Listen to this interview with Class of 2022 alumna Dr. Kaitlyn North, who returns to her beloved East Tennessee State University Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy not to visit but as one of the newest editions to faculty in the Department of Pharmacy Practice.

Transcript:

Stephen Woodward:

Hi, Stephen.

Michele Williams:

Stephen Woodward:

Kaitlyn North:

Michele Williams:

Kaitlyn North:

So I matched to my outpatient-focused PGY1 residency in South Carolina. That was a rural program. So I thought my skills that I learned and our mission really helped me there. I practiced at a federally qualified health center, which is like the Johnson City Community Health Center across the street. But I kind of describe it like a fancy health department.

We didn't turn anyone away for inability to pay, anything like that. We did sliding scale fees, things like that. So that really helped me sharpen my rural health skills and definitely helped my ambulatory care skills, being savvy with medication cost, things like that.

And then I did a PGY2 in ambulatory care at the University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville. I think that also helped me with Indigenous populations. We had a lot of people come from all the surrounding rural areas to Knoxville because that is our academic medical center, and towards Middle Tennessee. So I saw people from Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina. That was a really good opportunity for me to also sharpen my ambulatory care skills with some of the more niche clinics like cystic fibrosis and specialty clinics like rheumatology and advanced lipid management, things like that.

But I was definitely ready to come home to Gatton. I feel like I'm ready to apply the skills I've learned elsewhere back here.

Stephen Woodward:

Kaitlyn North:

Another thing that's really important that I feel helped me sharpen some skills is in residency. Almost every program has a teaching and learning certificate. They call it different things, like Pharmacy Educator Academy, but it's basically your teaching certificate. They do teach you foundational things like how to write exam questions. A lot of them go over how to be a good preceptor, which is something we obviously don't have any experience with.

So I think getting plugged in in those little ways, and then also a lot of times your residencies will let you be a guest lecturer. I know our residents at Gatton definitely get that. A lot of residents will give you as much as you want. Every college of pharmacy. I loved that. I was volunteering myself to help them.

Faculty members typically don't have as much free time on their hands to help grade OSCEs and things like that. So I really think that volunteering myself for those extra things, both of my residencies were associated with colleges of pharmacy, so making those connections in this world. I know students roll their eyes, but pharmacy really is such a small world. So I think all those connections really helped me.

Continuing education, things like that. I'll do extra CE and then attend meetings, things like that. So I think showing your interest and getting plugged in where you can makes a big difference, especially if you don't have that experience like I did not when I was applying for this job.

Stephen Woodward:

Kaitlyn North:

So I've seen some of my friends really enjoy teaching medical residents. My co-resident from UT that was in ambulatory care actually works for the internal medicine program at UT now. So she doesn't teach at the pharmacy school, not affiliated with them at all. But she's very academic because she's working with the medical residents and teaches them their didactics and things like that. So there might even be more avenues than you think if you're interested in teaching.

Stephen Woodward:

Kaitlyn North:

Stephen Woodward:

Michele Williams:

Kaitlyn North:

The majority of my time is spent in that clinic in Kingsport with family medicine. So a lot of my role is consultative. So a resident comes to me and they say, my patient's A1C is out of control. What medicines should I consider? I do a lot of counseling on things like that.

The bread-and-butter disease states that I see and help with every day: smoking cessation, COPD, diabetes, high blood pressure. You know, I've had a heart attack. Now what do we do? That kind of thing.

So I love being a jack of all trades with ambulatory care. I don't see myself as a specialist. I see myself as a generalist just in a clinic, which I love because it's something new every day. But a lot of specialized clinical pharmacists do find that niche, like ID, cardiology, something like that. Critical care.

I think we're exposed well to the different career areas. It's kind of intimidating your P1 year, I think. We show you what is available as you go through more and more. Like I said, the more I learned, the more I shifted away from pediatrics. I'm sorry, Doctor Thigpen.

My advice would be never too early to consider residencies. They all have websites. Kind of see if that's something you'd be interested in. You get the advice a lot that it's a year of your life, but it unlocks a lot of doors for you.

There's a lot of cool positions. One of the girls I graduated with is a medical writer. So she works for a drug company and writes their literature and their key documents and things like that. So you would not think a pharmacist would be in that role. But I have some friends in industry that represent drugs and act kind of like a medical science liaison.

There are a lot of interesting jobs out there. But yeah, the backbone is definitely community pharmacy. So if that's where you want to go, then I completely support that too.

Michele Williams:

Kaitlyn North:

I think pharmacists are — well, of course I'm going to say they're the backbone of the health system because I am one — but truly, we're the most accessible. You can walk into any independent or chain pharmacy and get medical advice right there. No copays, anything.

I take joy in the fact that I help make decisions. I am responsible for them. But we don't have a lot of the strife that physicians do in terms of how many patients are you seeing in a day and things like that.

I enjoy being someone that physicians lean on instead of someone that needs someone to lean on, if that makes sense.

Stephen Woodward:

Kaitlyn North:

Stephen Woodward:

Kaitlyn North:

My first year, I'm helping with skills labs with things you would see in ambulatory care, like smoking cessation devices, the inhalers, more hands-on labs. I'll be in the CGM, or continuous glucose monitor like Dexcom, that lab for students. In the spring, I'll be teaching the SOAP note writing portion for outpatient practice in the skills labs.

After that next year, I don't know. That's the fun of being a generalist, right? I might teach gout. I might teach who knows what. But I probably will be popping in and out of the pharmacotherapy courses as they need me to.

Stephen Woodward:

Michele Williams:

Kaitlyn North:

We do interact with that organization through our Clinical Pharmacy Challenge, but I feel like I would have really blossomed in that as a student. So that's something in my five-year plan. I have probably groups and coworkers helping me with that.

I'm definitely excited to continue with research endeavors with the rural population that I serve in Kingsport. Most of my patients, I believe, are on TennCare, which is our Medicaid, or Medicare. So we definitely have a population that is underserved.

So I'm excited to have some projects brewing in my mind. I'd like to start at my clinic, but I need some time to get that going and get more settled. I really do want to be an integral part of our faculty and give back because I'm a very proud alumna.

I would go to Gatton again in a heartbeat if I could. And I think that's because of the faculty that are now my colleagues. So I really want to give back in the ways they have.

Michele Williams:

Stephen Woodward:

Kaitlyn North:

Stephen Woodward: