics into clinical practice and focuses more heavily on inpatient and cardiology care, while Evanston-based NorthShore, a recognized leader in clinical pharmacogenomics implementation, targets its efforts to preemptive systemwide implementation and outpatient care. “With opportunities to learn at two prominent yet distinct institutions, our residents will be prepared to lead clinical and practice-based implementation of

pharmacogenomics in various healthcare settings,” says Lee, a clinical associate professor and codirector of the UI Health Precision Medicine Program. The new residency revives a previous PGY2 translational pharmacogenomics residency that UIC ran from 2013 to 2016, a program that produced three residents currently working in pharmacogenomics. According to Lee, collaborating with NorthShore will deepen ties between the two institutions and provide residents with perspectives on the use and implementation of pharmacogenetics at an urban academic medical center as well as a suburban community health system. “This is an opportunity for both institutions to learn from each other, to make our respective programs even more responsive to patients, and to improve health equity and quality by making pharmacogenetic testing and pharmacogenomics-driven treatment available to a wider range of patients,” Lee says. The pharmacogenomics residency represents yet another new training opportunity at UIC designed to prepare pharmacists for leadership roles in a rapidly evolving and dynamic healthcare environment. “Contemporary approaches in healthcare, such as precision medicine and pharmacogenomics, promise to revolutionize the way we provide individualized medication therapy,” says Dr. Edith Nutescu, head of UIC’s Department of Pharmacy Practice. “As leaders in this field, we must continue to develop innovative training programs that nurture the next generation of pharmacy clinicians and scientists.”

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UIC Launches COVID Task Force Focused on Pharmacists’ Role BY MICHAEL DHAR

an offshoot of the state’s larger COVID-19 vaccine task force, also works to share pharmacy recommendations with public health officials and vaccine information with Illinois’s pharmacists. Schriever sees pharmacy professionals as a significant resource in the massive goal of vaccinating 80 percent of the state. Schriever said the potential workforce includes pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, and the “untapped resource” of trained pharmacy students. Prepping that pharmaceutical army requires getting a lot of information out to pharmacists—and getting those pharmacists registered with an array of public health organizations. To ease that process, the task force set up a clearinghouse website where interested pharmacists, technicians, and students can sign up: COVIDpharmil.org.

Illinois, like the world at large, has waited anxiously for news about a COVID-19 vaccine. At the UIC College of Pharmacy, Dr. Allison Schriever did more than wait. She spurred an effort to ensure the state’s pharmacists could lend a helping hand, and needle, once the vaccine arrived. Already deeply involved with public health in the state, Schriever, director of Rockford experiential education, launched a COVID-19 pharmacy task force in the fall of 2020. Since their first meeting on September 11, the group has convened bimonthly, with representatives from academia, business, and professional organizations working to prep the state’s pharmacy professionals to serve as a vaccine-distributing workforce. The group,

No one in Illinois has the information on where all the state’s pharmacy professionals are working, Schriever said. “So this was one way to help us try in one place to get an idea of pharmacists, technicians, and students that could self-identify as wanting to participate” in the vaccination effort, Schriever said. The website will also link those individuals to relevant state public health registries, including Illinois Helps and Siren, where Illinois public-health agencies will communicate COVID-19 vaccine information. “What we’re trying to do is make it simple for all of our pharmacy professionals to be able to go to one site and [find] the three places that you need to register with the state in order to be recognized as a vaccinator,” said associate dean Mary Moody, UIC clinical associate professor and task force member. The task force aimed to get that done before the vaccine’s arrival, “so that everybody’s registered and ready to go and ready to be deployed as soon as the vaccine’s available,” Moody added.

P H A R M AC Y VAC C I N E TA S K F O R C E

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Drs. Andy Donnelly and Matthew Gimbar

Dr. Chris Schriever

Schriever sees pharmacy professionals as a significant resource in the massive goal of vaccinating 80% of the state. Beyond links to public-health sites, COVIDpharmil.org will also share needed information for pharmacy professionals working as vaccinators—about, for example, the cold storage likely necessary for vaccines. With that information, pharmacists can decide what role they want to play in the vaccination response, Schriever said, from “something as simple as a pharmacist signing up to work with their local health department to be a vaccinator for a day” to retail chains involving all of their stores in the effort. Because of their skill sets, pharmacists have a range of ways to contribute, Schriever said. That pharmacy skill set and knowledge base also shape the task force’s contributions, which continues to share recommendations with the larger public-health task force on maintaining cold-chain storage and keeping track of patients. Hence, they get the likely two necessary vaccine doses and more. Experience tracking patients’ medications is just one of the advantages pharmacists bring to the COVID-19 vaccination effort. They can make it easier and therefore more likely that patients get both vaccine doses, Moody said. “Having it available in pharmacies is extremely convenient for the patient, as they don’t have to make an appointment with a doctor and go back for a doctor’s appointment for a second vaccination.”

Pharmacists could also help combat the anxiety many people feel about vaccines, particularly this one, Moody said. “I think a lot of people are scared,” she said. “So the strong relationship pharmacists have with their patients is a key opportunity for us to communicate the importance of the vaccine.” Such educational outreach highlights another primary goal of the task force, Schriever said: expanding the role of pharmacists. “It’s an opportunity for the profession to move forward and be a more visible part of public health,” she said. When the next crisis hits, “hopefully we’ll have a higher number of pharmacists that are willing to respond.” That ambition reflects a core goal of the UIC College of Pharmacy as a whole, said Dr. Glen Schumock, dean of the college. “The fact that Allison Schriever is heading this task force, and with Mary Moody highly involved, is important because I want the UIC College of Pharmacy to be the leader in advocating for and expanding the role and importance of pharmacists,” he said. “We want to expand the scope of what pharmacists do and are recognized as being able to do—beyond just dispensing drugs—but [also] improving health by giving vaccines, managing side effects, educating patients and other health care professionals, even prescribing, and so much more.”

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CAREER SPOTLIGHT

Reinventing Necessity Adesh Vora, PharmD ’00, transforms the mainstream chain pharmacy into a one-stop shop for complex healthcare services BY JESSICA CANLAS

Dr. Adesh Vora is a self-professed pioneer. “I’m doing what I’ve always wanted to do, but I have to keep reinventing myself,” he says. “There’s always a risk that pharmacists could disappear. If we don’t reinvent ourselves, we will be replaced. “That drives me.” This need for metamorphosis has inspired Vora, who lives in Toronto, to develop Specialty Rx, which has grown to include 35 pharmacy locations across Canada. Unlike the mainstream retail pharmacy chain, Specialty Rx is a “more boutique”-type pharmacy, he explains, with fewer over-the-counter products and more in the way of clinical offerings like consulting, health screenings, infusion and injection therapies, and a PrEP clinic. In this model, Vora took ownership of services that physicians used to offer patients directly, thus providing more accessible clinical care to the community via the retail pharmacy setting. “In 2013, I decided to look at various areas in specialty pharmacy,” Vora recalls. “I started collaborating with large hospitals that were looking for ways to streamline services and provide better care for patients.” “And that’s how Specialty Rx was born.” Specialty Rx’s evolution began with specialty medication services for chronic illness management, which often left patients navigating a potentially lengthy and complicated process for obtaining medications. Vora incorporated much of this process into the pharmacy, offering patients reimbursement services to help secure authorizations, insurance

coverage, and even financial assistance. Once the patient has medication in hand, Specialty Rx’s team of nurses and pharmacists work closely with doctors and patients to ensure continued safety and compliance. “If you asked me ten years ago, I would have said that I was probably perceived as stepping out of my lane,” Vora says. “Now, I feel that physicians realize that a lot of these duties can be passed on to pharmacists. “We can work within our scope of practice to be an asset to the overall care of patients.” Today, Specialty Rx is transforming into its next iteration as SRX Health Solutions, a comprehensive healthcare services company that owns a wholesale drug license and includes a clinical trials division and a nursing division with more than 100 nurses and nurse practitioners who perform clinic and home visits. “A lot of the services I’m telling you about are things that we talked about in pharmacy school,” says Vora, “things that we might have been able to do in the future. We’re seeing all that come to fruition now.” Beyond his company’s success, Vora takes great pride in his charitable foundation, Seva International, whose focus is “to give back to healthcare initiatives,” which include children’s and veterinary needs, equipment donations to hospitals and community healthcare centers, educational scholarships, and global refugee relief. Since its inception in 2010, Seva has donated more than Can$5 million to its core causes. “This is something I’m very proud of,” he says. “We’re fortunate to be able to give back.”

Niam Vora, P1, follows his father down the path of healthcare innovation Niam Vora wants to be a lawyer. But, last fall, he’ll be starting pharmacy school at UIC. “My father has shown me that there’s so much more you can do with a PharmD besides retail pharmacy,” Niam explains. “It’s such a maneuverable degree, and there’s a plethora of opportunities that can come from that.” Growing up in the pharmacy business, Niam’s career path seems natural. But, like his father, he plans to take it a step further.

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“I have a big interest in the drug research policy side of healthcare. After pharmacy school, I’d like to get my law degree and eventually work in health policy, advocating for underprivileged populations.” As a student in UIC’s Guaranteed Professional Programs Admissions (GPPA) program, Niam anticipated he would likely be younger than many of his classmates. “I’m excited. With age comes wisdom. I look forward to learning from my classmates and being inspired to do new things.”

Joseph Zorek, PharmD ’11, BCGP, FNAP Illustrating the vital role of pharmacists on interprofessional teams Dr. Joseph Zorek is a born educator. Following undergraduate studies at the University of Iowa, he taught in Germany as a Fulbright Scholar, then at a high school in Oak Lawn, Illinois. He pivoted to healthcare by earning his PharmD at UIC, an experience he credits with defining the trajectory of his career, and one that ultimately led to a soon-to-be-published textbook for early learners in pharmacy and prospective students exploring pharmacy as a possible career option. “Professors like Drs. Nick Popovich and Bruce Lambert empowered me as a student to find solutions to educational problems, and that made an indelible impression on me,” said Zorek. “Leaving UIC, I felt strongly that pharmacists’ knowledge and skills were underrecognized and underutilized within the healthcare system and that this problem was somehow rooted in education.” Dr. Zorek pursued solutions to this problem as a pharmacotherapy resident at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center at Amarillo, where he developed a clinical specialty in geriatrics with a research emphasis in interprofessional practice and education (IPE). His work earned national attention and ultimately led to a faculty position at the University of Wisconsin– Madison School of Pharmacy. At Wisconsin, Dr. Zorek was promoted to director of interprofessional education and associate professor. Along the way, he developed a new course for first-year

students called Pathways in Pharmacy Practice. His idea was to deconstruct incoming students’ biases about the profession, expose them to as many areas of pharmacy practice as possible, and emphasize contributions to interprofessional teams and the impact and value of pharmacists. Focusing on early learners was key. “The job market is tight and residencies are incredibly competitive,” said Zorek. “Finding a passion within the profession early affords students the opportunity to customize their educational experience, ultimately increasing their odds of career success and satisfaction.” As the popularity of Dr. Zorek’s course increased, he realized that a textbook was needed, but there were simply no compelling, captivating books to achieve his vision. Harkening back to his mentors’ advice at UIC, he decided to create one. Several years and dozens of collaborations later, Interprofessional Practice in Pharmacy: Featuring Illustrated Case Studies will be published on March 26, 2021. Fifteen chapters, each devoted to a specific practice area, include a total of 35 illustrated case studies inspired by graphic novels and comic strips—but by no means funny—to augment text and inspire readers. The publisher, McGraw-Hill Education, describes the book as a one-of-a-kind medical text that covers everything needed to launch a successful career in pharmacy. In 2019, Dr. Zorek was recruited to lead the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio’s Quality Enhancement Plan, which seeks to advance IPE across five schools and numerous educational programs. In addition to this leadership role, he is proud to be walking the interprofessional talk as a tenured faculty member in nursing, where he teaches advanced pharmacotherapeutics to graduate students and strives to elevate health professions education through creative and impactful scholarship.

Interprofessional Practice in Pharmacy: Featuring Illustrated Case Studies is available online for preorder at Amazon and Barnes & Noble bookstores.

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VIRTUAL

This year’s College of Pharmacy Research Day was a success. With 78 posters being presented virtually and great participation from our alumni and external colleagues who served as scientific judges, we presented nearly $30,000 in scholarships and awards. We also heard from Dr. Gerry Wright, director of the Michael G. Degroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research and professor of biochemistry and biomedical sciences at McMaster University, who delivered a brilliant keynote lecture, “Harnessing Natural Product Biosysnthesis in Antibiotic Discover—Everything Old is New Again.” Events like Research Day would not be possible without our presenters and judges, along with our sponsors, university supporters, and alumni and friends and their generous involvement and support for this event.

OUR THANKS TO THIS YEAR’S SPONSORS

NOVEMBER 6, 202O CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL OF OUR POSTER AWARD WINNERS! For details on the winning posters and the noteworthy science behind them, please visit RE SE ARCHDAY.PHARMACY.UIC.EDU.

In addition to Research Day, the Office of the Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Education recently hosted our annual College of Pharmacy “Images of Research” competition. The purpose of the competition is to assemble a portfolio of the most innovative and creative images to convey the range of research taking place in the college. These images will be used to promote, advance, and represent our college in both printed and digital media.

I M AG E S O F R E S E A R CH C O N T E ST 1ST P LAC E

GLIA GLUE

Xiao Guo, Graduate Student Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences (Dr. Jim Wang’s lab) The function of glia cells were underestimated for decades, and it’s only in the past 10 years that neuroscientists have gained a deeper understanding of how glia play active roles in modulating neural activity, except for the support function as glia glue. The image shown here is the DG region of a mouse hippocampus, which is responsible for memory storage and potential adult neurogenesis. Cells marked in cyan are astrocytes, which are the most abundant glia type in the central nervous system, with the nuclues stained in yellow (DAPI). (Zeiss LSM 710 Confocal, RRC fluorescence Core).

For details on the various images or research taking place, visit GR AD.PHARMACY.UIC.EDU/IMAGE S- OF -RE SE ARCH–2.

ALUMNI PROFILES

For Drs. Asha and Amit Chikani, Work Means Impacting Millions DR. AMIT CHIK AN, PHARMD ’06, AND DR. ASHA CHIK ANI, PHARMD ’07

DOCTORS ASHA AND AMIT CHIK ANI

When Dr. Amit Chikani, PharmD ’06, arrived at UIC, he knew exactly what he wanted to do in pharmacy. Dr. Asha Chikani, PharmD ’07, was less sure. And while opportunities at UIC opened up Asha’s eyes to possible career paths, Amit’s path evolved as the two started a family. Today, the couple, who met at UIC, have taken advantage of pharmacy’s broad opportunities to gain flexibility as parents—all while impacting potentially millions of people. Amit serves as project owner for diabetes management at Optum RX, and Asha manages pharmacy benefits as a consultant at Buck. Initially, Amit “had his heart set on” following his father and brother into retail pharmacy, but after six years at Walgreens, the arrival of young Chikanis spurred Amit to seek flexibility. He found an opportunity in the PBM (pharmacy benefit manager) field at Optum, working in formulary management and strategy before taking on Optum’s new diabetesmanagement program. Heading that program has been among his proudest career accomplishments, Amit said. “Today, we’re covering over a million lives. I’ve been pretty proud of what the team has done to get it to this point.” For Asha, a UIC elective in managed care clarified her career goals. A course field

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trip brought her to Walgreens Health Initiatives (WHI) and its now-defunct PBM. “I realized that there was corporate work that pharmacists could do, typically a nine-to-five job. That piqued my interest.” Her interest turned into a rotation and residency at WHI, and a WHI contact (another UIC graduate) helped Asha get started at CVS Caremark, where she worked in analytics and sales and account services. Eventually, she switched “sides of the table” with the many consultants she encountered there. Despite various awards on the job, Asha said her proudest accomplishment has been learning to speak up for herself, often a challenge for women in business. Both UIC grads said they also appreciate that their current roles broaden the impact they can have. “When you get to PBMs, you start having these clinical programs that cover millions of lives,” Amit said. “We see results on A1C reductions, helping members become more adherent to their medication. Those are all real-life impacts.” Asha agreed. “I’m impacting the benefits for the entire population that falls under a specific insurance plan, for example. . . . It’s nice to see that we can make a difference on a bigger scale.”

Dr. John Tokarski, a Bristol Myers Squibb principal investigator, worked on a team probing a target important in psoriasis, lupus, and potentially Crohn’s disease. The researchers developed a molecule that blocks a kinase enzyme in a highly specific, novel way. Now in Phase III clinical tests, that molecule earned Tokarski’s team a 2019 Edison Patent Award from the Research Council of New Jersey. “We were very excited,” Tokarski said. “First because the award is honoring what they say is the best and brightest patent innovations in the state of New Jersey. And it’s named in honor of Thomas Edison … one of the greatest inventors of all time.” Tokarski took a winding path to his current research. Today, he focuses on the computational side of drug development, modeling potential drugs and targets. But he started in the pharmacy. After earning bachelors’ degrees in chemistry at Loyola and pharmacy at UIC, Tokarski staffed a Walgreens pharmacy for four years. But, missing the thrill of scientific discovery, he returned to UIC, this time for a medicinal chemistry doctorate.

“I went to the opposite end of the spectrum, from dispensing medicine to working as early in the process of finding drugs as you can get,” he said. Tokarski nearly missed out on that path, though. Originally aiming for a PharmD, he chanced upon a Loyola classmate at the UIC Pharmacy building before an exam. That colleague, pursuing a PhD, clued Tokarski in on the exciting research possibilities of the PhD track. So Tokarski switched. “If I had been there in the building five minutes earlier or later, I might not have run into him, and I never would have gone this route.”

JOHN TOK ARSKI · BS ’84, PHD ’96

Edison Award Recognizes Dr. Tokarski’s Work on Promising Autoimmune Treatment

That road-not-taken happenstance also made possible Tokarski’s work at UIC under Professor Anton Hopfinger, who’s been called “a founding father of computational chemistry.” From Hopfinger, Tokarski learned how to solve problems creatively, he said. Employing that creative problem-solving daily, Tokarski has seen a number of his molecules make their way to the clinic. He and his team now hope their award-winning drug goes the distance, so it can help those patients with autoimmune diseases who’ve long awaited effective treatments.

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ASK AN ALUMNUS

William T. Lee, BS ’72, MPA, FASCP Senior Director Pharmacy System Innovations, Carilion Clinic Healthcare System / President, Koala Healthcare, LLC As the senior director of pharmacy system innovations for a 1,200-bed healthcare system, I am responsible for managing seven hospitals, the largest an 800-bed facility with trauma level one designation, covering a catch basin of 28 counties with over 1.2 million patients. Our healthcare system is one of the pioneer ACO models and oversees more than 230 physician practices and over 50 level three medical homes. My professional life as a pharmacist has centered on creating opportunities to allow the pharmacist to make a difference in improving patients with chronic diseases. I have owned and operated pharmacies servicing managed long-term care, assisted, and mental health facilities. I have served in various healthcare industry capacities with over 30 years in the pharmaceutical and healthcare field. My background has included experience in the development of wireless and mobile documentation tools for improving the clinical monitoring activities of pharmacists in an institutional environment and on an ambulatory retail basis. My broad experience in the managed care sector and group purchasing organizations includes the acute care hospital setting and the ambulatory and private sector. In the wholesale pharmaceutical industry, this experience has provided me the benefit of understanding the different channels for the marketing and distribution of medications and other related healthcare products within the United States and on an international level.

As a pharmacist, how can I best prepare to adapt to the inevitable changes ahead in the next 20 years? Embrace technology and the opportunity to increase the patient experience and to be able to use remote technology as a means of getting unbiased, direct patient feedback in real-time. Begin to be more involved beyond your area of practice and expertise; pharmacists must be involved in all aspects of the transitional care model in order to meet the needs of the patient and the continuum of care. To be truly clinical, the care of the patient may begin in the emergency room, but the pharmacist must be able to follow up on the patient as the patient continues their treatment beyond the four walls of the hospital into the community and back into their home. There is a need to develop a deeper relationship with the patient in order to establish a true

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covenant relationship similar to what the independent community pharmacist has created over the years with many of their patients. Pharmacy is at the most opportune time in our profession because of the unfortunate COVID-19 situation. We need to act as one profession with one voice as a whole to move the profession forward. As a piece of advice, pharmacists need to be involved with their professional associations at the local, regional, or national levels. They need to stay informed and be on top of the latest developments and issues that affect their profession. What are you working on right now, and what have you learned from it? One of my many interests is continuing my efforts to advance the opportunities for pharmacists in the area of what remote technology can do for us as a profession. The ability to have patients give us direct feedback in real-time on their medication therapies

related to their chronic conditions like diabetes or cardiac conditions like hypertension is a significant shift in the paradigm model. The implications are that we, as pharmacists, can make a substantial difference in the ongoing shift to preventive medicine. My other interest is in being involved with the Virginia Board of Pharmacy as a board member where we have the opportunity to work on many initiatives to allow pharmacists and technicians to practice their profession at the highest level possible and keeping in mind that we are here to serve and keep our patients safe.

a leader is probably the greatest enjoyment in my work. Beyond that, it would have to be the opportunity to help an organization develop strategies and initiatives that can make a difference in our patients’ lives. Presently, we’re working on rolling out across the system a substance abuse disorder initiative that can address the substance abuse disorder in our region. That the system is situated in the heart of the Appalachia region only illustrates the complexity and challenge in front of us, and we are having success with it. What do you love about pharmacy? Management?

Given your impressive and noteworthy career, what career highlight has given you the most satisfaction?

Being able to truly help people and become part of their lives when they need help the most. Pharmacy gives you that opportunity.

I think being able to “influence” and shape many of my students’ and pharmacists’ careers, who later became directors and leaders within the profession, has given me the most satisfaction. For me, it’s not about what I can accomplish but what I can do to make a real difference in the profession and to allow others to be successful at it. I find real satisfaction and joy when some of my colleagues come back to me and thank me for being their mentor or having worked with them and allowing them to practice at the top of their licensure. For me, it has always been about what can be done to help fellow pharmacists become truly clinical and engaged with their patients and to be able to develop that covenant with their patients.

Being in management is not meant for everyone, but my choice was because it allowed me to practice pharmacy the way I had envisioned. What has been the biggest challenge for you this year (or over your career)? Finding the time and balancing work with the family, and identifying your priorities, especially at work. Do you have any advice for our current students and those practicing today? It will only get better . . . get involved and become more of a generalist to meet the transitional care model’s needs. That doesn’t mean you can’t be a specialist, but the new practice model requires a generalist approach.

What do you enjoy most about your work (or leadership)? I think being able to have the opportunity to provide the experience and knowledge to an individual that has the passion and the drive to become

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We can provide you the language to include the University of Illinois Foundation for the benefit of the college in your will or living trust and also custom language for a beneficiary designation via a retirement plan, whole-life insurance policy, or payable on death (POD)/transferable on death (TOD) account or to further designate your bequest in a way that is meaningful to you. Please contact director of gift planning Jason James Shuba, JD, for more information on how to invest in the future at the UIC College of Pharmacy. Office of Gift Planning and Trust Services 1305 W. Green St., MC 386 Urbana, IL 61801 312.413.3394 | shuba@uif.uillinois.edu

ALUMNI NEWS

KASEM AKHRAS, PharmD ’94, recently published an article titled “Pricing of In-Patient Pharmaceuticals in the Middle East and North Africa: Is External Reference Pricing Implemented Optimally” in Health Policy. KATIE BERRY, PharmD ’20, is presently an Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) fellow in the Office of Quality Surveillance at the FDA. BENJAMIN BESHALSKE, PharmD ’07, was featured in a Walgreens article about how pharmacists across the nation have been working hard to serve patients during this difficult time. KATRINA CAPAPAS, PharmD ’17, started a new position as pharmacist at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab.

first Emergency Medicine Pharmacy Specialty Council. NORMAN GARGES, PharmD ’93, an Eagle Scout for nearly 35 years, recently received the Boy Scouts of America’s Silver Beaver Award. Norm was one of eight recipients selected by the National Council to receive this award, which recognizes scouters for their distinguished service to youth and their community. LORI GOLTERMAN, PharmD ’88, and the VA’s Clinical Pharmacy Practice Office and Pharmacy Residency Program Office (PRPO) were a recipient of the 2020 ASHP Board of Directors’ Award of Excellence. Dr. Golterman is the director of residency programs and education for the PRPO.

KEVIN CHANG, PharmD ’16, BCCCP, lead clinical pharmacist and surgical-trauma ICU clinical pharmacy specialist, Loyola Medicine, Chicago, was recently appointed PGY-1 Pharmacy Residency Program director at Loyola Medicine. COURTNEY CHMIELESKI, PharmD ’20, started a new position as a pharmacist at CVS. LAUREN CUNNINGHAM, PharmD ’18, is now a board-certified ambulatory care specialist (BCACP). WILLIAM “BILL” FEINBERG, BS ’70, MBA, recently joined UW School of Pharmacy as manager of its Professional Education Review Programs project. HEIDE FOERSTER BETMAN, BS ’85, MD ’89, was recently promoted to senior medical director at AbbVie Pharmacovigilance & Patient Safety. CHRISTOPHER EDWARDS, PharmD ’08, has been appointed to the Board of Pharmacy Specialties

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Dr. Lori Golterman

BETH (RUSH) GREENHALGH, PharmD ’07, accepted a new position as regional director at AMITA Health. CRAIG HERNANDEZ, PharmD ’20, recently started a new position as regulatory associate, approval liaison at Pfizer. KELSEY JOHNSON, PharmD ’20, started a new position as registered pharmacist at Albertsons Companies. ELLIE H. JUHN, PharmD, PhD ’16, started a new position as senior clinical development scientist at OneOme.

Dr. Norman Garges

MANAR KANDIL, PharmD ’18, is now a board-certified pharmcotherapy specialist (BCPS). WILLIAM KELLY, PharmD ’00, chief ancillary informatics officer, U.S. Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, was recently promoted to captain in the Medical Service Corps of the U.S. Navy. RYAN KOCA, PharmD ’10, along with a team of healthcare professionals from Tenet Healthcare, was honored with the Gita Wasan Patel Pharmacy Excellence Award presented by HealthTrust Purchasing Group. This award is conferred for demonstrating best practices in pharmacy, such as improvements in patient care outcomes, operational efficiency, and financial savings. ZAHRA KHUDEIRA, PharmD ’02, MA, BCPS, CPPS, recently received further distinction as a project management professional (PMP) from the Project Management Institute. SAMANTHA LANDOLFA, PharmD ’15, recently took a new role as director of the Specialty Pharmacy Program at ChristianaCare. STEVEN LE, PharmD ’20, started a new position as medical information specialist at Horizon. LIYU ELISE LEI, PharmD ’19, was recently promoted to neuroscience ICU clinical specialist pharmacist at Community Healthcare System. TRAVIS LESTER, PharmD ’20, was promoted to pharmacist at Walgreens.

CHLOE MAJKOWSKI, PharmD ’18, had an article titled “Educational Affairs: A Review of Medical Marijuana and the Pharmacist’s Role” published in ICHP’s KeePosted. JOHN MILAS, BS ’76, MD ’84, retired from medical practice and clinical research after 38 years. John continues as a medical director of hospice in Greenville, South Carolina. KYLE MYSIEWICZ, PharmD ’20, started a new position as a pharmacist with Osco Pharmacy. LAMBERT NOUDEGBESSI, PharmD ’19, recently started a new position as clinical pharmacist at the VA Illiana Healthcare System in Danville, Illinois. JAMES O’DONNELL, BS ’69, presented Marijuana Pharmacology and Adverse Effects at the American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress 2020 Panel Discussion: “The Impact of Marijuana Use in the Surgical Patient” in October 2020, Chicago.

JULIA SAPOZHNIKOV, PharmD ’17, recently had an abstract published in the American Journal of Clinical Pharmacy titled “Impact of an Antimicrobial Stewardship Program Pharmacist During Microbiology Rounds.”

DAVID SILVA, PharmD ’19, is now a board-certified pharmcotherapy specialist (BCPS).

ZACK SESSIONS, PharmD ’19, started a new position as manager of clinical content–cancer protocols—at the College of American Pathologists (CAP).

SENGWEE DARREN TOH, MS ’05, ScD, was recently promoted to professor at Harvard Medical School.

JASMINE SHAH, PharmD ’15, started a new position as associate medical director at PRECISIONvalue. RINA SHAH, PharmD ’05, recently joined fellow experts for a discussion on equitable vaccine development and distribution at the 2020 Health Summit held by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute (CHCI). SHERRY SIEGERT, PharmD ’09, was recently promoted to senior director of medical affairs at La Jolla Pharmaceutical Company.

JOHN THORNTON, BS ’82, started a new position as senior consultant at the Pharmacy Group.

JOSEPHINE (KOCHOU) VARDA, PharmD ’16, recently published an article titled “Treatment of Migraine: A Review of Disease Burden and an Update on the Therapeutic Landscape for Pharmacists” in Drugs & Therapy Perspectives. KARIE VELLOS, PharmD ’15, MBA, was recently promoted to manager, hospital marketing, at Astellas Pharma US.

Dr. Sengwee Darren Toh

PMPR 329 | Dean’s Leadership Forum

Alumni and friends shared their career

GLEN SCHUMOCK, PharmD, RES ’91, FEL

experiences and provided memorable advice

’92, MBA, PhD; TODD CHERMAK, PhD ’09;

URSAN, PharmD ’13, MS ’15; NICOLE

(virtually) to over 180 second-year students in

THOMAS MARSHALL, PharmD ’04; MIRIAM

(SINSABAUGH) JOYCE, PharmD ’14;

our fall Dean’s Leadership Forum elective (PMPR

MOBLEY SMITH, PharmD ’95; ARASALLY

CHARLES MCPHERSON, PharmD, RES ’98;

329). A huge thank you to our fall line-up of

(DUBINSKI) RODRIGUEZ, PharmD ’04;

OKSANA KUCHER, PharmD ’16; DONALD

speakers who our students will not soon forget.

DAN WOJENSKI, PharmD ’11; IULIA

STEVE ZIELINSKI, BS ’77; NICK BURGE,

RAINERI, BS ’84, PharmD ’86; CAROLINE

PharmD ’11; TOMMY CHIAMPAS, PharmD ’11;

PARK, PharmD ’05; and SHARON PARK,

PATRICK FLEMING, JR., PharmD ’11;

PharmD ’04.

SPRING 2021

T H E P H A R M A C I ST

ALUMNI NEWS

PEDRO ARAMIS ABREU, PharmD ’10, and wife Dr. Tamkeen Abreu welcomed their second child. Daughter Alina Zara Abreu was born on August 20 at 4:56 p.m., weighing 8lbs 8oz and measuring 19.5 inches. Alina joins big brother Mikail (2). KEVIN, PharmD ’12, and ANNA (CAO) BLOCK, PharmD ’14, welcomed their second child. Daughter Gemma Dalaney Block was born on September 24, weighing 7lbs 8oz and measuring 20 inches. Gemma joins big brother Ralph (3).

T H E P H A R M A C I ST

LINDA (SITKIEWICZ) HARMER, PharmD ’09, and husband Rob Harmer welcomed their second child. Daughter Noelle Juliana Harmer was born on November 29, weighing 6lbs 2oz and measuring 19 inches. She joins big sister Eliana (1). SUNNY HIRPARA, PharmD ’13, and wife Shalvia Hirpara welcomed daughter Allora Suhana on September 20. Allora weighed 6lbs 6 oz.

HANNAH DALOGDOG, PharmD ’20, became engaged to Aaron Beley.

XUXUAN LIU, PharmD ’17, and MICHELLE LEE, PharmD ’17, recently became engaged.

KYLE HUTTNER and JACQUELYN PUNCHES, both PharmD ’19, are engaged.

IONANNIS (JOHN) MANOLOPOULOS, PharmD ’18, became engaged to Yiota Terzis.

MELVIN JOSEPH, PharmD ’18, became engaged to Serena Joseph. The happy couple plans to marry on July 3, 2021.

BRIANNE PARRA, PharmD ’13, became engaged to Jared Willadsen.

P H A R M A C Y.U I C . E D U

SAMANTHA (KECA) MATHEWS, PharmD ’12, and husband Phil Mathews welcomed their second child. Son Parker Philip Mathews was born on October 10 at 8:46 p.m., weighing 8lbs 10oz and measuring 21 inches. Parker joins big sister Sophie (2). XAVIER TORRES, PharmD ’16, welcomed his first child. Son Maxton Dash Torres was born November 16, weighing 11lbs and measuring 22 inches.

ALAM PHAM, PharmD ’18, became engaged to Julia Bui. CHRISTINA PHAM, PharmD ’19, became engaged to Giovanni Martinez. ANESIA RETICKER, PharmD ’18, became engaged to Justin Piper. PAULINA SAMBOR, PharmD ’18, became engaged to Ilya Chaynik.

SEP

AUG

OCT

KATHERINE SENCION, PharmD ’17, married Alex DeSanctis on August 28, 2020, in Boston, MA.

JAY HILAO, PharmD ’05, married Justin Blankers on September 30, 2020, in front of a couple family members at City Hall in Chicago.

OCT

JENNIFER SOTTO, PharmD ’18, married Steve Zych on October 10, 2020, in Chicago.

SEP

DEC

ADAM HOOD, PharmD ’16, married ALEXANDRA TERRY, PharmD ’16, on September 5, 2020.

SEP

TIFFANY SCOTT-HORTON, former faculty member and a medical liaison at Boehringer Ingelheim, married Johnathan McDaniel on October 11, 2020.

LAUREN STAMBOLIC, PharmD ’19, married Dejan Trajkov on September 13, 2020, in Orland Park, Illinois.

OCT

MICHELLE LEE married Jonathan Kang on December 11, 2020.

ANASTASIA SHISHKOFF, PharmD ’18, married Tommy Smith on October 10, 2020, in front of immediate family in Bolingbrook, Illinois.

DEC

ALISSA LEE married Ben Kim on December 12, 2020.

SPRING 2021

T H E P H A R M A C I ST

Michael A. Boge

Susan Marie (Coyle) Best Gualandi

MICHAEL A. BOGE, RPh, passed away unexpectedly on November 25, 2020. Always drawn to helping people, Mike was a 1989 graduate of the University of Iowa’s College of Pharmacy, and he worked at Walgreens as a pharmacist for over 25 years. Upon retirement in 2018, he decided that his need to help others was unfulfilled, and he started work at the UIC College of Pharmacy in Rockford as a compounding lab instructor. A man of wonderful personality, it was not hard for Mike to make friends. He will be missed. ELIZABETH JOSEPHINE “BETSY” ANDERSON BROWN, BS ’82, of St. Louis, Missouri, and formerly of Quincy, Illinois, passed away on January 1, 2021, at home after a long struggle with Huntington’s Disease. Following service in the U.S. Army, serving in Tacoma, Washington, as a pharmacy technician, Betsy graduated from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She later earned her master’s degree from the

Alfred F. Moscinski

T H E P H A R M A C I ST

St. Louis College of Pharmacy. Betsy worked as a registered pharmacist for Earel and Buss Drugs. She also had roles as manager and associate director at Blessing Hospital, Interlock Pharmacy Services, and American Home Patient in St. Louis. SUSAN (COYLE) BEST GUALANDI, BS ’72, passed away on September 14, 2019. Working as a pharmacist in both Peoria, Illinois, and at the Indian Hospital in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, Susie would complete a Master of Fine Arts and embrace a new career in 1986 focusing on abstract art and landscape paintings. An award-winning artist and an active member in her communities, she would serve as a visiting artist and instructor at various institutions, most recently the Longue Vue House and Gardens in New Orleans, Louisiana. JOHN TOM HUNT of Rockford, Illinois, passed away on September 4, 2020, in his home. Tom was a St. Louis College of

Dr. Joanna Ochana

P H A R M A C Y.U I C . E D U

John Tom Hunt

Pharmacy graduate and a pharmacist at Downtown Discount Drugs in Rockford. Tom also worked at the UIC College of Pharmacy in Rockford as a compounding lab instructor. He was a respected pharmacist and owned and operated Hunt’s Pharmacy in Wilmington, Illinois, for the first half of his 50+ year career. He enjoyed spending time with family and friends, gardening, golf, and poker. KENNETH A. MACK, BS ’67, a Kappa Psi fraternity member, passed away on September 24, 2020. Born and raised in Chicago, Ken moved to Arizona in 1973, where he would spend most of his career working for community and hospital pharmacies across the Phoenix area. ALFRED F. MOSCINSKI, BS ’52, a Des Plaines, Illinios, resident of 63 years, passed away on January 8, 2020, at his home. On December 8, 1927, he was born to Alex and Helen (Kowalski) Moscinski in Chicago. He was married to his loving

Leonard Jack Sodergren

Kenneth Mack

wife, the late Maryann C. (Glomski) Moscinski, for 64 years. For twenty years, Al and Maryann worked side-by-side while owning White Oak (Rexall) Drug Store at White and Oakton Streets in Des Plaines. Maryann took care of the cosmetics counter and assisted customers in front of the store while Al filled prescriptions. They enjoyed being a part of the Des Plaines community and considered their customers their friends. Al also enjoyed his local and national memberships in the Polish American Pharmacist Association, National Association of Retail Druggists, and Rotary International. JOANNA LYNN (MUELLER) OCHANA, PharmD ’04, passed away on September 27, 2020. MICHAEL H. SCHRANK, BS ’67, passed away on December 23, 2020. LEONARD J. SODERGREN, BS ’69, of Sun City, Arizona, passed away on December 28, 2020. He was vice president of the class of 1969 and a member of Kappa Psi Fraternity.

Join Christi and fellow alumni who are getting involved to advance the profession and to support UIC Pharmacy “Supporting the UIC College of Pharmacy is one way to give back to the university and the profession for affording me opportunities for an excellent education and training for my future career. I am only paying it forward. Through your financial support, however large or small, you will do the same for others. Please consider a small donation in support of the college.”

It only takes a minute to make the gift that lasts a lifetime. CHRISTI JEN PHARMD ’07, BCPS, FAZPA

G I V I N G .PH A R M ACY.U I C .E D U

Pharmacy Clinical Manager and PGY1 Residency Program Director, Department of Pharmacy HonorHealth, Deer Valley Medical Center, Phoenix Clinical Assistant Professor, University of Arizona College of Pharmacy Director at Large, Health Systems, Arizona Pharmacy Association

COLLEGE OF PHARMACY

8 3 3 S . W O O D S T. ( M C 8 74 ) · C H I C A G O , I L 6 0 6 12

PERFECTING THE PRACTICE OF In the Department of Pharmacy Practice, we pioneer the landscape of healthcare by defining the profession of pharmacy. Our unique educational model pairs the largest pharmacy services enterprise in the United States with cutting-edge academic INSTRUCTION at one of the nation’s top-ranked schools of pharmacy. We combine SERVING vastly diverse urban and rural communities with integrating and translating scientific data from bench to bedside and patient to population as we push the envelope in our thriving, globally recognized, interdisciplinary RESEARCH program. At the intersection of medication safety, best practices, and solid science, we take pride in our global reputation for cultivating LEADERS, training caring practitioners, and inspiring the next generation of ENTREPRENEURS to provide innovative medication-management services throughout communities around the globe. UIC Pharmacy Practice: Education. Research. Service. Entrepreneurship.

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PHARMACY 177

94 311,139 1,597 31 175 65

faculty in leadership positions in academic and professional organizations

current research studies funded by outside organizations prescriptions filled

immunizations administered book publications journal articles editorial boards

A B O U T H O W YO U C A N I N V E S T I N O R PA R T N E R W I T H T H E D E PA R T M E N T O F P H A R M A C Y P R A C T I C E T O H E L P S H A P E

T O M O R R O W ’ S L E A D E R S , E N T R E P R E N EU R S , A N D E X P E R T S . P L E A S E C O N TA C T B E N S T I C K A N AT (312) 639 - 9 0 69 O R B S T I C K A N @ U I C . E D U . 46

T H E P H A R M A C I ST

P H A R M A C Y.U I C . E D U

The Pharmacist - Spring 2021

Articles inside

Career Spotlight - Joseph Zorek, PharmD ’11, BCGP, FNAP

Inter-Professional Realities

Riback and Vahlteich

Alumni Profile - Dr. John Tokarski

Alumni Profile: Drs. Asha and Amit Chikani

Partnering for Success

Ask an Alumnus - Bill Lee, BS ’73

Reinventing Necessity