Partnership Spotlight - OSF St. Anthony

Hamdin Useini had never seen a patient code before.

Not until his APPE rotation in emergency medicine at OSF St. Anthony Medical Center, where he witnessed a patient go into cardiac arrest—and experienced the resulting interventions—on his second day.

“I was in a state of shock,” recalls Useini, P4 at the UIC Retzky College of Pharmacy in Rockford. “Seeing something with your own eyes versus learning about it in lecture—there’s no comparison for that experience."

Witnessing how patients are treated in that setting, however, was strong reinforcement of what he had learned in the classroom, he says.

Since high school, Useini, a Rockford native, had an interest in pursuing a career in pharmacy.

“It’s an area where you can make interventions on patients’ behalf that sometimes can be overlooked by doctors,” he explains. “Doctors can be so focused on a diagnosis that they might not optimize medication therapy as well as they could.

“They don’t have that deep pharmacological, pharmacokinetic knowledge.”

During his rotation at OSF St. Anthony, Useini sought after just that, while taking the opportunity to apply what he already knew to the high-stress, maximum-intensity environment that keeps emergency room practitioners on their toes.

“Seeing the spectrum of acuity was eye-opening,” he says. “I think it helped me to understand more about myself—what I can handle and what I can’t, where I need to improve to handle certain situations better.” In the end, Useini walked away with the confirmation that emergency medicine is an area of interest for him.

He admits that his eureka moments wouldn’t have been the same without the guidance of a skilled mentor. In his case, that was clinical assistant professor Marianne Pop.

“My preceptor was amazing,” he says. “She always set aside time to take teaching moments out of everything no matter what was happening.”

Since she joined OSF St. Anthony, Pop has been mentoring students and residents as UIC’s resident faculty member in the emergency department. Back in 2009, when the Rockford campus opened its doors, the longstanding partnership between the two institutions was further cemented with the introduction of resident faculty at OSF St. Anthony. Pop, who became the second UIC faculty member to assume that position in 2015, serves as emergency medicine clinical pharmacist and eventually led the establishment of that department’s pharmacy residency program.

“I knew I wanted to work somewhere at a place where I could basically consolidate my passions–emergency medicine and teaching,” says Pop, who, though she was born and raised in Miami Beach, claims she moved north “for the cold weather.” During her PGY2 residency at Tampa General Hospital, she had the opportunity to witness the behind-the-scenes of establishing a residency program, and decided that was also something she wanted to be a part of in her professional career.

Although she acknowledges that the proximity of the Rockford campus and OSF St. Anthony plays a part in driving that relationship, she has observed a more profound synergy over the years.

“Ever since I started here, the biggest thing I noticed was how the community here at the hospital, including the patients, accepted me right away, knowing that I worked for UIC. So what we have to offer is not only providing care, but also an educational component.”

Pop recalls an occasion when she worked with stakeholders at UIC and a staff team at OSF St. Anthony to apply for a mutually developed grant for the emergency medicine department.

“It was nice to see how both sides were really interested in helping the community. Everyone came together in an effort to advance patient care.

“Even though they are two separate institutions, they really have the same vision in mind.”

Although the most obvious illustration of the relationship between the college and OSF HealthCare may exist in Rockford, that is just one of OSF HealthCare’s extensive network of locations in Illinois, and the partnership between the two organizations spans numerous sites throughout the state.

Headquartered in Peoria, OSF HealthCare is a largescale health system comprising 16 hospitals with more than 2,000 licensed beds, 39 urgent care locations, and two colleges of nursing throughout Illinois and Michigan. The organization also includes a homehealth division, a foundation, and even a venture capital arm, which provides funding for promising healthcare innovation startups.

“What’s unique about what OSF has to offer is its broad reach within the state,” says Allison Schriever, clinical assistant professor and director of experiential education at the Rockford campus. “It has large and small facilities, with locations that have an academic center feel, as well as small, critical access hospitals in rural areas with 24 beds and one pharmacist.”

Not only does OSF HealthCare offer UIC students a large spectrum of experiences, those opportunities are spread throughout Illinois, including locations in Ottawa, Mendota, Galesburg, Peoria, and Evergreen Park, to serve the interests of a greater selection of students, as well as a widely varied patient population.

Kevin Rynn, vice dean at the Rockford Campus, feels that the OSF health system as a whole is invaluable to the college. “We partner with quality healthcare institutions like OSF to educate and execute our curriculum, so they’re imperative in the success of the campus and our graduates.”

The relationship between the institutions also includes the University of Illinois College of Medicine, and a number of OSF locations offer training for rural education programs in both pharmacy (RPHARM) and medicine (RMED).

“In my experience, OSF has always been willing to think outside the box, to be different and innovative, for the benefit of both students and patients,” says Schriever.

OSF also employs a number of UIC Pharmacy alumni with whom students can discover mentorship opportunities and begin building their professional networks.

“OSF is a vital contributor to our educational program,” says Dean Glen Schumock, “especially with St. Anthony, which is located close to our Rockford campus. But it’s also statewide because of its larger footprint. We benefit by being able to place students in all those other locations as well.”

Together, Sandy Salverson, PharmD ’96, senior vice president of pharmacy services, and Kyle Shick, PharmD ’07, vice president of pharmacy operations, oversee OSF’s entire division of pharmacy services. They are also UIC Pharmacy alumni who serve as examples for the next generation of pharmacists while shaping the future of the profession—and improving the quality of healthcare in the state of Illinois.

“We wouldn’t be able to do those things if UIC wasn’t providing that quality educational foundation,” she says. “The caliber of students we see is reflective of that.”

Sam Fordjour, PharmD ’24, who was born and raised in Ghana, was halfway through pharmacy school in his home country when his family relocated to the United States, and he had to restart his pharmacy education at UIC.

Despite his disappointment at having to start over, Fordjour commented, “If you already have your mind set on what you want to do, you just have to focus and get the job done.”

He so enjoyed his P2 IPPE experience at OSF St. Anthony with Pop that he returned during his P4 year for another rotation with her for his APPE.

“Once you get to OSF, they match your energy depending on what you’re actually looking for in your rotation,” says Fordjour. “You have to tell them your objectives for the time you’re going to spend with them, what you’re looking to get out of it.”

With his sights on leadership, he decided to pursue a rotation in administration to discover what the “other side of pharmacy” looked like.

After that, Fordjour sought to understand the inner workings of the hospital’s outpatient pharmacy and completed a rotation in retail with Que Mohring, PharmD ’98.

Mohring helps oversee the hospital’s Meds to Beds program, which she helped launch close to seven years ago when she joined OSF St. Anthony as a staff pharmacist.

Like other similar programs, OSF St. Anthony’s Meds to Beds provides an essential service in the patient recovery process by delivering discharge medications to the bedside and providing counseling before a patient leaves the hospital.

Mohring is proud of the bespoke experience that preceptors at OSF are able to offer, which is tailored to each learner’s ability level and interest—and also requires her to keep current with the industry.

“It’s something that I really enjoy doing,” says Mohring. “I love giving back to our profession, and it’s refreshing to see the caliber of students from UIC and how they’re going to be impacting our profession.”

Patients also benefit directly from student involvement in the Meds to Beds program, where students are given direct counseling opportunities. This offers patients valuable points of contact with individuals who are caring for them, says Mohring.

Today, Fordjour is now doing a combined PGY1 and PGY2 residency in health-system pharmacy administration and leadership with an MBA at University of Michigan Health.

“I am especially impressed with Sam Fordjour’s character and dedication to the pharmacy profession,” says Mohring. “Sam is a leader who inspires and motivates me and those around him to strive for excellence.”

P4 Natalie Bitar is currently assigned to the retail pharmacy at OSF St. Anthony with Mohring.

Even though she already knows that she isn’t interested in pursuing a career in retail, Bitar sees value in the experience she’s gaining at OSF St. Anthony.

“The skills you learn in a retail setting can be helpful in any position in pharmacy,” she says. “I want to sharpen those skills, so that I’m able to use them in the future if I need them.”

More importantly, Bitar has learned a valuable lesson that has not only helped her hone in on her own path, but gain a greater appreciation for the work that others do.

“People say it’s important to do what you enjoy,” she says. “It’s less often said that it’s also important to figure out what you don’t like. It’s important to not trap yourself within a narrative of things you like and restrict yourself from things you haven’t tried.

In my experience, the worst thing you’re going to find out is that you don’t like it, and that, in itself, is valuable.”

In that vein, one of OSF HealthCare’s key objectives, says Salverson, is to prepare more students for success by modeling professionalism and providing instruction in real-world skills and how to apply them. In doing this, OSF fulfills its mission throughout the state of Illinois.

“When we talk about ‘serving our communities with the greatest care and love’—it’s not just a tagline. It really is who we are.”