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By East Tennessee State UniversityMedicine Health & Fitness Education

White Coat Radio episodes

October 05 Episode 35 — From Gatton to Independent Pharmacy: Dr. Robbie Monahan’s Journey
On this episode of our college podcast, White Coat Radio, we're joined by Dr. Robbie Monahan, a member of the inaugural Class of 2010, who reflects on the importance of independent community pharmacy, memories from Gatton, and how the college helped prepare him for his future in pharmacy. Monahan is Pharmacist-in-Charge and Director of Pharmacy Operations at Marcrom’s Pharmacy in Manchester, Tennessee.
Transcript:
00;00;00;13 - 00;00;32;05
Robbie Monahan
My inaugural class was constantly reminded of the support of the community, and we were reminded that with that support came an expectation and obligation to be really good citizens.
00;00;32;08 - 00;00;55;14
Michele Williams
Welcome to White Coat Radio, a podcast from East Tennessee State University Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy in Johnson City, Tennessee. Each episode, we cover a wide range of topics about the pharmacy school experience, from study tips to deep dives with faculty and student pharmacists. I'm one of your hosts, Doctor Michele Williams, assistant professor and director of academic success.
00;00;55;16 - 00;01;23;15
Stephen Woodward
And I'm Stephen Woodward, marketing and communications manager at Gatton. Doctor Robbie Monahan is a member of Gatton's inaugural class of 2010, where he served as the college's first student body vice president. Now, he is pharmacist in charge and director of Pharmacy operations at Marcrom’s Pharmacy, an independent community pharmacy in Manchester, Tennessee. There, he leads a team of approximately 40 pharmacists, technicians and support staff.
00;01;23;17 - 00;01;48;26
Stephen Woodward
In addition, Doctor Monahan is active in the Tennessee Pharmacists Association and the American Pharmacists Association. Since the student pharmacist years, he is past chair and current Secretary of TPA’s Tennessee Society of Independent Pharmacists. He's become a prominent voice in Tennessee's efforts to expand collaborative pharmacy practice in patient care. Delivering a keynote address for TPA and testifying before the Tennessee Board of Pharmacy.
00;01;48;29 - 00;02;09;06
Stephen Woodward
He is passionate about developing future pharmacy leaders and finding sustainable ways to serve underserved communities. Towards the end of the podcast, you may notice that it sounds like someone is mowing and weed eating inside a recording studio. We apologize for that extra noise. But now, without further ado, let's get to our interview. Thank you so much for coming on to White Coat Radio.
00;02;09;10 - 00;02;13;03
Stephen Woodward
I know it's been a busy whirlwind of a day for you, but we appreciate you making time for us.
00;02;13;04 - 00;02;17;13
Robbie Monahan
Yeah. Thank you for having me. This is a been a blast of the day already.
00;02;17;15 - 00;02;22;13
Stephen Woodward
Well, you want to start by just telling us who you are and where you're from. A little bit about your backstory.
00;02;22;14 - 00;02;50;08
Robbie Monahan
So, yeah. Robbie Monahan of Class of 2010. Somehow they let me in the first class here. I grew up in wood, Virginia, just over the line. In in Virginia. My, graduated from otherwise, in 2006. My wife and I got married shortly thereafter, and we moved to Johnson City. You know, at school here.
00;02;50;10 - 00;03;14;16
Robbie Monahan
Lived here, worked here for a long time. And then, life here it is down to Manchester, Tennessee. And. Yeah, middle Tennessee. And now that Marcrom’s pharmacy, it's, obviously, and partial, but I think it's one of the best pharmacies, I would say, in the world. But yeah, I think we do. I think we do a really good job.
00;03;14;18 - 00;03;34;13
Robbie Monahan
So, I get to serve down there as our, pharmacist in charge and title was, director of pharmacy operations, but. So Joe McNamee, Sarah McCabe, owners, GM, some of our best friends. I get to work with them, and I get to work with my wife. It's great. So you can't beat that.
00;03;34;15 - 00;03;40;23
Michele Williams
Though. That does sound great. Thank you. So we're recording this on World Pharmacists Day.
00;03;40;24 - 00;03;42;20
Robbie Monahan
Yeah, it's.
00;03;42;22 - 00;03;55;09
Michele Williams
September 25th, and we plan to release the podcast during American Pharmacists Month in October. So can you tell us a little bit about what made you want to become a pharmacist?
00;03;55;12 - 00;04;23;07
Robbie Monahan
Yeah. And it's so funny. I didn't realize it was World Pharmacist Day until, my wife was wanting to take pictures of all of us, of a pharmacist, and we were like, there's something going on. So she made a, like, a silly a photo of all of us that are microbes and released it. So. Yeah. Like, and, I get a lot of, flak from some of my friends because I always work this in that conversation.
00;04;23;07 - 00;04;46;08
Robbie Monahan
But my dad was a coal miner. That's that's kind of the running joke there, I will tell you, is that was scope. But like, you know, he was and my all my family, that's what we did. I'm the first. Well, I would have been the first Monahan to to go to college, but my uncle, after he left the mines, he beat me.
00;04;46;10 - 00;05;33;18
Robbie Monahan
I finished, but I'm the first one that, you know, didn't go in mindset. And so we, Dad got hurt in the mines, and he he wasn't able to work. When I say he's okay, like he's hurt, he wasn't able to work. But in 1989, I remember. So I would have been six. And so all I've ever known was dad, after he got hurt and he made sure that what we were going to do, we would be able to provide with our brands and on our backs, and, I remember, my first job I was in high school.
00;05;33;18 - 00;05;54;04
Robbie Monahan
I got to deejay at a radio station. I did that just on the weekends. That was a blast. And then my first, like, showing up more than one day a week job was, in the summer. I got to work at, local Chevrolet dealership. And I washed cars, and I realized, I mean, it sucks to work.
00;05;54;11 - 00;06;13;27
Robbie Monahan
I had to work that hard. Like, I was not, just like those guys worked so hard, and, I mean, so many people work so hard physically. Yeah. And, you know, what we did is difficult, but it's like, it's a different kind of difficult. And then I got to work at a, at a Rite Aid in Glenwood, Virginia, and it was air conditioned.
00;06;13;27 - 00;06;37;18
Robbie Monahan
Yeah. And I got paid just to sweet talk. Grandmother used to tell jokes like I used to, but, yeah, I got to share this today. Most of my life, I've kind of felt a tension between, like, two callings. For a long time, I thought I was supposed to go into, quote unquote ministry, but then maybe. Was I supposed to go into pharmacy like, or health care in some way, or.
00;06;37;19 - 00;07;07;06
Robbie Monahan
It's just been very much someone who loves to care for other people and it really wasn't until I got to more friends, truly, that I saw those two things actually work together, that it genuinely get to care for the body and the spirit of the person. And I love that, I almost got out of pharmacy because I kind of felt like.
00;07;07;08 - 00;07;25;18
Robbie Monahan
I was doing was keeping the machine moving. Yeah. You know, it's just legal drug dealing is kind of the way that I felt at one point. Just if I am super candid, and, I kind of had through some prayer and, and I did leave the profession for a short period of time. I went, did something else.
00;07;25;18 - 00;07;49;26
Robbie Monahan
And what drew me back was actually I missed caring for people because I think, you know, I was so jaded by, you know, what is it you, you you see what you look for? And I kept looking for the things that the problems I was looking at the frustrations I was looking at, everything that I saw wrong with the with the profession that I missed, what was right.
00;07;49;29 - 00;08;16;16
Robbie Monahan
And so that's what drew me back, was take care people. And and that's what that's what I love. You know, I tell students, I tell our staff as pharmacists, there's not a pharmacy anywhere that sells great day pills is what I always tell everyone. People are sick or hurt. They're sad. They've had bad news.
00;08;16;17 - 00;08;49;23
Robbie Monahan
As a doctor, something has gone wrong at some level or another. It's. It's may not be the end of the world. It might be for them. And so we get to meet people at a very vulnerable position and walk with them through that period. And so that's something that I take a lot of pride. And I try to do that well, is, is to just be there with that person in that moment so that, what drew me to pharmacy again, if I'm super candid, was it looked like a really fun, easy way to make a good living.
00;08;49;28 - 00;09;00;18
Robbie Monahan
Yeah. And along the way, I realized wasn't really any of that. It wasn't easy. It was. It is fun for me. But what's kept me in pharmacy is the people I get to take care of.
00;09;00;20 - 00;09;03;24
Michele Williams
It sounds like it matches up really well with your values.
00;09;04;01 - 00;09;45;22
Robbie Monahan
It does. And, I think. Like, particularly community pharmacy. So I know pharmacy is, is bigger than hospital or community. You know, you know, we want to just simplify it to that. But then community pharmacy just feels so, so awesome. Like I, I worked in and again, I know community pharmacy is broader than just chain and independent and it but I did the chain pharmacy yesterday thing wrong with that.
00;09;45;22 - 00;10;08;14
Robbie Monahan
It just wasn't right for me. And there's people that are doing great work in chain pharmacy. But for me we going back to like lining up with values. And I think also lining up with just how I'm built, how I'm wired and, and how I operate. Not everyone is going to be comfortable being a little bit of a maverick, you know, and and it just happens to suit me.
00;10;08;14 - 00;10;37;26
Robbie Monahan
And so I think that for me, community independent, pharmacy, not the chain drug lacks a heart or compassion or anything, but I think the biggest difference that I've experienced in my career, in Chain drug I felt a little handcuffed. I felt there was the security of the system, and, but there was also the restraint of the system as well.
00;10;37;29 - 00;10;59;12
Robbie Monahan
Not that I'm there to not that I'm trying to break rules, but I'm not in 1 or 2. And and I would never do it for my own benefit. I found myself I would been the old Apple patient, you know, maybe I'm not. Maybe grandma was out of her blood pressure pills and maybe, like, 90 out of 100 pharmacies.
00;10;59;12 - 00;11;25;09
Robbie Monahan
I would refill it anyway. You know, it's like I would do stuff like that, and, and so, I think independent pharmacy for me gives me a little bit more freedom to, quote Reggie Miller when he was, when I was at Etsu, he spoke and he said, if you bend a role to help a patient, we have your back.
00;11;25;11 - 00;11;33;29
Robbie Monahan
If you bend a rule to make a dollar will email you to the floor. And I've never forgotten that. It's like, gosh.
00;11;34;01 - 00;11;46;11
Stephen Woodward
Well, could you give us kind of a glimpse into the life the day to day? Yes. Goings on, even the most mundane thing to the most heroic thing that you might do can just kind of go walk us through that.
00;11;46;13 - 00;12;16;17
Robbie Monahan
So as as I think about I share this with some students I got to speak with, today, my week in in the way that I work, I kind of have a few days of the week that, we would call it on the bench. You know, I'm working as a pharmacist, verifying prescriptions, entering clinical questions, counseling a lot of what we would think a pharmacist would typically do in a community setting.
00;12;16;17 - 00;12;41;00
Robbie Monahan
So those are days that I'm, Or I'm, I would say I'm working in the business. And then I have days of the week that I'm kind of in office that I would you may say I'm working on the business, so I'm trying to maybe expand, some clinical opportunities or help develop a new, an arm of the business or that sort of thing.
00;12;41;03 - 00;13;13;04
Robbie Monahan
So, you know, Marcrom’s pharmacy has been around 1778. Ray. Margaret. Ray is Jane. Ray passed a couple of years ago. Miss Jane is just so she gives the best her. She's the sweetest. And it's a and I, Ray and Larry Talbot are kind of, you know, they went and swam together.
00;13;13;07 - 00;13;26;10
Robbie Monahan
And I see similarities, you know, those guys. But Ray. Built something really special. And Margaret's,
00;13;26;12 - 00;13;59;15
Robbie Monahan
Even before computers, Ray was very invested in technology. He was invested in finding new ways to maximize your opportunity to take care of him. And I think that is woven into what we do. And so we're kind of always looking for new opportunities to take care of folks. So we've got about 40 staff, so we'll do 14 to 15,000 prescriptions in a month.
00;13;59;15 - 00;14;34;06
Robbie Monahan
So, we have compound lab, I love this. Last month I saw, over 120 patients, through my collaborative practice. I wear a lot of hats. And then as far as our other pharmacists, we have we have one pharmacist that's really passionate about hormone therapy. And, and, and then I think.
00;14;34;09 - 00;14;53;22
Robbie Monahan
I probably this is one of the things that some students would push back on or even some practicing pharmacists. I probably work if you think about like if you count the time, I'm just sitting with my computer out, like looking through things and trying to be creative. I might be working 60 or 70 hours a week, but I it's not 60 or 70 hours a week.
00;14;53;22 - 00;15;16;11
Robbie Monahan
I stay in the pharmacy. Yeah. I'm I'm working on the bench, you know, 30 hours a week, 30 plus. And then, you know, 1015. I'll probably be in the office 10 or 15 hours a week. And then I'll also just be sitting on my computer looking at peptides or looking at, you know, was Alex Pharmacy, you know, teaching.
00;15;16;11 - 00;15;39;09
Robbie Monahan
And I'm looking at I'm not a very smart business person. You know, I've learned I'm always trying to learn what's more, mosey teaching or, Marcus among us is, is a guy that I like to read a lot. And, I'm always just trying to improve those things. So I think,
00;15;39;11 - 00;15;51;06
Robbie Monahan
You always. You also need to know how to work on computers, printers, if you can. If you work on printers, you can work in a pharmacy. And then I think the thing that I'm.
00;15;51;09 - 00;15;54;10
Robbie Monahan
I'm learning.
00;15;54;12 - 00;16;15;25
Robbie Monahan
This happens in a lot of professions. The people that get promoted to leaders are really good doers. And I thought I was it I thought it was. I really thought I was a leader for a long time. And I had a really honest conversation with myself. Like, you're not a very good leader. You're a really good doer and you're really mad.
00;16;15;25 - 00;16;43;20
Robbie Monahan
You may be a magnetic person, but I wasn't like, leaders should have, like, kind of a wake of people that are learning behind them. And I realized I didn't I wasn't really creating that. And so I've been really trying to be, a few years ago, I tried to become more intentional about investing in and people because I am standing on the shoulders of a lot of awesome people before me.
00;16;43;23 - 00;17;14;09
Robbie Monahan
And it hit me. I was at a TVA event, and I was looking around, and I was like, yeah, a lot of the guys that were here when I was a student are not here. And it's my turn and I'm, I don't know if any of my classmates or people are going to listen to this, but it's our turn to step up and really carry the torch because, you know, presenting Blaire Calhoun's No More Stay Home.
00;17;14;10 - 00;17;33;25
Robbie Monahan
He don't want to go to all of these events, you know, and he, you know, it's going to be Robby's turn or or a team rose turn or, you know, Jeff Ward's turn. All these guys, I want to do it like it's time, time for us to step up. So I think that's the next place that I need to get involved is,
00;17;33;27 - 00;17;51;01
Robbie Monahan
And I'm starting to try and get more involved, like TVA and those sorts of things. And, I was just kind of like, yes, I'm just going to handle that. And, you look around, it's like there's not really any somebody here. So yeah, that's the next thing.
00;17;51;03 - 00;18;07;25
Michele Williams
Well, thinking about your time at Gatton and, and the students who were with, can you tell us what how Gatton, might have prepared you for the role you play now? Oh, yeah.
00;18;07;28 - 00;18;29;03
Robbie Monahan
I showed up. Okay. You back up. I'm not incredibly mature now. And mature, but I was far from mature when I showed up here as a student. I think Gatton did a lot to raise me, and,
00;18;29;05 - 00;18;35;20
Robbie Monahan
And it let me be me. I think,
00;18;35;22 - 00;18;55;01
Robbie Monahan
Our, If I look at our inaugural class like you, if any of the students or any people who listen to this, in the second floor out here is the positive. I know your class. It's a little bit different than a lot of the other classes, or a lot of the composites. Part of.
00;18;55;04 - 00;19;23;03
Robbie Monahan
We have young people with older people. We had a very diverse group. We had rookies, we had veterans, people who had been in pharmacy forever, people who had a, I think Gatton let Robbie Monahan be me. And there were people that I went to class with, ignorant professors here. It's true. That's not my path.
00;19;23;03 - 00;19;30;03
Robbie Monahan
Right? There are people that I went to school with that are now,
00;19;30;05 - 00;20;06;01
Robbie Monahan
I just look at some of that. My classmates, some of the folks who've come behind in are accomplishing amazing things. Gatton. I think about my my role now as a father of two children, and they're and they're similar, but they're very different. And I can't expected my daughter to act like my son or vice versa. I have them standards and expectations, but I want them to be an individual, and I feel like that's the way I was able to be treated here.
00;20;06;04 - 00;20;09;14
Robbie Monahan

00;20;09;16 - 00;20;42;09
Robbie Monahan
Pharmacy has room for Ralph Lugo. ... it's Larry Calhoun, it's Stacy Brown, it's it's independent. It's changed. It's hospital, it's ambulatory. And when a lot of schools, I know enough people who went to other places and it's it's very cookie cutter. And I think here we were reminded my, my girl class was constantly reminded of the support of the community.
00;20;42;12 - 00;20;55;28
Robbie Monahan
And we were reminded that with that support came an expectation, an obligation to be really good citizens. And,
00;20;56;01 - 00;21;12;28
Robbie Monahan
It just it allowed me to fail forward. That's that's the word I will use. I think back to a, we're playing, in a real basketball against the College of Medicine, and, and I remember.
00;21;13;01 - 00;21;13;13
Stephen Woodward
That wasn't.
00;21;13;13 - 00;21;26;11
Robbie Monahan
Competitive at all. No, no, no, it's very laid back. And Larry Calhoun, Dean Calhoun said we can't lose this game. Okay.
00;21;26;14 - 00;21;51;06
Robbie Monahan
What? We what? Later on, we did not say was, we can't lose this game at any cost. Right. But that's what we we decided we're. That was we're not letting the dean down. And we may or may not have. I personally may or may not have acted a fool. We won the game, but like, again, that was an opportunity when he had that.
00;21;51;08 - 00;22;21;20
Robbie Monahan
I have, such a love for Dean Calhoun is as just one of my mentors and I think, yeah, there are so many moments like that. Like they let me be me and I think that that is what I appreciate so much. Because at a time when I was, you know, I was growing and learning and having been a, a child who wasn't challenged in the sense so arrogant, I wasn't challenged much academically until I got here.
00;22;21;23 - 00;22;46;22
Robbie Monahan
And, and I really good life. Like, I wasn't challenged much in life. And then I got here and I had just gotten married, and I just moved out of, you know, that all the time, fruits of home and all that. And the world slapped me in the face, and my wife and I were trying to navigate life and, oh, okay, well, this is not as easy as it was 2 or 3 months ago.
00;22;46;24 - 00;22;52;16
Robbie Monahan
And so it was a really safe space to grow and develop.
00;22;52;19 - 00;22;56;02
Michele Williams
And yeah, that's great. That's really good.
00;22;56;05 - 00;22;58;04
Robbie Monahan
Yeah.
00;22;58;07 - 00;23;13;17
Stephen Woodward
Why? I know you're a frequent guest speaker here we get and you were here, I think you spoken to one class and one student organization. Just today. But I know a few months ago or last semester, you came here as well. So what do you enjoy about coming back and speaking to the next generation?
00;23;13;19 - 00;23;36;03
Robbie Monahan
I genuinely have so much love for so many of my professors and so many faculty members, but but there are two that that really stand out to me. And I mentioned one of them is, is Dean Calhoun. And then one of them was brought up, and I know there's many students that would listen or folks that listen to this that never got to know Barnard.
00;23;36;05 - 00;24;02;23
Robbie Monahan
And I know there are people who are listening to this who love random, and they're both really special to me because they're both very other. They're both very different. Larry Calhoun, I've often said, is the least thing, like being in the world, being Byrd is she's saying kind of, what if I but Larry was if you put him in a room of 100 danger, he's always being like, everybody in that room, Rhino.
00;24;02;23 - 00;24;28;12
Robbie Monahan
You put him in a room full of 100 professors. He was Lily's professor, like Guy and Robbie Monahan. You put him in a room of 100 pharmacists, and I'm. The list is like, everything. And so when I saw those guys, though, I saw. I saw representation of me. And, that mattered. Like, they show me that you don't have to be somebody who fits into a mold, in order in order to work.
00;24;28;12 - 00;24;53;01
Robbie Monahan
And I enjoy coming back because, like, I'm confident enough now in my voice that there's going to be people that sit in that room, that they're not going to connect with me. That's fine. Okay. But there's going to be I come back because there's going to be one student that connected with me today that maybe inspired to go get involved or do something or take a chance.
00;24;53;01 - 00;25;27;20
Robbie Monahan
And, there's somebody who thinks differently than everybody else or, or speaks differently. And, and so I really am excited for for that because where would I have been without those guys? There's, there's also the, the knowledge that we, we stand on the shoulders of giants. I remember when I was going to school here at First District, you used to read out the old Peerless Steakhouse, and they have a pharmacy ladies down there, and it would be packed with all of the guys that I wanted to be like.
00;25;27;26 - 00;25;57;14
Robbie Monahan
And now they're not we're not there. And so I don't know, you know, I told you when we when we started this school, the community really rallied around us and, I still remember and take it very seriously, that I remember Guy Wilson, ... class. And I remember, remember when, very welcome, you know, came and talked to my class and I was like, that dude's a little weird.
00;25;57;14 - 00;26;17;17
Robbie Monahan
I like him, you know, and it's just like, I think, selfishly, I come back to because from pharmacy should have stayed at it. And we don't have a lot of students. And I know we're not geographically that easy to get to, but what we do is special and.
00;26;17;19 - 00;26;51;23
Robbie Monahan
I'm also very in the last year, I become very aware that community pharmacies have been a disservice to students. There are brilliant, academicians here that are going to recruit students to want to teach. There are brilliant clinicians here that are going to recruit people to and here in the hospital and all the stuff, and then you get a lot of guys that run independent pharmacies or chain pharmacies, and they get students and they complain all day to their student and they put them in the fails.
00;26;51;29 - 00;26;59;09
Robbie Monahan
And have you got prescriptions? Who is inspired about that? And so.
00;26;59;11 - 00;27;17;09
Robbie Monahan
I really just want to come back and, and maybe show some excitement about what community pharmacies about, like, we're going to fight for the soul of what we do or else ten years, 20 years from now, we're we're all going to want to turn around and hand it over to somebody. And the only person that's going to be there is going to be.
00;27;17;09 - 00;27;48;25
Robbie Monahan
And again, nothing gets changed. But like, they'll buy you business, but there's not going to be anybody there want to take it out because you've run off anybody that might have had a had a desire to do that. And so, I owe so much to this profession. And also selfishly, I want to see good people carry on what we're doing.
00;27;48;27 - 00;27;59;26
Michele Williams
It makes sense. So as a as a graduate of the inaugural class at Gatton, what are some of your favorite memories.
00;28;00;03 - 00;28;01;17
Robbie Monahan
From the college?
00;28;01;22 - 00;28;04;08
Michele Williams
So that you have a lot.
00;28;04;10 - 00;28;26;21
Robbie Monahan
I do, and I have to think about which ones I'm allowed to share, legally. And obviously like, I think my favorite memory, though, that they honestly, it kind of underscores a little bit of what we've been talking about, about feeling a little bit raised by Gatton and also maybe why, like, home means so much to me.
00;28;26;23 - 00;28;45;29
Robbie Monahan
I was really torn. Do I go into ministry? You go to pharmacy. And I thought about dropping out of pharmacy school, and there's a Friday afternoon and I was like, I said, Dana, I'm going to my office. You know, they talk to you about stuff they didn't think I might need to, leave pharmaceutical industry. And he's.
00;28;45;29 - 00;29;09;20
Robbie Monahan
I come over and I went by this was again before we had this building is over built to. And he had a he built, no doubt on his door that said, sorry, something came up. Let's talk Monday. Well after weekend, you know, slept on it right on about on it, you know, thought better come Monday.
00;29;09;21 - 00;29;33;26
Robbie Monahan
I don't want to leave. I'm still gonna find out. I'm pretty sure he was in his office that Friday. He knew that he didn't want to give it to me. Having a knee jerk reaction on a Friday is still married on Monday. That it didn't matter, but, you know, again, those are the memories that I, that I think about, and then.
00;29;33;28 - 00;30;03;15
Robbie Monahan
One that I love, that's grown was in the middle actually one day and we had so our class went through the summer. We did two years in like a year and a half. But, so we started January 17th in 2007 and we went all the first year, no summer break when I was that year, we got caught up in a vow the fall semester.
00;30;03;16 - 00;30;24;05
Robbie Monahan
What would have been the the start of our second year. But we never really take a break. We were all tired. We were in the basement of that old building and, that room. I remember one day in lectures, he's like, yes. And he's and he's up there, he's like, yes, you're tired of this. You think we're not having this?
00;30;24;07 - 00;30;53;19
Robbie Monahan
You think you're not. You know, he said, you think we're not seeing you. Do you think I don't want to be doing something else? Like, he just had this great, very honest, very dramatic moment. And I was like. And it was so funny that it may have been the same day or night. And, I also remember in his lecture, right in the middle of his lecture, his phone rang and I get a flip phone that maybe, and his wife called and he answered the call and it was like, he's like, hello?
00;30;53;22 - 00;31;22;02
Robbie Monahan
Yes, I'm doing my lecture. And I just love that because it was totally true to his brain gratitude. He was. But it also like it was really fun that it's like, hey, I don't care what I'm doing. If my wife calls, I'm going to hate it. That was just that was who he is. So I just think back to the time we spent, like, I can think about whether it's, you know, we got to see they were more than just.
00;31;22;04 - 00;31;47;09
Robbie Monahan
We spent so much time together, like they were almost family. You know, I saw Charles Collins in Compounding Lab, but I also saw he was a wizard with a ping pong paddle. You know, I saw, catnip, which I'm thinking and. And just like those guys roughly go like, we spent so much time together. That it was it was really special.
00;31;47;14 - 00;32;09;01
Robbie Monahan
It's. I think it's why. Oh, and again, no shade to the classes behind us, but they're not as like, it takes a very special person to, in a kind of a, a little bit of a dumb person to say, hey, listen, we're not sure if we're going to get this. Great. We need you take a chance on us.
00;32;09;01 - 00;32;27;14
Robbie Monahan
Or do you just let me. Yeah. Everybody was taking the chance. The faculty, they moved their families here to take it. Take a chance on this thing. It was really one of those. No risk. It. No biscuit kind of moments where everybody's counting on each other. Yeah. And I think that is one of the other things that made us so tight is.
00;32;27;14 - 00;32;27;28
Robbie Monahan
Yeah.
00;32;28;01 - 00;32;28;28
Michele Williams
I we're serious.
00;32;28;28 - 00;32;48;18
Robbie Monahan
Trailblazer. Yeah, yeah, yeah I mean we we weren't the only one taking chances. I don't think we realize it at the time here. Yeah. The chance the faculty was taking us too. And while they pushed us the way that they did, but it did make us very close.
00;32;48;20 - 00;32;50;19
Stephen Woodward
So. Yeah, that's a great note to end on.
00;32;50;23 - 00;32;51;29
Robbie Monahan
Thank.
00;32;52;02 - 00;32;53;29
Stephen Woodward
Well. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you for coming out.
00;32;54;00 - 00;32;55;28
Robbie Monahan
Thank you for having us.
00;32;56;00 - 00;56;33;00
Stephen Woodward
Thanks for listening to White Coat Radio. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe and leave this review to learn more about ETSU Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy, visit us at ETSU dot Edu Slash Pharmacy or follow us on social media at ETSUpharmacy. We'll see you next time.

34 min
September 02 Episode 34 — A passion for pharmacy and teaching: Brunella Martinelli De Medeiros Fiuza (’28)
On this episode of White Coat Radio, we’re joined by Brunella Martinelli De Medeiros Fiuza (’28), a student pharmacist from Brazil who chose East Tennessee State University Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy to pursue her goal of practicing pharmacy in the United States. Fiuza shares her journey to Gatton through one of the college’s flexible admissions pathways and how she is now pursuing another goal that began in Brazil: becoming a pharmacy educator. Recently selected as one of 29 student pharmacists nationwide for the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy’s 2026–27 Aspiring Academics Program, Fiuza discusses her path to pharmacy, her passion for education and what this national opportunity means for her future. This interview was recorded when she was a P2. Listen to the video interview on Youtube.
Transcript:
00;00;00;04 - 00;00;32;05
Brunella
They students here I feel like is more like a family. Not like very not competitive. It's more like a family. Everybody's helping everybody to, you know, to get to that goal and get our diplomas.
00;00;32;07 - 00;00;55;10
Michele
Welcome to White Coat Radio, a podcast from East Tennessee State University Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy in Johnson City, Tennessee. Each episode, we cover a wide range of topics about the pharmacy school experience, from study tips to deep dives with faculty and student pharmacists. I'm one of your hosts, Doctor Michelle Williams, assistant professor and director of academic success.
00;00;55;13 - 00;01;26;14
Stephen
And I'm Stephen Woodward, marketing and communications manager, again. Today we welcome Brunella, a P3, who is a practicing pharmacist in Brazil as well as a teacher. And she came to America with her family, not speaking any English. Later she enrolled at Gatton through our second career pathway and was recently selected to participate in the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy Aspiring Academics Program, a national initiative designed to introduce pharmacy students to careers in academic pharmacy and prepare future faculty members.
00;01;26;16 - 00;01;36;13
Stephen
You can also hear a video of today's interview on our YouTube youtube.com slash at Etsu pharmacy. Let's hear more from her now.
00;01;36;16 - 00;01;54;22
Brunella
Hi, my name is Brunella Martinelli De Medeiros Fiuza. I'm a two year student at Bill Get and College of Pharmacy. All I'm a I'm a prunella just so as to the the annual and I will college the pharmacy I will get an and it's you two.
00;01;54;24 - 00;01;56;01
Stephen
Where are you from originally?
00;01;56;07 - 00;02;13;27
Brunella
I'm from Brazil. My city name is Vitoria, in the state of Espirito Santo is a beautiful tiny island just close to the coast, in Brazil, southeast of Brazil. And it's a beautiful place to live.
00;02;14;00 - 00;02;18;04
Stephen
Tell us about the journey from Brazil to Johnson City, Tennessee.
00;02;18;07 - 00;02;51;08
Brunella
I lived in Brazil, most of my life, and I did my bachelor's bachelor's degree in pharmacy in Brazil. I graduated there, and I worked as a community pharmacist in Celina, compounding Pharmacy for about 7 to 8 years in total. And, after a while, my family and I decided to move to the US because my husband wanted to pursue the doctorate.
00;02;51;10 - 00;03;20;17
Brunella
Here in the US. So we moved here. My husband and our son and me after I moved here. I started learning English first and then the. Because my husband was doing his doctorate in Spanish literature, we ended up meeting a lot of people from Latin America and Spain. They were in the same, course as he was.
00;03;20;20 - 00;03;46;21
Brunella
So we ended up meeting a lot of people who had their first language. Their first language was Spanish. So I started learning Spanish to talk to them. And, since they were also teaching Spanish at college level, I asked them if I could sit in their classes to learn some more. And that's how I learned both English and Spanish.
00;03;46;24 - 00;03;50;20
Stephen
What led you to want to become a teacher?
00;03;50;22 - 00;04;17;03
Brunella
So after I learned some Spanish, I asked one of the professors from the Department of Language and Literature if I could sit in his class to learn more about literature. I always loved reading, so. And since I knew Spanish already in English, so I asked if I could sit in his class. And I really enjoyed taking, Latin American literature class.
00;04;17;05 - 00;04;40;05
Brunella
And by the end of the course, he asked me if I was interested in applying for the Masters in Latin American literature. And, I was surprised because I wasn't expecting that. But then I decided to, apply. I talked to other professors, and they convinced me to apply, and they thought it would be a good fit because I loved, reading.
00;04;40;05 - 00;04;50;02
Brunella
I loved learning about languages and cultures. So I applied for the masters and then I started my masters and followed with the PhD.
00;04;50;05 - 00;04;55;27
Stephen
So what led to you wanting to become a pharmacist here in America and study in Johnson City?
00;04;56;00 - 00;05;24;13
Brunella
So I had a lot of experience teaching Spanish while I was at graduate school. And then when my husband finished his PhD, he got a job here in Johnson City. So we moved here and, right at the beginning, when we moved here, we heard about the school in 100, and we went there and I got to the Etsu health fair, where I met some of the students and pharmacy students.
00;05;24;15 - 00;05;50;17
Brunella
And one of the students were talking to me about, how important it is to have people that could speak other languages and know about other cultures, and they could relate to the, local community in tri cities, because there is not a lot of health care professionals that can speak other languages or understand other cultures. And they said, why don't you come back?
00;05;50;20 - 00;06;15;28
Brunella
Why don't you go to Bill Gatton and pursue your pharm.d degree? It would be great to have, an extra person fighting with us and representing our community. So after that meeting with the students, I was volunteering as a medical interpreter at JSU health clinics, and I got to meet some of the health care professionals.
00;06;16;01 - 00;06;40;16
Brunella
And they also talked to me about Bill Gatton and how great a school is. And he's one of the best college of pharmacy schools there is. And we are just right here. We were already living in Johnson City, but because of my pathway for, the changing of status, I couldn't apply, right away. I had to wait.
00;06;40;18 - 00;07;21;20
Brunella
So in 2023, when we finally got it approved, I came here to talk to Mr. Ellis, and he walked with me through the pathway. All the options I had, because since I was already a pharmacist in Brazil and I already had like, my curriculum, some courses and stuff that they already have here. So he just basically walk with me, like what I needed to do in order to get my diploma recognized here by the board of pharmacy, or the option of coming to get and then pursue all their four years for the farm degree.
00;07;21;23 - 00;07;40;08
Brunella
So he was like above and beyond to walk with me through that path. All the options I had, he laid down like very clearly what whatever I needed to do. So I applied for the college in the next year, in 2024.
00;07;40;10 - 00;07;42;24
Stephen
So why did you want to pursue pharmacy to begin with?
00;07;42;25 - 00;08;11;16
Brunella
Back in Brazil, I decided to pursue, the career as a pharmacist because I love to serve. That was like it is a calling my life to serve others. And I thought among all the career pathways, including the love for chemistry and math and serving others, I thought being a pharmacist would be a great fit for me.
00;08;11;18 - 00;08;25;26
Brunella
I love the interaction with patients and getting to know them and getting to, walk with them to a better, health goal. So I just that's why I chose pharmacy as a career.
00;08;25;29 - 00;08;26;21
Stephen
That's great.
00;08;26;23 - 00;08;57;05
Brunella
So the transition from not being in school and going back to school was a hard one. I was already working, since I got my working permit, I went back to teach Spanish at the main campus and going back to school again was, an adaptation. It was a hard one to get back to that routine of study, you know, and sit down in a classroom instead of standing up.
00;08;57;07 - 00;09;34;11
Brunella
It was a big challenge for me. And, I'm glad that I found, a great group of professors and students that were really supportive. I could find, like, every support I needed here, I got and I had, like, a great group of friends and, Doctor Williams, who is an exceptional person who helped us a lot with getting organized and Gary getting ready to study and all the schedule scheduling routines for studying.
00;09;34;13 - 00;09;54;16
Brunella
She's been a great help. And, they students here, I feel like is more like a family. Not like very not competitive is more like a family. Everybody's helping everybody to, you know, to get to that goal and get our diplomas.
00;09;54;19 - 00;10;01;23
Stephen
So what advice would you give someone who's been out of school for a while but wants to come back and pursue pharmacy.
00;10;01;25 - 00;10;33;01
Brunella
You know, an advice I would give to a nontraditional student to go back to school is to first get your schedule ready. And, be organized and try to, make sure you have time to study, but also to have time to relax, because it is stressful, because you have to study all the time. And sometimes you have other responsibilities like family and kids.
00;10;33;03 - 00;10;50;26
Brunella
And it's it is hard. I'm not going to lie. It is challenging. But I would say if you have a great support group that's been very, very helpful. That's that's great. If you have a support group and if you get organized, you can do it.
00;10;50;28 - 00;10;54;22
Stephen
So what do you want to do when you graduate?
00;10;54;24 - 00;11;21;20
Brunella
What I help to do when I graduate is continue to serve my community, especially the Latino community and the underserved communities around the tri cities area. And I really hope I can be an asset to them. You know, knowing that I can speak more than one language and being able to relate to them as, someone like, not from here.
00;11;21;22 - 00;11;29;08
Brunella
Maybe this could be, what they need, but I just hope I can serve them the best way they can.
00;11;29;10 - 00;11;48;23
Stephen
Well, Brunella thank you for coming on the show, and we wish you the best. Thanks for listening to White Coat Radio. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe and leave this review. To learn more about Etsu Bill Gatton College Pharmacy, visit us at Etsu dot edu slash pharmacy or follow us on social media at Etsu pharmacy. We'll see you next time.

12 min
July 27 Episode 33 — Dr. Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni on research into nanomedicine for cancer treatment
On this episode of White Coat Radio, we welcome Dr. Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni, who joined East Tennessee State University Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy as an Assistant Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences in July 2025. Prior to joining ETSU, he earned his Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences and completed postdoctoral training at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His research focuses on developing drug delivery systems, with particular emphasis on improving the formulation and biodistribution of nanomedicines for cancer treatment.
Full transcription:
00;00;09;20 - 00;00;39;10
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
The very first thing that impressed me with, about ETSU what people and the culture we have here. And I got to join ETSU. And here I am.
00;00;39;13 - 00;01;02;20
Michele Williams
Welcome to White Coat Radio, a podcast from East Tennessee State University. Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy in Johnson City, Tennessee. Each episode we cover a wide range of topics about the pharmacy school experience, from study tips to deep dives with faculty and student pharmacists. I'm one of your host Dr. Michelle Williams, assistant professor and director of academic success.
00;01;02;22 - 00;01;29;04
Stephen Woodward
And I'm Stephen Woodward, marketing and communications manager. Today we welcome Dr. Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni, who joined Gatton as an assistant professor in pharmaceutical sciences in July of 2025. Prior to ETSU, he earned his PhD in pharmaceutical sciences and completed post-doctoral training at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research focuses on the development of drug delivery systems, with particular emphasis on improving formulation and bio distribution of nanomedicine for cancer treatment.
00;01;29;06 - 00;01;35;05
Stephen Woodward
Dr. Rasoulian welcome to White Coat Radio. We're so glad you're here. And would you mind just introduce yourself?
00;01;35;08 - 00;01;55;00
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
Oh, thank you so much. I'm very excited and very happy to be here. Thanks for inviting me. My name is. My first name is Morteza. My last name is Rasoulian. People here in the school may see my the long version of my last name, which is indeed. I'm going to take this opportunity to explain why my last name is so.
00;01;55;02 - 00;01;57;21
Michele Williams
Thank you for that, by the way.
00;01;57;23 - 00;02;20;11
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
So my my last name is Rasoulian. So students can feel free to call me with that last name. The second part of what you see in my last name is actually the city I was born in. So there should be space between the two. But, because it might be confused with a middle name versus a last name, if someone puts a space in between the two.
00;02;20;14 - 00;02;47;01
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
That's why we try to kind of keep the two words together. So Boroujeni is my last name and which is the city I was born in. I got my PhD at University of Wisconsin-Madison and joined Gatton College of Pharmacy in July 2025 as an assistant professor. And I'm very glad to be here. I'll be happy to kind of talk about more more about my background that sounds great.
00;02;47;03 - 00;02;57;24
Michele Williams
That does sound great. And we're really, really happy to have you here. And, tell us a little bit about your the career path that led you to Gatton.
00;02;57;26 - 00;03;26;02
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
Sure. That's a very good question, because I sometimes think about kind of how I got here and kind of, like, chose this, career and becoming a faculty. It's a long story, but if I'm going to start from the very beginning, I was always very interested in working in healthcare, things like including biotech, but I was I was also very, very good at math.
00;03;26;05 - 00;04;01;18
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
So when I wanted to start my undergrad program, I was always thinking I wanted to be an engineer because I've, like, been good at math. But I really loved biology and the application of all those kind of things in biology. So I decided to go for a biomedical engineering program. So that was my undergrad background. And then later, in my kind of experience in at the university, I learned more about drug delivery, which is, one of the fields that biomedical engineers work on and also pharmaceutical scientists.
00;04;01;21 - 00;04;46;29
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
And I kind of like I can say, I fell in love with that, with that field to kind of work on it. And I joined several labs to, to kind of work on different aspects of this. I've worked for Marquette University School of Dentistry for a while before I start my PhD, and there was a biomaterials lab over there that I work and I learned that I want to take my research experience to the next level and start a research based career, which for me in, in that time was either becoming a faculty and have my own research program, or joining a biotech company, like a pharmaceutical company.
00;04;47;02 - 00;05;13;23
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
And for both, a PhD could be the route to kind of get there. So I started applying for it for graduate schools. I joined the University of Wisconsin, and I did my PhD there. It might be very interesting, if you know that before the end of my PhD, like I was, I was I was applying and getting interviewed by pharmaceutical companies, like Merck and Johnson and Johnson.
00;05;13;26 - 00;05;50;26
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
But during the interviews and doing more research, I started to think that is it. What I'm going to do long term, kind of. It was it was very attractive for me because they deal with the end product that at the next step goes to market or, into the clinic and kind of helps patients. But at the same time, you know, as you get to that level of quality control, CMC manufacturing and all those kind of things, you can have less of innovative research and initiating new projects and kind of have that freedom to work on whatever you excites you.
00;05;51;01 - 00;06;19;15
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
And it more like you have to stick to very, serious and well established standards. Right? So then I was like, okay, maybe I'm interested in a research, but maybe more like early stage innovative kind of research. And that's when I decided to join a startup company. So during the last year of my PhD and early days are postdocs I worked with a startup company in San Francisco for a while.
00;06;19;15 - 00;06;49;26
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
I was between like flying between Madison and San Francisco. Oh my. For a long time. And then over there. It was exciting to do this kind of research, because that was at at the interface of kind of introducing a new technology and commercialize that. Right? I'm still very interested in that. But what I also learned is that I like to stand here, but I also want to be able to initiate new ideas to feed into this pipeline.
00;06;50;03 - 00;07;17;14
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
So after finishing my postdoc, I learned that a faculty position in, School of Pharmacy can help me do that. That's why I was like, I'm going to apply for faculty positions while also keeping in touch with the startup companies in order to translate my research to, to, to a startup companies and later as a product. So applying for, pharmacy schools to become a faculty.
00;07;17;17 - 00;07;34;21
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
I got familiar with Etsu. I interviewed here the very first thing that impressed me with, about Etsu, where people and the culture we have here. And I got to join Etsu, and here I am.
00;07;34;24 - 00;07;39;14
Stephen Woodward
So that's great. We hear that so much about the culture. And the people here are definitely people first.
00;07;39;17 - 00;07;52;26
Michele Williams
Yeah, and you fit right in. Yeah, too. Thank you. Yeah, I can remember when when you came for your interview. We we, either went out to once at breakfast or or lunch or dinner, I can't remember.
00;07;52;26 - 00;07;56;08
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
I think it was. Yeah, I think it was dinner.
00;07;56;10 - 00;08;00;17
Michele Williams
I think I remember thinking that you would be a good fit.
00;08;00;20 - 00;08;30;29
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, yeah, it was great when when I visited here, like, Etsu had all that research infrastructure that I had. I heard about their plans to further develop this. Yeah. I loved the support of the leadership for research and the plans they have to kind of develop this further. And I also thought it also gives me the freedom to kind of work at this interface of focusing on my own research, while also working with startup companies to try to transition that.
00;08;30;29 - 00;08;54;00
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
And actually, right now I work with, the office of, research and sponsor programs. Really, kind of I, I joined their that the trainings and all that resources they have for, for, filing a patent for example, how you can spin out the startup, from the university. You know, Etsu is moving toward that direction. I can contribute to that.
00;08;54;01 - 00;08;55;16
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
That's awesome. Yeah.
00;08;55;18 - 00;09;04;29
Stephen Woodward
Well, I could tell you connected well with the students, too, because it will be in retreat. I mean, out of the gate. You were playing volleyball and everything, and and so it was really nice. Got some good pictures of my day.
00;09;05;00 - 00;09;16;25
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
Yeah. Thank you for that. They they are the best picture salon has ever taken. Oh yeah. Yeah. No, it was the moments, you know, you thought.
00;09;16;27 - 00;09;22;19
Stephen Woodward
Yeah well it's great along those lines. And what classes can students expect to see you school.
00;09;22;21 - 00;09;47;26
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
For the current semester and all the spring semesters? I'm going to be teaching in pharmacology to, and I'm going to be covering the oncology part like oncology drugs, because that's also part of my research. We can talk about it more. But yeah, I focus on cancer and treating cancer for my research. And I'm going to be teaching oncology drugs, for pharmacology too.
00;09;47;28 - 00;10;19;03
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
In fall semesters I'm going to be teaching pharmacology. One. And in that course I mainly cover antibiotics. And that longer term plan is also for me to cover to, to instruct, PCA. So yeah, right now, I'm joining Doctor Lugo’s classes to kind of see the structure of the course, while also we have another course which is called advanced PCA, and that's for graduate students.
00;10;19;03 - 00;10;29;19
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
That's a three credit course, which I take care of, one extra credit for graduate students. So right now I'm teaching also in advanced PCA for graduate students.
00;10;29;19 - 00;10;30;21
Michele Williams
And PCA is for.
00;10;30;28 - 00;10;34;03
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
Some other kinetics. Sorry. Yeah I yeah, some of the kinetic.
00;10;34;05 - 00;10;37;17
Michele Williams
So there's an advanced PCA strategies that.
00;10;37;17 - 00;10;40;08
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
Yeah.
00;10;40;10 - 00;10;52;26
Michele Williams
So you mentioned your research and I understand that students can work with you definitely research, which is very exciting. So can you give an example of the kind of research that students can do with you?
00;10;52;27 - 00;11;29;07
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
Sure. I, I'm, I have just begun, establishing my research programs, my research program. I'm going to have two research programs. One of them and and both of them are going to be about nanomedicine. The first one, which is mainly focused on lipid nanoparticles, which are nanoparticles used for in the formulation of Covid vaccines. They are used to package mRNA or other genetic material for gene delivery application, or of course vaccine application.
00;11;29;07 - 00;11;55;09
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
So these nanoparticles are very complicated to design. And the reason for that is that we do not have enough knowledge about how they structure properties, relationship between what we use in making these nanoparticles and what they can do in the body works. Right. So if, for example, we're going to shoot for a certain application, which is let's say producing insulin for diabetes, right?
00;11;55;09 - 00;12;23;12
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
So we need to be able to target these nanoparticles with an mRNA for example, in it to their pancreas. Right. So pancreatic tissue but no one knows how you can kind of, decide about formulation components and how you can mix them in order to, kind of control the bio distribution in the body and target them toward pancreatic, pancreatic tissue or any tissue of interest.
00;12;23;15 - 00;12;49;09
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
But we know that there's a correlation between the two. What I'm trying to do in my research is using artificial intelligence AI to establish this structure. Property relationships, because we can have data for formulation and we can have data for the final response, which is, for example, accumulation in a certain tissue or, entering the cell or expressing a certain protein, whatever it is.
00;12;49;10 - 00;13;18;27
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
So we're trying to establish AI models for these lipid nanoparticle design and have an AI guided design of lipid nanoparticles. So because this doesn't need that lab work at this point and is more computational, I have already initiated that program. And actually I have some student faculty students already involved in that project. And then the second, like at some point when we use AI to design these lipid nanoparticles, we will try them in real world, like in vet lab.
00;13;18;27 - 00;13;42;01
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
So we will formulate what I suggest us to formulate. And then we administer them like we inject them to animals to see whether they work the way they're supposed to work, as AI is guiding us in that direction. So that's one of the research programs. And the longer term goal is this the second research program I'm trying to establish, but it needs an extra, some extra time, to get there.
00;13;42;01 - 00;13;57;22
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
Where we can initiate this project is on cancer and nanomedicine, which we use polymeric nanoparticles to encapsulate chemo drugs and change their pharmacokinetic and bio distribution in order to reduce the side effects and increase the efficacy.
00;13;57;28 - 00;14;02;04
Michele Williams
So they go straight to the place that they need to treat versus going out into the.
00;14;02;08 - 00;14;03;23
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
Exactly. That's the.
00;14;03;25 - 00;14;04;11
Michele Williams
Places.
00;14;04;11 - 00;14;30;06
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
That's the goal. Yes. Thinking about oncology drugs and chemo, a lot of them are hydrophobic. And students who have, who have tech, who are taking, pharmacokinetic course or they know that they distribute all over the body. So when this drug, which is super toxic, is all over the body, it kills all the healthy cells as well as is killing cancer cells.
00;14;30;06 - 00;14;52;08
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
It's not it has some selectivity mechanisms associated with it, but it's not super selective to what cancer cells. And that's what why you see these side effects. So for patients who are treated with chemotherapy, what we're trying to do is that to encapsulate this in a nanoparticle, and sometimes we add a targeting ligand on the surface of these nanoparticle.
00;14;52;14 - 00;15;14;21
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
That targeting moiety targeting agent can attach to cancer cells and or cancer tissue more efficiently that it can attach to healthy tissue. So we expect that after injecting, we see more nanoparticles in cancer tissue and no less or no nanoparticle in other tissues. And that way we improve efficacy and we reduce toxicity.
00;15;14;25 - 00;15;23;22
Michele Williams
That's amazing. Yeah. So if a student is interested in working with you on your research, what do they need to do? Kind did just.
00;15;23;22 - 00;15;24;19
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
Reach out to me.
00;15;24;19 - 00;15;25;23
Michele Williams
And they can email.
00;15;25;23 - 00;15;48;02
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
Me. Yes, definitely. I'm very open to kind of very direct communication. And that's what we're doing right now. ... And that, that that's what happened. The current students we have in the lab, they reach out, reach out to me directly, and they express interest in my research. I talk to them, in, in several meetings, and I even present my research in the PowerPoints that I have.
00;15;48;02 - 00;16;25;28
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
So they have an idea. They know I work on nanomedicine, but they may not be familiar with the details of what I'm doing. So I introduce all those details, first and then if they, still express the interest, I'll share with them several papers to read. And if they continue being interested, then I ask them to sign up for a research elective, for example, if that helps them to also manage their coursework and and credit, for research, and if even if they are interested in to kind of do it beyond just research electives, I'm very open to that and I'll be very happy to work with them.
00;16;26;00 - 00;16;27;16
Michele Williams
That's great. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00;16;27;20 - 00;16;33;07
Stephen Woodward
What kind of tools in your lab do you use to manipulate these nanoparticles? Yeah.
00;16;33;07 - 00;17;01;20
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
So these nanoparticles are made by, by many different ways. But what we try to do to use principles of just mixing different agents, including organic solvent with aqueous, solvent. I can give you an example. You have seen have you ever added oil to water? For sure. You've done what happens? Like if you mix it so like harsh it becomes small.
00;17;01;20 - 00;17;03;08
Michele Williams
Droplets little pellets.
00;17;03;08 - 00;17;25;21
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
Yeah. So let let let's say we do this. We have a polymer which is a piece of plastic but it's biodegradable inside the body. And we dissolve it in a solvent which is hydrophobic, meaning that it doesn't like to mix with water like oil. Right. And we we choose the solvent to be very volatile, meaning that it evaporates very fast.
00;17;25;23 - 00;17;53;11
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
It leaves that whatever you have, like the beach or the glass, container that you have. So if we put the polymer and the drug in that organic solvent oil, and we add it to water and we mix it harsh, and while we're mixing, we allow the organic solvent to leave the container because it's volatile. What happens is that the particles solidify and while they're solidify, they encapsulate the drug in them.
00;17;53;14 - 00;17;58;22
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
And then we separate them. And these nanoparticles now can be used for like injection.
00;17;58;27 - 00;18;01;02
Michele Williams
And so they're very, very tiny.
00;18;01;02 - 00;18;29;28
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
Yeah. They're very tiny nano size like tat. If you let me think about it, how I can, you know, give you an A scale so they 10 to -7m, which is like if you put together 1 million of them, right? 1 million of these particles, it's going to be, ten centimeters or like two, three inches.
00;18;30;00 - 00;18;30;19
Michele Williams
Oh, wow.
00;18;30;21 - 00;18;31;17
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
So that's.
00;18;31;17 - 00;18;31;29
Michele Williams
A little.
00;18;32;06 - 00;18;48;19
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
Million of them. Yeah. You put next to each other. So, these nanoparticles should be and that should be the case because when we inject them the blood, if they're large, they lead to very adverse reactions, like the body recognizes them as foreign.
00;18;48;21 - 00;18;52;19
Michele Williams
You can't have them in your tissue or in your blood vessels if it's too big.
00;18;52;19 - 00;19;00;07
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
Yes, yes, it blocks like the capillary. So that's why they should be very small to pass through all these, like. Yeah. The.
00;19;00;07 - 00;19;02;03
Michele Williams
Typical plastic journey. Yeah.
00;19;02;05 - 00;19;03;12
Stephen Woodward
Yeah.
00;19;03;15 - 00;19;04;16
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
Yeah.
00;19;04;19 - 00;19;05;10
Michele Williams
That's amazing.
00;19;05;10 - 00;19;12;18
Stephen Woodward
Yeah. This has been an incredible conversation. Is there is there anything else you'd like to tell us about your research or anything.
00;19;12;21 - 00;19;39;13
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
So the way so let let me like students might have this question that what kind of work and what kind of, what part of the project they can get involved in, right. Yeah. So, currently, because we have initiated the computational part, students might think that, oh, I have no background in AI. For example, I don't know how to program and these kind of things I want to, elaborate on that a little bit.
00;19;39;13 - 00;20;01;12
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
You don't need to have a background in AI or how to build a model or code. We have collaborators for that. So we collaborate a lot with computer scientists from, School of Engineering, both at Etsu and other universities. Well, one, our collaborators are in University of South and California, and they've been very helpful with developing these models.
00;20;01;14 - 00;20;29;25
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
What we need to feed, to their models that they're developing is data. So what the students do currently, for example, as, as, part of the research elective course and the students. So journey is like we collect literally like data from literature. And we dig into different papers and articles published. We learn about the formulation, how they have formulated these lipid nanoparticles, for example, what they have measured.
00;20;29;25 - 00;20;57;18
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
We record all the details and it is called dataset curation. All the AI models that you see out there, they have this process like ChatGPT, all these language models, they have a backbone, like they need training data, they need to be trained on something. And that data sets is a very critical part of it. Actually. People may think that the model itself is the most critical, but many people may release the model.
00;20;57;18 - 00;21;17;27
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
But they may not release the data set that the training data set is very valuable in, kind of helping training an AI model. So one thing that they can get involved in, even before we have our lab established and vet lab work, is getting involved in building these data sets, and we're actively working on that with the students.
00;21;17;27 - 00;21;42;11
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
I see it very, attractive for students because first of all, they can have flexibility. They can work on their computers any time at home. They don't need to be in the lab at this very specific time, which is a problem for, professional degree students. And, you know, especially if you're working with sales animals and these kind of thing, it's not like I'm busy right now.
00;21;42;11 - 00;22;11;22
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
I have a class like you have to take care of it, right? So you cannot postpone kind of feeding animals in animal facility or injection to couple days later. The whole experiment is going to be impacted by that. So but this one is like, oh, I can be flexible. And when I do the work, that's one thing. And the second thing is that as they dig into these papers to extract the data, they read it and they learn a lot.
00;22;11;22 - 00;22;38;27
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
So after participating in this project for putting together this data set, they have already read 100 papers, which is like graduate students and postdocs in that field might not have that knowledge. Right, right. So they develop a solid background in that field, which will help them a lot to understand and also decide whether they want to follow that same career path in their.
00;22;39;00 - 00;22;43;13
Michele Williams
That sounds really exciting and like very, very important work.
00;22;43;15 - 00;22;44;26
Stephen Woodward
Thank you. Yeah. For a groundbreaking.
00;22;45;03 - 00;22;45;21
Michele Williams
Yeah.
00;22;45;24 - 00;22;48;25
Stephen Woodward
So thank you so much for joining us today. We really appreciate.
00;22;48;25 - 00;22;50;00
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
It. Yeah it was.
00;22;50;02 - 00;22;51;06
Michele Williams
It was great having you. Yeah.
00;22;51;06 - 00;22;53;00
Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni
Same same. Thank you so much.
00;22;53;02 - 00;23;09;17
Stephen Woodward
Thanks for listening to White Coat Radio. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe and leave this review to learn more about ETSU Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy, visit us at ETSU dot edu slash pharmacy or follow us on social media @ETSUpharmacy. We'll see you next time.

24 min
June 29 Episode 32 — Dr. Kelly Covert on Hospital Pharmacy, Residency, and Tips for Success
On this episode of White Coat Radio, we’re joined by Dr. Kelly Covert, Associate Professor of Pharmacy Practice at East Tennessee State University Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy. She precepts third- and fourth-year student pharmacists, as well as pharmacy residents, on an adult medicine rotation at Johnson City Medical Center (JCMC). Dr. Covert is the college's PGY2 Residency Program Director. In this episode she discusses a day in the life of her practice site at JCMC, as well as tips for rotations and pursuing a residency.

Transcript:
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:25:03
Kelly Covert
If I have a student who can see a problem and try to to learn how to solve that problem, if they can see a med they're not familiar with and go look it up and tell me what they found versus me having to ask them to do that. I think that's the mark of someone who's going to really excel in their pharmacy career
00:00:55:12 - 00:01:18:12
Michele Williams
Welcome to White Coat Radio, a podcast from East Tennessee State University. Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy in Johnson City, Tennessee. Each episode we cover a wide range of topics about the pharmacy school experience, from study tips to deep dives with faculty and student pharmacists. I'm one of your host doctor Michelle Williams, assistant professor and director of academic success.
00:01:18:15 - 00:01:50:05
Stephen Woodward
And I'm Stephen Woodward, marketing and communications manager. Today we welcome Doctor Kelly Covert, associate professor of pharmacy practice, who joined Gatton faculty in 2016. She precepts third and fourth year student pharmacists, as well as pharmacy residents on an adult medicine rotation at Johnson City Medical Center. Doctor covert is a 2014 graduate of the University of Tennessee Health Science Center College of Pharmacy, and completed her pharmacotherapy residency at the Medical University of South Carolina from 2014 to 2016.
00:01:50:07 - 00:01:57:19
Stephen Woodward
At Gatton she serves as a PGY2 internal medicine residency program director. Now let's get to our interview.
00:01:57:21 - 00:02:00:01
Michele Williams
Welcome to White Coat radio, Dr. Covert.
00:02:00:02 - 00:02:02:13
Kelly Covert
Thank you. I’m excited to be here.
00:02:02:15 - 00:02:23:06
Michele Williams
So, I'll get us started. You teach a number of courses here, at the college. And you're the course coordinator for the pharmacotherapy two course. Which students take in spring of therapy two year. What makes this course challenging for students, would you say?
00:02:23:09 - 00:02:52:27
Kelly Covert
Yeah. I think, a piece of it is the design of the course. So when we redesigned the curriculum, there was a lot of intentionality in trying to kind of meld together. Pathophysiology and pharmacology and pharmacotherapy. And so this course does that to a certain degree. So we do expect students to do some pre-reading with regard to pathologies prior to coming into the course, which often students are less used to having to do.
00:02:52:29 - 00:03:15:25
Kelly Covert
And then as the course builds, the disease states that they have learned earlier in the course, if treated incorrectly, end up leading to disease state. They learn later. So everything kind of builds, and we try to be intentional about not forgetting content that they had not only earlier in pharmacotherapy too, but also in therapy. One in the fall semester.
00:03:15:27 - 00:03:19:21
Stephen Woodward
Can you tell us about your teaching specialties and what got you interested in those areas?
00:03:19:22 - 00:03:39:15
Kelly Covert
Yeah. So when I first came to Gatton, gosh, almost ten years ago, I knew that I would be taking over the then Renal Integrated series and the GI integrated series, which works perfectly for me. In residency, I had a strong interest in solid organ transplant, and where I trained, most of our transplants were kidneys and livers.
00:03:39:22 - 00:04:04:02
Kelly Covert
And so I had a strong, just interest in those disease states at baseline, not only the post-transplant stuff, but also all of the disease states that lead you to potentially needing a kidney transplant, or a liver transplant. And so it was an interest area of mine. And then I just got lucky that that's what the college needed, and have been fortunate to keep most of the content that I was kind of given at the very beginning of when I started here.
00:04:04:04 - 00:04:06:02
Kelly Covert
Okay. Yeah.
00:04:06:04 - 00:04:09:24
Michele Williams
So what do you like best about teaching again?
00:04:09:27 - 00:04:29:15
Kelly Covert
Oh, lots of things. Number one, and this is not me saying this because I am a faculty member. I love our faculty members. I consider all of them really close friends of mine. And so I think we have a good group of people who care a lot about teaching students well. But I also like having a smaller cohort of students that it lets us get to know them really well.
00:04:29:18 - 00:04:52:18
Kelly Covert
And you get to see people grow and change over time. If I notice, you know, maybe a student, a student seems off or someone who normally makes, you know, a B grades is struggling. I feel like we can recognize that more easily. And then the last thing that I appreciate is, I think in a lot of colleges, it doesn't always feel like everyone's on the same team.
00:04:52:21 - 00:05:12:11
Kelly Covert
But especially when we were redesigning the curriculum, it definitely felt like a all hands on deck in a positive way effort. Like, everyone was willing to kind of put pride aside and say, yeah, I'll teach this, or yeah, you're right, that's too many hours for this, this disease state. So I just there's a lot of collegiality that I appreciate.
00:05:12:13 - 00:05:15:02
Michele Williams
That's great. Yeah, I agree with you. Cool.
00:05:15:03 - 00:05:17:05
Kelly Covert
Yeah. Awesome. Yeah.
00:05:17:07 - 00:05:22:14
Stephen Woodward
Well, what tips for success or any advice would you give to our current students.
00:05:22:16 - 00:05:39:29
Kelly Covert
Studying more than you think you need to. I, I was actually telling this to a student the other day. I think a lot of times, especially if you are a student who, in high school and undergrad didn't have to study very hard, you may have never really learned how to study, to be honest. That was me as a student.
00:05:40:01 - 00:06:01:11
Kelly Covert
I kind of coasted through, and got to pharmacy school. And it's not that our material is harder, in my opinion. Still, to this day, physics is the hardest class I've ever taken by a lot. It's just that there's a higher volume and so if you don't know how to study and then the volume is so much higher, it just sets you up for a really challenging first semester.
00:06:01:14 - 00:06:23:04
Kelly Covert
So I always tell students, study for more than you think you need to start earlier than you think. You need to break things down into smaller pieces than you think you might need to. Because the things that might have worked in undergrad when you were taking maybe 1 or 2 math and science courses, and then some fluffier or less intensive courses just probably won't work in pharmacy school.
00:06:23:06 - 00:06:27:03
Kelly Covert
And then I always refer them to to Michele. Literally, always.
00:06:27:06 - 00:06:33:10
Michele Williams
Thanks for that. Yeah. Yeah. I agree with you falling behind.
00:06:33:12 - 00:06:55:09
Kelly Covert
It's just impossible to dig out. Yeah. And the challenge is everything builds. So, like, if you have a really rocky first semester, not to say your second semester will be equally as rocky, but if you don't learn things well on the front end, you're just going to be having to work that much harder to relearn something you were supposed to have already known, to then learn the new content for that semester.
00:06:55:11 - 00:06:56:24
Michele Williams
Yeah, it does make things a lot harder.
00:06:56:25 - 00:07:00:12
Kelly Covert
Yeah, for sure.
00:07:00:15 - 00:07:12:03
Michele Williams
So, you oversee the residency teaching and learning program here at Gatton? And you direct the Pgy two internal medicine residency here, too?
00:07:12:07 - 00:07:12:26
Kelly Covert
I you do that as well.
00:07:12:27 - 00:07:27:25
Michele Williams
Yeah. And you yourself were a resident at the Medical University of South Carolina, right. What advice would you give a student who's interested in pursuing a residency that they might not get from a brochure or.
00:07:27:25 - 00:07:49:07
Kelly Covert
Yeah. Yeah. I think the earlier you can identify that you might want to do a residency the better, because it it really will change how you set up the rest of your pharmacy school time. So, for instance, if you knew without a shadow of a doubt that you wanted to go own your own independent pharmacy, you would pick very different electives.
00:07:49:07 - 00:08:10:14
Kelly Covert
And if you knew that you wanted to go be an infectious diseases clinical specialist at a hospital. And so I think if you can identify that early, it just helps you set up what you want the rest of your time at Gatton to look like. So it might make pursuing research interests more or less important to you. If you want to pursue residency, it might make you change the way that you rank your rotations.
00:08:10:16 - 00:08:28:29
Kelly Covert
It might make you change the electives that you take. Or if you choose to pursue the residency track or not. And so I just think it's always a challenge of students realizing their fourth year they want to do residency, but haven't necessarily set themself up to be a great applicant from the beginning, because there's there's ground that's hard to make up after that point.
00:08:29:06 - 00:08:31:23
Michele Williams
That makes sense. That makes sense.
00:08:31:25 - 00:08:46:16
Stephen Woodward
So in addition to teaching and overseeing residencies, you also are a practicing pharmacist and preceptor. Could you kind of tell us about what a day in the life of teaching here and going to practice is, like where you practice at what is what is a day in the life of that look.
00:08:46:16 - 00:09:06:26
Kelly Covert
Like a day in the life? Sure thing. So I practice over at Johnson City Medical Center. So just across the parking lot from us, which is nice. I can pop back and forth between the college in the hospital. I work with an inpatient family medicine team, so the way I describe it is all of my patients are sick enough to be in the hospital, but not so sick that they're necessarily requiring, the intensive care unit.
00:09:06:28 - 00:09:26:15
Kelly Covert
We see a ton of different patients with different disease states and different levels of acuity. So some of our patients are much closer to discharge, and we might be dealing with more kind of chronic disease state management, not quite ambulatory care, but kind of in that vein. And then some of our patients are really quite sick and could be transferred to the unit.
00:09:26:15 - 00:09:52:12
Kelly Covert
And so it's a variety. My team is comprised of an attending physician, three family medicine residents myself, a gaggle of medical students and pharmacy students, and sometimes pharmacy residents. And then also occasionally a psychiatry intern. So our team is large, interprofessional. And basically, my role on that team is to make sure all the meds that we're using and patient are appropriate.
00:09:52:12 - 00:10:13:15
Kelly Covert
And sometimes that changes day to day, but then also to make sure that when the patient leaves the hospital, the plan that we have in place for them from a meds standpoint is, is feasible, both from a, you know, number of pills per day, cost of meds. If if a patient, doesn't have reliable ways to store their medications, that might change what we do.
00:10:13:17 - 00:10:30:16
Kelly Covert
So most of my mornings and early afternoons are spent over at the hospital. We do table rounds as a team where we talk about each of our patients and make medication changes in the medical record. And then we go on walk around, and that's when we go see all of our patients and talk with them, update them on medicine changes.
00:10:30:17 - 00:10:53:22
Kelly Covert
That's when me and and or my pharmacy students will do discharge counseling and making sure, again, meds are affordable and available to patients. And then my afternoons are kind of a mixed bag. If I'm teaching, it's almost always in the afternoon at the college, so I may come back over here and teach. If not, then I usually stay at the hospital and my students and I will do topic discussions or journal clubs.
00:10:53:24 - 00:11:00:18
Kelly Covert
Just to kind of help. If there is any kind of loose ends we need to tie up, tie those up before we're done for the day.
00:11:00:20 - 00:11:05:04
Stephen Woodward
Can you tell us what is a preceptor and what do you like most about preceptor?
00:11:05:06 - 00:11:26:05
Kelly Covert
Yeah. So a preceptor, is an overseer of students who are on rotations at your site. The way I view myself is I am a safety net for students, so I encourage them to pretend as if they are a licensed pharmacist. So when you're looking at patients in the morning, if I wasn't here, what medication changes would you recommend?
00:11:26:05 - 00:11:50:29
Kelly Covert
What labs would you recommend my team monitor? What would you make sure that you dose adjusted? That sort of thing. But ultimately students are licensed pharmacists. And so a preceptors role is to make sure any recommendations student makes is an appropriate one. Help guide them. If they've never been in the hospital before, help guide them on what a hospital pharmacist does, potentially help them streamline their workflow process.
00:11:50:29 - 00:12:12:22
Kelly Covert
So if it's taking a student an hour to work off one patient, you know, helping them gain efficiency. And then another key part of my role is providing feedback. So students get a midpoint in the final evaluation of all of their fourth year rotations. But I also do feedback Friday on my rotation, which is basically just a touch point on how the how the week has gone.
00:12:12:22 - 00:12:35:16
Kelly Covert
I have students set goals on the first day of what do you want to get out of this rotation by the end of it? And so we reflect back on those goals. How is that going? So it's it's kind of a safety net overseer, feedback giver, emotional support person occasionally. But what I like about preceptor, I mean, I a lot of times students get to my rotation.
00:12:35:17 - 00:12:59:22
Kelly Covert
They haven't ever been in the hospital and they're totally freaked out by it. There's a lot of beeping, there's a lot of noises. It can be scary. And so I really appreciate seeing students go from totally fish out of water to by the end, they're integrated with my family medicine team. I'm fortunate to work with a team that's very pharmacy friendly, and so they're easy to integrate into.
00:12:59:24 - 00:13:16:00
Kelly Covert
But just seeing students kind of get their sea legs and figure out how to navigate this process, even if it's not something they want to do when they're in a pharmacy school. So I have many students that want to go into ambulatory care community, but there's still a transitions of care piece that they might get to see on the rotation.
00:13:16:00 - 00:13:18:21
Kelly Covert
So just seeing the growth is my favorite part.
00:13:18:23 - 00:13:20:03
Stephen Woodward
Thank you.
00:13:20:05 - 00:13:35:12
Michele Williams
That sounds great. What advice would you give students who might be on rotation with you. So what kinds of things do you like to see students do? Or what kinds of behaviors are you looking for?
00:13:35:14 - 00:14:04:03
Kelly Covert
My number one thing that I think is most important for students on my rotation is to take some ownership of their learning. So rotations are when, you know, the reins come off a little bit and you're out in the wild doing what a pharmacist would do. And so if I have a student who wants to be told every single step in their day to get from beginning to end, that can be challenging because there's not a lot of, autonomy.
00:14:04:03 - 00:14:18:21
Kelly Covert
There's not a lot of self-directed learning that happens there. So if I have a student who can see a problem and, and try to to learn how to solve that problem, if they can see a med they're not familiar with and go look it up and tell me what they found versus me having to ask them to do that.
00:14:18:23 - 00:14:45:21
Kelly Covert
I think that's the mark of someone who's going to really excel in their pharmacy career, because honestly, like half the things that we teach students in pharmacy school by the time they're 5 or 10 years out, aren't accurate or relevant anymore. Just because meds change and guidelines change and drugs come on and off the market. And so if I have someone who's able to see what they don't know and try to fill that knowledge gap, I think that's my most important quality in a student.
00:14:45:24 - 00:15:05:27
Michele Williams
That that makes a lot of sense. And I it, it almost sounds like between you're saying you're a safety net and you're saying, you know, kind of generate some of this stuff within yourself and do it. It almost sounds like you're saying take a take a step forward. Don't don't be a wallflower.
00:15:05:27 - 00:15:06:06
Kelly Covert
Yeah.
00:15:06:11 - 00:15:11:21
Michele Williams
Jump in there and give it a try. You'll catch them if they're doing something they shouldn't be doing or you’ll
00:15:11:21 - 00:15:12:25
Kelly Covert

00:15:12:25 - 00:15:16:20
Michele Williams
Guide them. But but to get in there and give it a try and.
00:15:16:20 - 00:15:41:10
Kelly Covert
Yeah, I mean, I'll tell students, you know, depending on what their career path looks like, apps are some of the last times that they they will have a safety net. And so kind of take advantage of that and practice at the highest level that you can. That way, you know, you know where your shortfalls are, versus if you are really timid or need to be told every step from A to Z to get through your day.
00:15:41:12 - 00:15:51:17
Kelly Covert
I just don't know that you're going to be able to function as independently as a pharmacist when you're done with pharmacy school, and it is your license at the end of each decision that you make.
00:15:51:19 - 00:15:54:10
Michele Williams
That makes sense. That makes sense.
00:15:54:12 - 00:16:02:06
Stephen Woodward
Well we'll switch gears just a little bit as we head towards the end. But what is something about you that might surprise people.
00:16:02:08 - 00:16:18:22
Kelly Covert
I don't I was looking at that question I hadn't had an answer for yet. I admit this, and this is shocking, but I'm a huge sports fan. I love I have season tickets to Etsu basketball. It's one of my favorite things that from the time I got here to Gatton, we bought those tickets and it's been a blast.
00:16:18:23 - 00:16:27:02
Kelly Covert
We go to the Southern Conference Championship in Asheville every year. But I feel like most pharmacists are not known for being like sports fans, but I, I'm a.
00:16:27:04 - 00:16:29:08
Michele Williams
Sports.
00:16:29:11 - 00:16:30:06
Stephen Woodward
Editor, most for the.
00:16:30:06 - 00:16:37:16
Kelly Covert
Scene as nerds. That's what I think. Nerds. There you go. No other interests.
00:16:37:18 - 00:16:42:19
Stephen Woodward
Well, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast. Yeah, we look forward to this coming up. Yeah.
00:16:42:21 - 00:16:44:14
Kelly Covert
Awesome. Thanks for inviting me.
00:16:44:16 - 00:17:00:29
Stephen Woodward
Thanks for listening to White Coat Radio. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe and leave us a review. To learn more about ETSU Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy. Visit us at etsu.edu/pharmacy or follow us on social media at @ETSUpharmacy. We'll see you next time.

17 min
June 09 Episode 31 — Dean Debbie Byrd on new state funding, Gatton's 20th anniversary, and answers to student questions
On this episode of White Coat Radio, we’re joined by Dr. Debbie Byrd, Dean of East Tennessee State University Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy. She discusses the latest news regarding state funding and reduced tuition, the college’s 20th anniversary, her philosophy for overcoming challenges, and answers questions from student pharmacists
Dean Byrd is celebrating her 10th anniversary as dean of Gatton this year. In March, she was named a Distinguished Fellow of the Pharmacy Academy by the National Academies of Practice (NAP), a prestigious honor that recognizes excellence and leadership in interprofessional health care.
TRANSCRIPT:
Dean Debbie Byrd
I also view challenges as opportunities because I've seen that play out that when we do have those obstacles, many times they have resulted in some of our greatest successes.

Michele Williams
Welcome to White Coat Radio, a podcast from East Tennessee State University Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy in Johnson City, Tennessee. Each episode, we cover a wide range of topics about the pharmacy school experience, from study tips to deep dives with faculty and students pharmacists. I'm one of your hosts, Doctor Michele Williams, assistant professor and director of academic success.

Stephen Woodward
And I'm Stephen Woodward, marketing and communications manager. On this episode, we chat with Doctor Debbie Byrd, dean of ETSU Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy. This year, Doctor Byrd is celebrating her 10th anniversary, coming to Gatton as Dean in 2016. In March, she was named a Distinguished Fellow of the Pharmacy Academy by the National Academies of Practice (NAP), a prestigious honor recognizing excellence in leadership and interprofessional health care.

Stephen Woodward
Learn more about Doctor Byrd on our website e-t-s-u dot e-d-u slash pharmacy. Now let's get to our interview. Well, Dean Byrd, welcome to White Coat Radio.

Dean Debbie Byrd
Yeah. Thank you for having me. Glad to be here. It's great to have you here.

Stephen Woodward
We'll start by telling us what is a typical day. Being a dean look like.

Dean Debbie Byrd
You know, there's not a typical day. But I think that's probably one of the things that I enjoy most is just the variety and, you know, the work that I get to do internal to the college, which you know, most in the college would be, you know, very familiar with and, but there's also a lot of external work at the university and then even beyond the university.

Dean Debbie Byrd
So, a lot of my time is spent problem solving. I've described myself as a fire chief sometimes, putting my fire hat on putting out fires.
But it's it's usually not to that, that level, but it's, a lot of serving as a, as a soundboard for people. It's been a lot of time in meetings. And that's where a lot of that, you know, problem solving and coaching and, and just, you know, hearing what, what others have in mind to do.
I know when I was new to this position, I was very taken aback by all the meetings or how much time I was spending in meetings. And I remember, talking to my boss at the time, Wilsie Bishop. And I said, you know, when I've just. I'm in meetings all the time. I went, when does.
When will I do my work, you know, as these, and this is my first job as a dean, and she, you know, paused and smiled and looked at me and said, this is the work that is that is the work which is very different from what I had done previously. But, you know, whether it's meeting with, members of the leadership team or executive committee individually, or, you know, as a group, with the faculty council, we have the dean student advisory Committee today.
I was kind of I had to think about it a little bit because there are so many different things. But, just all of the stakeholders within the college, and our alumni here, those, those meetings go on on a, on a pretty regular cadence. But then at Etsu, there are a number of different councils that I serve on the university council, academic council, deans, council meeting, council deans meet on a regular basis.
So, you know, all of those things are, you know, trying to make things better, whether it's here at the college or at the university that, you know, even beyond the university, there's opportunities to, you know, work on behalf of the profession or the college in terms of advocacy with legislators. College has been very active with the Johnson City, Washington County Chamber of Commerce.
So, yeah, there's just so many, folks to to meet with. And then there's lots of events that we have, at the college. And so I just represent the college in a lot of different, arenas.

Stephen Woodward
Great. Thank you for sharing.

Michele Williams
So the college's, of course, celebrating its 20th anniversary this academic year. What do you think are some of the biggest challenges the college is facing?

Dean Debbie Byrd
You know, that's a great question. And I can say I think that, you know, Gaten is facing any challenges that are unique to us that are really any different than other colleges or schools of pharmacy or, or just higher education, in general. But challenges in general, I do think are accessibility and affordability for our students, is really paramount.

Dean Debbie Byrd
The perception of the value of higher education, I don't think that that pharmacy faces, that as much as maybe other, degree programs, because the return on the investment for, a doctor pharmacy degree is pretty clear. You know, it's was life changing for me as a first generation college student. You know, really, generational change can come about, for those students who have those opportunities.
And that's why that accessibility and affordability is so, important. Yeah. For us to focus on, I also have a philosophy which I would say is something that has developed, especially since becoming a dean is, I used to have the perspective of, I could prevent problems, you know, if I planned well and and that's true to a degree.
But you can't plan away all the potential problems that that pop up. And so that perspective has changed as I've gotten wiser. But I also view challenges as opportunities because I've seen that play out that when we do have those obstacles, many times they have resulted in some of our greatest successes. That's so true as a college.
And that's not at all how I used to think about problems. So I think it's important, important to have that mindset of just not that we like problems, but just embracing them. But they inevitably pop up and think of them as opportunities to, you know, make something better for someone. You know, face them with optimism and creativity because you might as well, and just roll up our sleeves and, and get to work.

Michele Williams
That's, that's one of the things that I really love about working here and working with you is that when a problem comes up, there have been times when you come to my office and said, what are we going to do about this?

Dean Debbie Byrd
Yeah, I, I love that. Yes. Like, oh, okay, let's problem solve us figure it out. So yeah. Yeah. Because it's not an option you know not to address the problem. It's that way. So we might as well.
...Yeah. And and I certainly don't have all the answers. And so, you're not the only person that I, that....
Well, what do you think about this? Yeah. You know, our, thinking about this. What do you think about that? To try to get to the best solution for whatever it may be?

Stephen Woodward
Well, kind of along those lines, what are some of the those opportunities that you see for the college?

Dean Debbie Byrd
Yeah. You know, I think there's no question that excellence is an important part of our culture here. So, we're always looking for ways to improve things, to make things better, whether that's, you know, for students or faculty or staff, you know, how do we just just make things run smoother in some cases, take something that's that's good and make it great. But we have made the most of some of our challenges here at the college. But I think some of the things, thanks are thanks are, are. My gosh, I probably should not go it, you know, we don't have any major, major things going on right now.
We've had some major initiatives that the college is, is, you know, kind of bringing to fruition now a major curricular revision as one example, where I do want to give, you know, faculty and staff major kudos for that work because, you know, not only did they, you know, revise the curriculum, which happens periodically everywhere, but something that our faculty did really combined, you know, that academic excellence piece and, and thinking about student success, but they also really considered well-being in that and well-being in the perspective of, you know, what's the best combination to help our students perform at their very best?
And to that end, you know, we looked at a lot of data and found that our curriculum at that time, before we revised it, had more credit hours than most programs in the country. And, and at that time, our students weren't performing where we would like for them to have been. We were thinking about the now flex.
We were more, you know, just around the average or maybe just slightly above average. And so part of that we felt like, maybe it's just too much and there's a point of diminishing returns. And I think we can reach that with our students, that we were just overwhelming them in terms of just information and time. And, and so they were very thoughtful.
The faculty were in really bringing it back to the essentials of, of what do our students need, to be the best pharmacists and to perform at their very best and to, to really, you know, learn and retain everything. It's not, you know, if you're just you can give them everything. But if they're only going to retain a third of it, what what's the point?
And they've really given that a lot of consideration. So so with that in mind, you know, there's been a lot of, work at the college over the years about, student will be that I think, now we've shifted to, to think more about faculty and staff will be about the college. And, you know, there's a we oh, you're often, very data centric here as well.
So, you know, there's a, faculty and staff well-being survey that's going to go out to get some good information. But during work that's already happened, several years ago, I served on, the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy. I had a, a faculty workload task force and, trying to come up with, you know, the ideal workload policy and, and just the best practices when it comes to that.
And one of the most important things was, just transparency and and helping, you know, faculty understand what the what the expectations are and matching that with effort. And the university is now embarking on some of that work with, workload policy and promotion of tenure guidelines. And so, you know, with that in mind, you know, that's something that aligning those things, I think is going to help, our faculty and staff will be, and then also just growing our faculty and staff as our enrollment has continued to grow.
Obviously, that's going to help a lot with workload and supporting developmental opportunities. And then nurturing our positive culture. You know, that's a foundation that was laid at the very beginning. And I think it is something that could be taken for granted. If, if we're not intentional about nurturing that culture. So I think that's something that we're all very committed to.
But I also think, as we consider, you know, bringing in new faculty and new staff, that we have to be very, considerate of that and making sure that that we bring in people that will continue, you know, this culture that's been built and, and supported for so long, you know, research and scholarship is something that is, is an Etsu initiative.
I serve on their research, strategic planning task force. And so with that in mind, you know, how do we create opportunities for, for faculty to, you know, be more successful in those areas, whether it's setting aside time or, providing opportunities for collaboration, development? You know, our faculty are doing great work and there's no, no question, no shortage of great things for our faculty to share and write about.
But I want them to have the opportunity to do that work and to ask the questions that they're passionate about and then share, you know, their findings with, with the world and, and practice. Transformation is one example of that that many of our faculty are very engaged with that's, unique, what they do every day, in their practice, and then I guess another opportunity and, and again, we're, we've been working on these things, but, just engagement and particularly alumni engagement.
You know, when I first came here, there had only been a few classes that had even graduated. And so, we really didn't have any, sort of programing or anything intentional with our alumni. And so thinking about that, how do we bring those former students and those graduates back that we're so proud of, and give them opportunities to connect with one another and with the college?
We started homecoming a few years ago, and, Etsu held tailgates last year. So, so hopefully those opportunities will continue to grow. We have another survey that's out with faculty and staff right now asking how how do we currently engage with our alumni, and whether it's in the classroom or with, professional organizations, student organizations where we currently dealing with our alumni. And then that's going to be shared back with the alumni and sort of sort of a menu of, here, here, the current opportunities and get their input on what else would you like me to be doing with the college and how would you like to, engage with that?
So those are those are some of the things that I think are major opportunities for us on the horizon.

Michele Williams
That's great. Yeah. So you mentioned the that our faculty are doing a lot of really exciting things. But in March, you were named the distinguished fellow of the Pharmacy Academy by the National Academies of Practice. Nap. And this is a prestigious honor recognizing excellence in leadership and interprofessional health care. Can you comment on this honor.

Dean Debbie Byrd
And what it means to you? Yeah, it really does mean a lot because, throughout my career, I've been involved in interprofessional patient care. My practice, you know, was always with family medicine physicians. And and that work and within family medicine, residency training, practices in academic settings in some always worked in that you know, physician, pharmacist, interprofessional, you know, patient care model.
And so, so that's something that's just been been part of my entire career, that practice piece and later the education piece. But I feel like that expanded greatly for me several years ago when, I was asked to be the interim dean for the College of Nursing. So I learned so much, you know, during that time period.
And, and I was fortunate to be inducted with, one of my nurse faculty colleagues, at the ceremony last weekend. But, another piece of it that was, especially meaningful is I don't seek awards and recognition. You know, for myself, it's, you know, a college focus typically. And so, in this case, it was a nomination, you know, by a colleague that, I had given a presentation at, and a CCP meeting about the imposter syndrome, and, had encouraged him to, pursue something that he was thinking about.
And, and he'd sent me an email several months later and said, you know, I did it and thank you. And then a couple of years later, he was he was inducted, and he was telling me about it, and I was like, oh, congratulations. That's really cool. And, and he said, well, you should be a member of this and I'm going to nominate you.
So so that was special. Just that awesome connection as well. Yeah.

Stephen Woodward
This spring we had some big news with state funding. Do you want to tell us more about that?

Dean Debbie Byrd
Yes. I'm glad to you. So this is something that the college has worked on since 2017. When the college was founded back in 2005, the state really didn't have the funds to support a second college of pharmacy at that point. So the college was founded really based on a private tuition model. And because of that, is that being our only revenue, your tuition historically has been very high.
So, you know, before we received any state funding, our tuition was as high as $38,000 a year, actually a little more than $38,000 a year, which was typical for a private college of pharmacy. But so many of our students are first generation. And, you know, come from rural areas. You know, when I came in as dean in 2016 and sort of learned, you know, the history, it just didn't seem fair.
And it certainly limited accessibility and affordability for our students. Our debt load was significant as a result of that. So that was really the impetus for trying to achieve state funding for the college so we could pass that along to our student. So, you know, we worked on it for about six years before we received the first bit of state funding in 2023.
And at that time, the state, appropriation was about half of what we asked for. And so we lowered tuition at that time. Actually, beyond what the state funding supported, with the idea that I guess the idea and the hope that we would receive the other half the following year, and unfortunately, we didn't it took us an additional three years to finally receive the other half.
But in the meantime, I feel like that initial funding allowed proof of concept because our proposal was that if we receive state funding, we can lower tuition, our enrollment will increase. And particularly among Tennesseans. And so from, you know, 2023 to 2025, I guess, or the data that we shared with legislators, our enrollment went up from a class of about 45 students on average and had been for the last several years, to, I guess, the the year after funding, it was around 58 seniors and 64.
Oh, wow. And and so this year we're expecting over 70 students grew in the percentage of Tennesseans that, you know, we we expected it to go up. But it was really remarkable that it went from, about 40% Tennesseans among, you know, our class, incoming classes to almost 70% at Tennessee and in our incoming classes. So we had those data.
And by showing showing them that proof of concept that, you know, look, look what the state dollars, you know, have done. And then also, especially since 2017, there's a pharmacist shortage that has developed over that time. And so, there's a real need for pharmacists, and particularly in rural areas, that's where a lot of our students come from.
They're willing to go back there. So, ultimately our tuition, was lowered and will go into effect July 1st, and it will apply to all of our students, not just our incoming students. For Tennesseans, tuition will be $24,785 a year, which will be significant savings for them, especially if you multiply that over four years. Their ultimate, you know, student loan debt will be significantly reduce over $50,000.
They'll graduate with. And, tuition is also less for out-of-state students as well. So, our, our state tuition, starting July 1st, will be $30,329 per year. And really, our ultimate goal in terms of that accessibility and affordability was just to match the tuition of the other state school. We just felt like, you know, taxpayers, you know, our funding, the, the dollars that go to the state and, and, you know, that's who's going to benefit and that we felt like our students deserved, you know, the opportunity to to go to pharmacy school and, and then turn around and serve, you know, the people of Tennessee in this region.
So, you know, it is very exciting to to finally, be at the point where we can offer that to our students. And I know they're very excited and, you know, we we expect, you know, ultimately, you know, our class size historically has been 75 to 80 students. And so, you know, we we did learn about state funding just with the legislative cycle until April.
And our recruiting cycle is essentially done by the end. So we we didn't really expect it to affect, our class size for this fall, but we expect that we'll have, you know, full class and full classes going forward as a result. So, nine years total.
We finally made it. We had some persistence going on, but I have to thank, President Noland for his support. We would not, have have achieved this without, you know, his commitment to the college and his willingness to, you know, really make us a priority, you know, this year and also in 2023 to, to make this happen. But also, you know, our local legislative delegation, you know, has always been supportive.
And I would say they, you know, they were supportive from the very beginning. And in particular, Gary Hicks has been a huge champion on the House side. And, you know, from over that nine year period, you know, he was a new legislator whenever we started this effort. And over time, you know, he's become a leader in the House and and on the finance committee.
And so, you know, that that time helped us in some ways to to have, some of our local delegation be in positions where they could have more influence with their colleagues. And, and then, you know, most recently with Senator Harshbarger, you know, as a pharmacist was very supportive of us as well. And, and I would say all the pharmacists, in the Senate, there are four pharmacists in that, Senate and the Tennessee General Assembly.
And, and they were all supportive of us. And, and that meant a lot to you. So, so we're just we're just very pleased, to finally have this opportunity to to offer this to students. Yeah. One other, I think major piece to this in addition to that proof of concept that I was talking about earlier that I think really, helped, you know, push this across the finish line were our season outcomes?
Yeah. Yeah. To be able to to, you know, show that, you know, we're worth the investment. And that students that come to get and we'll have, you know, a great outcome. And so, specifically speaking about our Netflix pass rate, you know, being top five in the country in 2023 and, again, with our class of 2025, I think definitely caught their attention.
And many of the legislators that I met with commented on that. Yeah, they were they were impressed with, how well prepared our students are. And I think that helped them make the decision to be willing to invest in the college. And our students.

Stephen Woodward
That's great. Well, thank you for your tireless effort and dedication to to doing that over the past nine years. Did you log how many trips to Nashville you've you've made it.

Dean Debbie Byrd
I did that time. I probably should have stayed. Yeah, for sure I didn't, but, it's, you know, it was a long nine years, but, you know, I'd never had any, you know, responsibility before becoming a dean of interacting with legislators. And so I really came to enjoy that. Maybe not the trip. It'd be nice if I could, you know, just go across town, to meet with folks that, you know, just to develop those relationships over time and, yeah, you know, realize, I mean, they're, they're they're here to help us and that's that's their role.
And, and, and they, they really work hard, you know, to help us. So I appreciate those relationships and the opportunity just to better understand the process and how things work. I really had no clear understanding of that either. So, it was a lot of work, but, certainly enjoyed it and were thrilled with the outcome.

Stephen Woodward
Well, we asked some students to, to provide some questions for this interview. So P2 Bonilla asked, what has been the most challenging leadership decision you've had to make as Dean?

Dean Debbie Byrd
Well, I think probably the hardest thing that, I have to do as a dean, unfortunately, it's very rare that it happens, but is to dismiss a student and, you know, any decision that affects a person, even if it's in their best interest, and it's the right thing to do is, is difficult. And, and I would say those decisions, because the question was, what's the most challenging decision?
And the decision itself is, not necessarily challenging, you know, it's the right thing to do or that individual, and, and it could be, I think especially if you ask those questions, what is in the best interest of the profession of the university? What's in the best interest of the college, and what's in the best interest of the individual?
Then the decision itself usually is pretty clear. And and how would I wish to be treated under these circumstances? The decision becomes pretty clear. But it's still, difficult to sure, you know, that you're, you know, going to cause pain for someone, even if it's in the short term and even if it is the right thing to do, it's always very difficult.

Stephen Woodward
Brunella also asked if you weren't working in pharmacy or academia, what career do you think you would have pursued?

Dean Debbie Byrd
Well, I initially I, I remember in the first grade.

(laughing)

Mrs. Highberger asked me to help her, do something. I don't remember what it was. You know, during recess one day, and I, I got off the school bus and ran inside and told my mom that I was going to be a teacher. When I grew up. And so that was, you know, my plan as a six year old and was was by playing for a little bit.

Dean Debbie Byrd
And, and as I got older, you know, my family always, struggled financially. And so once I realized that maybe, being an elementary school teacher might not give me the financial security that was really, really important to me under those circumstances. And then I just said, okay, I guess I won't do that. And so it's been a real bonus career, you know, pharmacy school to be a pharmacist.
I didn't think that I would get to be a teacher to. So I got to do both of those things that, another, I don't know if it would have been a career, for me, per se, but I had a backup plan going to college that, I was I was waiting for scholarships to come in and out.
It was about two weeks before, classes started. I went to Middle Tennessee State University, and I had applied for one scholarship and hadn't gotten it. And I'd gotten, some Pell Grant funds, but it wasn't enough to to cover things. And so I applied come last chance scholarship to get and, and so my thought was, well, if I don't get that, then I was going to join the military and, to give me the opportunity to eventually go to college.
I'm not sure if that would have been a career, but that was my my clear plan. At that point and then, maybe a more unique, career path that didn't come to me until about, I don't know, 10 or 15 years into my career. Just because I didn't know that it existed is forensic anthropology.

Michele Williams
Oh wow.

Dean Debbie Byrd
Yeah, totally. I guess I didn't even know that was a thing, but, you know, Bill Bass is a forensic anthropologist, and that if you've read the Body Farm books, my my office at one point overlooked the body Farm, in Knoxville. And so, yeah, just the idea that you could, you know, look at bones to human osteology was one of your specialty areas or is one of his specialty areas.
And. No, and not just, you know, is this male or female, but what kind of work they did? Because, you know, if they, you know, did work that, you know, required heavy lifting, like, you could see that in their bones that, so, I don't know, I was just I was fascinated by that. And so I kind of thought for the first time, well, you know, if I'd known this existed, I might have gone out On something like that. But I don't know.
How many forensic anthropologist are really needed in the world. Whereas I think we need lots pharmacies now.

Michele Williams
And lucky for us, you know.
So, another student question that we have is from Ryan, who is actually the president of P-1 class. Class of 2029. His question is, leadership can be a challenging journey. Is there a specific mentor or role model who helped shape your own leadership philosophy? And what is the one piece of it of their advice that you still lean on today as the Dean?

Dean Debbie Byrd
Yeah, there's there's not just one. You know, I if I started to name or try to name people, I would definitely leave people out. So, I think about, you know, the faculty member, I was an average student. And do not tell our students this all the time. I was a very average student in pharmacy school. Not for lack of trying effort, but, you know, I had a faculty member and preceptor that encouraged me to think about residency, and I'm not sure I necessarily would have thought about that.
Even. You know, it's one of those things that, you know, sometimes a mentor is not someone that you necessarily are spending a lot of time with. Someone may just literally ask you a question, have you ever thought about it? So, I would just encourage, you know, everyone, whenever you see, something in someone and you're thinking in your head, oh, you'd be really good at, you know, whatever.
Have you ever thought about to always ask those those questions?

Michele Williams
It can be life changing.

Dean Debbie Byrd
Oh, no, no, no, no doubt about it. And I mean, I had, you know, former students that, you know, went on to do something and years later would come back and say, oh, well, you're the reason I did this. And I would look at them in confusion and say, oh, remember that day? You ask me, you know, have I ever thought about.
And no, I didn't remember that. But it does, you know, can make a real impact. So that's that's important. But I had other, you know, my residency preceptors, you know, who really, developed me exponentially. Department chairs, campus meetings and really, everybody I've ever worked for has has served as a mentor, the president and provost here. But fellow faculty and staff, meet your peers, you know, can be those mentors, because I do think a lot of it is just, you know, serving as a sound board and just being somebody that that listen, sometimes, you know, sometimes you know what to do, but you just need to say it all out loud and have somebody, you know, not at the end, you know, instead of running from the room that, you know. Yes, that's a good thing to think about that, you know, colleagues I've mentioned in professional organizations, certainly have been, students, teach me something. You know, every time. But I have an opportunity to interact with them. And it's interesting and just funny that you asked me because I had lunch yesterday with Wilsie Bishop, who, is the retired vice president for health affairs and, who I worked for for many years. And so, you know, she continues, at this point, even her in her retirement, you know, to serve as, as a mentor.
But, my number one strength, according to Strengthsfinder. And I've taken it many times over many decades now, is learner. And so I think every experience that you have and every interaction that you have is an opportunity to to learn something and to gain something. And I think my experience has been that people are very generous.
And so if you, you know, ask for advice or ask, to draw upon somebody's wisdom. So far, I haven't run across anybody that's been unwilling, you know, to to talk with me or, you know, listen to that dilemma that, I'm facing and, you know, give me their two cents. And so that's another encouragement that I would put out into the world that, you know, you never know until you ask.
And, but it doesn't really matter who it is. I think sometimes we think, you know, a lot of the people that have the most wisdom and could potentially give the best advice are some of the busiest people. You know, in the world, potentially. And it's really easy to say, oh, gosh, I don't want to I want to bother them, I don't want to inconvenience them.
But again, I found them. You know, it doesn't matter who you ask. I haven't had anybody turn me down. Yeah.

Stephen Woodward
That's great. As we come to a close, is there anything else you'd like to to add to our listeners?

Dean Debbie Byrd
You know, this is our 20th anniversary for the college. And, in July, I will have a big year, ten years. And so it's caused me to do, you know, some some reflecting, about the ten years and, and thinking about I don't think that I answered one part of the last question about, you know, what piece of advice of about do I lean on?
And I, I think it's maybe a couple of things, you know, one is I mentioned earlier just treating people the way we want to be treated. I mean, many years ago, the college, did some developmental program with outward mindset. But that's really what it boils down to. But I think the other piece has is just being intentional, that, you know, just because you wish things were different doesn't mean that they're going to be different.
That you're making those changes for the better and trying to think about, you know, how to make things easier, how to facilitate success, whether it's for students or faculty or staff. I think that's a big part of the job. And, you know, sitting here with you, too, I think the first new position that I created when I came here was the marketing position, and like you and.
I kind of from that, you know, solving a problem I came here in realized I knew very little about this college, and nobody did. There were people in Johnson City that didn't even know that there was a College of Pharmacy, which is crazy to think about all the community support that we had. But, you know, I have lots of people, you know, moving to the area.
So I was just then I was amazed by all the great things that were going on. So, you know, I feel like you've done a great job and, you know, getting the word out there about all the great things. And then maybe I'm not sure if it was literally the second position, but, we had a retirement and, academic affairs and we thought about, you know, what do we do?
We want to just replace, you know, have the very same position, or do we want to, you know, reimagine what that would be. And that's when the director of student success position.

Michele Williams
That was a great decision.

Dean Debbie Byrd
But a lot of those, you know, student success efforts that that you have been led and, you know, we have relatively new student success coordinators. It's probably been the most recent addition to that. But, you know, we just are always thinking about, you know, who are our students. And as we've said, many of them are first generation, you know, coming from rural areas.
And, and they, they bring, incredible assets that sometimes come with some things that have left them behind a little bit. And how do we take those, students that come to us with great potential and make sure that, you know, as long as they're doing the work, that they're going to be successful in the end. So just that intention with student success, you know, revamping our athletics prep, you know, is a big initiative that has certainly paid off, you know, for students recently.
You know, admissions and enrollment is up. Yes, due in large part to marketing. But, you know, we have a full time recruiter, you know, now, and we haven't always had, you know, the ERP program, is something that is is new to the college, relatively new to the college. And I've mentioned, you know, some of the great engagement activities that happen.
But, you know, there's those are all, I guess, circling back around to their problems or obstacles and some of the things that I think we're proud of, staff as a college came from a need to address, a problem or a situation as you have to see Will now.

Stephen Woodward
Well, thank you for your service to the college and for being on the podcast today. We appreciate you coming.

Michele Williams
Yeah. Thanks so much. Yeah.

Dean Debbie Byrd
Well, thanks again for asking.

Stephen Woodward
Thanks for listening to White Coat Radio. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe and leave this review to learn more about ETSU Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy, visit us at e-t-s-slash pharmacy or follow us on social media @ETSUpharmacy. We'll see you next time.

43 min
May 12 Episode 30 — Drs. Tabitha Sineath ('24) and Katie Cox on Specialty Pharmacy
On this episode of White Coat Radio, we’re joined by two specialty pharmacists making an impact in Tennessee. Dr. Tabitha Sineath (’24), an ETSU Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy alumna who earned both her PharmD and MBA through the college’s dual degree program, now serves as Lead Pharmacist at Walgreens Specialty Pharmacy in Nashville, where she is the Clinical Lead for Transplant and Chronic Inflammatory Conditions. She is joined by Dr. Katie Cox, who manages Walgreens Specialty Pharmacy in Knoxville. Together, they share insights into careers in specialty pharmacy, their work in women’s health, and the real-world applications of their training.
Full transcript:

Tabitha Sineath
Because you take back bits and pieces from every experience, whether that be as a student on rotations to your first job or what you ultimately grow into. It's the bits and pieces that you know as part of your experience that truly kind of define you over time. So don't. My advice to students is don't give up on that and continue to kind of seek those out because you know in your heart where your passion lies, you have to make the pathway.

Michele Williams
Welcome to White Coat Radio, a podcast from East Tennessee State University. Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy in Johnson City, Tennessee. Each episode, we cover a wide range of topics about the pharmacy school experience, from study tips to deep dives with faculty and student pharmacists. I'm one of your hosts, Doctor Michelle Williams, assistant professor and director of academic success.

Stephen Woodward
And I'm Stephen Woodward, marketing and communications manager. Today we welcome Doctor Tabitha Sign at the 2024 alumna from Gatton, who, in addition to earning her PharmD, also completed our dual degree program to earn a master of Business Administration while she was here. That prepared her to now serve as leave pharmacist at the Walgreens Specialty Pharmacy in Nashville, Tennessee, where she is a clinical lead for transplant and chronic inflammatory conditions.

Stephen Woodward
But today, we have not one but two specialty pharmacies joining us. Doctor Katie Cox, who manages Walgreens specialty Pharmacy in Knoxville, also stopped by. Let's hear from them now. Doctor Cox, doctor Sineath welcome to White Coat Radio. Thank you all for coming out today.

Katie Cox
Thank you for having you.

Stephen Woodward
Can you start by telling us about your roles at Walgreens and where you work?

Katie Cox
Yeah.

Tabitha Sineath
So I am, lead pharmacist at our specialty site in Nashville. And, oversee primarily our transplant in chronic inflammatory condition patients.

Stephen Woodward
Okay.

Katie Cox
So I work at Walgreens as well. I manage the, specialty pharmacy structure at Walgreens is a little bit different. I mean, it's the site that's in Knoxville. And, what's called registered manager, local specialty. So I'm over the whole site. I'll own kind of your accreditation and specific accreditation, not just for specialty pharmacies, but it does apply, within the specialty pharmacy field.

Katie Cox
Then there's an M.O., which is a pharmacy manager, and what we traditionally think of as a pharmacy manager. And then they're all kind of structured differently, which is what I love about specialties. It's like each side is a snowflake. It looks a little bit different. So the Nashville site has care. Teams are a little bit larger site. We are a newer site.

Katie Cox
I launched our site in 2023. And then we've got five pharmacists now, but we don't have a specific care team, so we kind of all share and own the disease state since we've structured a little bit differently than Nashville.

Tabitha Sineath
Yeah. And we talk about care teams a little bit. That's just kind of a delineation of what type of disease state we're managing. So in in Nashville, we're a little more bucketed. We have a virology and oncology pharmacist who oversees those patients, neurology, who oversees, like migraine and seizures. And, I oversee chronic inflammatory in our transplant, which includes not only solid organ but stem cell.

Tabitha Sineath
And we have a unique partnership with Sarah Kane and clinic across the street, as part of the tri star network, to help those patients. And then we have a lot of miscellaneous specialty that kind of filters in, that don't really fit nicely into a bucket. So that's kind of where we all cross-train and help out.

Stephen Woodward
Okay, cool. Thank you.

Michele Williams
Yeah, that sounds great. So can can each of you tell us a little bit about what led you to specialty pharmacy? What it is about your your background, your work experiences, those kinds of things. And, Tabitha, if we could start with you, that would be good. Sure.

Tabitha Sineath
I started out, as a pharmacy technician for Walgreens, many years ago. I'm not going to say save a year, but, a few decades back, and, my path has not been linear in that sense. But I advance kind of to the top of my level as a technician and wanted to go back into pharmacy to get my pharmacy.

Tabitha Sineath
And always had been that drive in that pull for me. And finally just took the dive. But I think the catalyst for me was more of like a personal experience that led me to specialty. When I was trying to start our family and a lot of family planning, we realized that we would need a lot of additional help.

Tabitha Sineath
So in terms of, fertility specialty, we had to go through in vitro fertilization. And with that came a lot of specialty medications that, there was not great education around. And these are really expensive medications. And I, I said to myself, you know, there's got to be a better way to handle this for patients. And so that was really my draw to say, you know, this is this is my niche.
00;05;24;09 - 00;05;31;21
Tabitha Sineath
This is where my passion lies. And that's really what I want to do. I want to help those patients, and have great outcomes.

Michele Williams
That's wonderful. Yeah.

Katie Cox
So, I also have a very nontraditional path towards pharmacy. When I was in undergrad, I studied chemistry and biochemistry, and I did research for the government on, carbon nanotube technology. I went to medical school, and I got, my medical doctorate, and then I had some health issues, and was trying to figure out how to restructure balanced life.

Katie Cox
For someone who is a high achiever, that can't work less than 120%, and we give you a lot of leeway for the optimal work life balance. I did not know I would have the additional years that I got so thrilled and pharmacy kind of looked like a great career to dovetail my chemistry biochemistry interest, along with what I had learned in medicine.

Katie Cox
And so, I finished pharmacy school and I went and graduated in 2016, and I started in, management. So I started out as a staff pharmacist, was not there very long and then started managing. I mean, it's 5 or 6 different sites, kind of jokingly say I was like the cleaner where they would send me to a pharmacy that maybe needed to implement better workflow or had some structure issues, or maybe had lost a really good leader and was trying to kind of figure out how to get back to where they were.

Katie Cox
And so I would kind of get us realigned and going well. And then specialty pharmacy, which I think is a great topic to talk about because I think a lot of times when you think of Walgreens, you don't necessarily think of specialty pharmacy. But it is a huge section of Walgreens. And I even when I started working for Walgreens, I did not know that we had specialty pharmacies.

Katie Cox
At that time, there was not one in Knoxville on the closest ones were either Nashville or Bristol, Kingsport. And so I took the opportunity to go and shadow at those sites and kind of see what it looked like. And it was a really great niche sort of space and community where you still do a lot of clinical work.

Katie Cox
And have long term interactions with your patients. I similarly had a fertility journey when my husband, we were trying to have our daughter and so helping patients navigate some of the fertility and understanding how much of the communication gets dropped off between the patient walking out of the physician's office and then coming into the pharmacy or getting the medications, and how probably a lot of the issues with our health care system are kind of this lack of continuity of care or like regular check ins with the same person who knows your history.

Katie Cox
And so I feel like specialty pharmacy fits so great into that space. And it's kind of under utilized in some capacities for patients both with billing access and then like long term management. And so I always like to include to you, like when I talk to students, they say, well what is specialty pharmacy like? Why is it special?

Katie Cox
And I kind of always joke, you know, it's it's an interesting and really great question to ask because there's not technically a specific definition of specialty pharmacy. Right. Medicare, Medicaid, our two biggest payers don't actually define specialty pharmacy, which kind of means that it ends up being defined by third party payers in some capacity, by manufacturers and access points and by some capacity, because there's drugs that are limited distribution drug, you can only get certain places.

Katie Cox
But a really good point like definition would be highly expensive, medications or medications that potentially would have chronic issues or adverse events that could occur because of the conditions that we're managing would make it more difficult to distinguish between like maybe an adverse event versus something that's happening with like multiple comorbidities. So it helps with tracking for data.

Katie Cox
So we learned in school, you know, about the four phases of studying drugs. And so I'll always talk about specialty pharmacy really fits into that post-marketing phase of study. And so always ask my students like how how did you decide. We tell patients 5% of patients have migraines, right? It probably wasn't the thousand patients we looked at in phase three is probably when it hit the market.

Katie Cox
And we were looking at phase four. Where do we where does that data come from? Right. And so specialty pharmacies usually provide data points. That go towards far more manufacturers and really also help us as pharmacists or clinicians tell patients about what to expect with the medications. But a lot of that is related to the adverse event reporting that we do.

Katie Cox
So we do track patients very much long term, talk to them on every refill, track adherence, track side effects, and then report that back so that that data can be used to help, you know, benefit patients in the future. And so it's really helpful. So you're kind of participating in the research around drug habit in specialty pharmacy, whether you recognize it or not, because there's so much data reporting that we do within the pharmacy industry, which is helpful in the long term for us to determine which patients should be optimally on that therapy, especially if it's an orphan drug or an unusual one that's going to have a small patient population using it.

Katie Cox
How do we get enough data to make that tractable for us to make better decisions in the future, when we're setting up guidelines or taking care of patients?

Michele Williams
I hadn't realized, although. Yeah.

Stephen Woodward
What does this what does your sites look like physically? Are they like the Walgreens on the corner, or does it look like something else?

Tabitha Sineath
Yeah, they're I mean, they're open door. So it's not, closed door pharmacy. We have patients that can come in and fill antibiotics if they want to. But primarily we serve more like a mail order type facility. Okay. Probably 95% of everything that we do goes out the door via Fedex. And that's just our courier that that we use.

Tabitha Sineath
But everything is communicated with those patients and, basically effectively shipped, so. Okay. But yeah, we have patients that walk in, in Nashville, we are situated very close to Vanderbilt University. So we have a lot of students that, even though there are two community sites that kind of flank us on either side, patients tend to find us either via walking route or some other way, but typically, our sites don't appear like a normal Walgreens, so you may pass it or you may just not even notice it in general, it's kind of very indiscreet.

Stephen Woodward
Okay.

Tabitha Sineath
And we don't have the big neon out front. And, you know, we always try to tell patients that are coming in to pick up either because of, you know, a delay. They don't want to wait for overnight delivery. I want to get started on therapy immediately. They're welcome to come in and pick that up, and we'll make those arrangements.

Tabitha Sineath
But we always for that visit. This is not your run of the mill big box.

Stephen Woodward
Yeah, I want to yeah.

Katie Cox
There's two. So there's two flavors of Walgreens specialty pharmacies. There's health systems and then there's community based. So health systems, what it sounds like do you located within the health system, usually inside a hospital. So within Tennessee we have one at Bristol. So the Bristol Regional Medical Center and then we have one in Kingsport. Those are both inside a hospital.

Katie Cox
Otherwise they're most often close to a campus, except for my site, which was the first or site in the company where a pharmacist flipped a retail site to a specialty site. So most specialty sites are built organically because the the structure inside the building looks different. I started with what was called a Cooper site, which was an ideal Walgreens had, where a lot of the, the, profit is made in the pharmacy.

Katie Cox
So it was a shrunken front end with a pharmacy and the main portion of it. And so we ended up converting that. So so what did we do? We gutted the front. So when you walk in. So ours is located in the strip mall, you'll notice, a lot of the community, specialty sites are located in the strip mall.

Katie Cox
And they'll say it'll say Walgreens Specialty pharmacy. But when patients walk in is when they notice a difference. So they might say, oh, Walgreens on the swing in here. And then they walk in and go, where's where's all your stuff, you know, and no, we have no friends. There's nothing. So there's just a counter. And then it's like, oh, I'm sorry, we only have like prescription medications here for you.

Katie Cox
And we do about the bulk of what we do. We also originally had a drive thru. We would close to that drive thru because, an a hole tell students when you come in and when you go to a normal retail site, where's the hustle and bustle? It's in the fill zone, right? Like if we're filling, we're checking prescriptions.

Katie Cox
We're counting at the window. When you're in a specialty site, the bulk of what we're seeing, the stress to you is a phone list that you're doing. And so you're going to see way more desks. You're going to see way more people on the phone. There's still patient interactions. It just looks a little bit different. And so anytime someone's been a traditional Walgreens pharmacist and they come to Cross-train in specialty, we kind of joke within the first hour, really high level, community pharmacists will go, oh, I see my skill set does not necessarily apply here because I'm used to the workflow structure being so different.

Katie Cox
And so it looks a lot different. So I always tell people, if you I hope you really enjoy talking to patients and having longer conversations, because that's kind of what we do here. And spend a good bit of time in doing a consultation with the patients. So before we dispense a drug, we do what's called an initial.

Katie Cox
And you may be on the phone with a patient for 30, 45 minutes, you know, very extensive discussions around the medications and what it might look like. And like we talked about before, continuity of care. Sometimes we're the first person really having a conversation with the patient about the diagnosis that they may have received. We have just found out I have multiple sclerosis.

Katie Cox
I've just found out that I've got Parkinson's. I've just found out I have cancer, you know, and now I'm talking to you all trying to navigate the drug aspect of this. And you're telling me very large numbers and lots of side effects, right. And so sometimes we call it kind of like a, we jokingly call it can like the specialty come down like you come in on the phone and then at the end we hope that you feel like, oh, I now understand a little bit of what I'm what I'm about to do and have some ownership in the process, being the patient in this and not feeling like I'm just kind of

Katie Cox
getting subjected to a lot of information and not knowing how to take like actionable next steps on it. And so example of that would be in specialty, which I think is a little bit different than a retail pharmacy is. We set a goal with the patient for every drug. And so how do we decide that that's the drug's working for you as an effective is it not effective.

Katie Cox
What does that look like? You know, we might have drugs that are very specific, like, oh, we're going to see a lowering of this lab, but you're not going to feel different versus another drug that might be, hey, this drug only allows you to live to a life of that. Right? So that's a good example I give to my students all the time, is that's a really specific drug that maybe we want a lot of adverse event data on, because while the drug is designed to let you live a little bit longer, unfortunately the condition that you have, most likely you will pass away when you're on this medication.

Katie Cox
So we want to make sure to tell them exactly specific of what to expect, what, how many days we think we're going to get and set a realistic and like logical goal for the patient. So maybe for a long drug, it might be I want to be able to play on Saturday when my grandkids come over, a lot of our pulmonary drugs, it's, my laundry room is downstairs.

Katie Cox
I can't do my laundry because I get out of breath. I have to sit down for an hour. So I want to be able to go down and come back up. And so I think it's really helpful in creating conversations for patients to determine, like, how do I decide this is going well, and then how do I use it appropriately to try to get the results that I'm talking to you guys about that are possible.

Katie Cox
And then even more so, maybe setting realistic expectations, right? Sometimes we feel like, particularly in this day and age, that we might have a cure all with a medication, and being able to set realistic expectations like, hey, this drug is going to help, with your liver, liver fibrosis, but we're also going to have to do like diet and exercise for you to achieve the goals that we're talking about and things like that.

Katie Cox
So that I feel like they really understand the process and can define what good would look like and how that might be different between different patients.

Michele Williams
That's very cool. So it's like really, really specific patient counseling relationships, talking about how the medication is really to a very specific degree.

Katie Cox
And then kind of gauging it based on the individual. Right. Something that we don't always in a lot of health care settings have the time to do. And that's one of the things I like about specialty pharmacy is you kind of have unlimited time. So I always joke to to my students, I'm like, it's like something so fantastic is something so terrifying, right?

Katie Cox
So somebody might go, oh my gosh, I can sit on the phone as long as I want. That sounds fantastic. And another person might go, oh, it sounds terrible. You know, I don't know where it's going to end. Right. And so it's like we're yeah, figuring out how to optimize it for what you feel like and how you want to be a pharmacist.

Katie Cox
And and that's one of the beautiful things about specialties. I feel like, like especially at a site like in Nashville, where you've been established for a really long time, you've got a lot of varied pharmacist roles at your site, and you can kind of gauge based on some of these goals and like what makes them happy at work, where you're going to pocket them for how much interaction they have with with patients and counseling versus leading to a team members versus, you know, like compounding or.

Katie Cox
Right. So you know, it's a beautiful profession because you can decide exactly what makes you happy during the day and then cater the role towards what you would you would want to get out of the day.

Tabitha Sineath
And there's so much variability even to between our care teams. I mean, I think the skill set for virology and oncology is very different from, say, miscellaneous specialty or somebody who's doing, a cardiac medication. And then we have, you know, non non-sterile, compounding that, we also do and we ship to ten different states. So with our site, we're dealing with patients from Maryland to Ohio to North Carolina.

Tabitha Sineath
I mean, it just varies all the way down to the south, Louisiana and Mississippi and Georgia. So our patients truly are all over, and really, I think you kind of hit on that. The beauty of what we do is the relationship building, because that in a sense, not only gets patients access, but it gets them engaged not only in their care, but also kind of what that outcome for them looks like.

Tabitha Sineath
And we can partner that with a lot of resources that we have the time and the functionality to do. And some of that is like the financial aspect because these medications are crazy expensive. Some of our neurology medications are about $100,000. Our, you know, hepatitis C treatment. You're looking at anywhere from 30 to 90,000, depending on which avenue in which vein we go down.

Tabitha Sineath
So, you know, in terms of like the payor aspect, you have to have great control, which is why access as many times is restricted just as specialty because of payers are going to be investing in that medication for that patient. They want to make sure that their outcomes are positive. So we do a lot of education and a lot of resource, facilitation with those patients to make sure that, you know, my goal is for them to walk out with zero.

Tabitha Sineath
So there's no out-of-pocket expenses to them. And we have access to grants and different foundations that can also kind of help funnel and provide those resources to make that happen. So when you talk to a patient who, you know, has a make applied prescription, that's $100,000,

Tabitha Sineath
That financial burden down to zero. I mean, that's that's the difference between, in some cases, life or death for these patients. Wow.

Michele Williams
So, thinking about our current students here again, what what sort of advice would you give? Student pharmacist who would be interested in going into specialty pharmacy?

Tabitha Sineath
I always say, if you can shadow get your foot in the door. Certainly work as a technician. Work in the field. That's going to give you the best access. You not only find out, is this really where you want to be? Because that's the most and part, the most important part of it. Nobody wants to, you know, show up day in and day out.

Tabitha Sineath
If that's not where your passion lies. Yeah. So finding that niche I think early on, is really helpful. But a lot of that begins with the proactive nature of that student. And then you have to step out of your comfort zone and say, this is something I'm interested in. How can I help facilitate that? You should network this around you.

Tabitha Sineath
Talk to people who are in that field. You know, we all have we all have connections. So it's really kind of navigating who, you know, and, drawing those, those webs together.

Katie Cox
You know, I get asked this question a lot by my students, and it's evolved over the last decade of me being a pharmacist. So I think when I was a newer pharmacist, I used to give the advice of like find a really good. And it's still not wrong advice. It's just evolved a little bit. I think in the beginning it was fun, a really good mentor and and make sure that you're like, find somebody who you feel like optimized in their career the way that you want to be, and then ask those questions and figure it out.

Katie Cox
And I think as I've been in the profession and trained a lot of students, I precept for for schools, I've recognized maybe two, just like how I define that for them, because we don't do a fantastic job in grad school, we're very focused on like making sure we enter the profession well, right. We're going to be good professionals.

Katie Cox
We want to learn what we have. And I kind of joke like we have we're really good at herd mentality, right? Like you're joining the profession of pharmacy, right? We're all joining this together. But self-awareness and like an individualized approach to your career is a trickier thing. And it makes sense because that's how we kind of do education.

Katie Cox
But I think a different way of saying find a good mentor is doing what you would like to in your career is saying find out, like become more self-aware of what makes you happy. So I always tell students when you're on rotations, and I know, you know, I always ask them their biggest fears to not like great on rotation around, but typically ask the question that I don't know the answer to.

Katie Cox
Well, let me tell you, you're going to get asked a question that you don't know the answer to. Precept. Every month I've teed you up so that I can teach you with the question. Right? So get over that hurdle and start thinking about what days when you're on rotations, do you leave and think, because we all have a day at work out where you leave and you're like, oh, I picked the right job.

Katie Cox
I'm so happy. I love what I do. This is a great day. And then equanimity of life, right? There's another day where you leave and you think, oh, oh shit, that's something else. I wish I'd opened that little shop I should have, like, learn how to do interior design. So you like, you know, it's like equanimity, right? It's both of those days.

Katie Cox
But I think there's if you can track like some trends to that, especially on rotation. That's the idea of rotations, right? The joke at school was always the moment you felt comfortable with where you were going, was the moment you were going to stop going there. Right about week 3 or 4, you start getting comfortable. You love the team you're with and and boom, it's like, oh, 48 hours later, you get to go on and like learn how to like adjust another month.

Katie Cox
That's a really great life skill to build on. And then recognizing when you're on those rotations, when you love the day or hate the day, what was it? Was it what you did? Was it who you were with? Was it your schedule? Was it the environment? You know, and then figuring out when with self-awareness like what that looks like, which is really hard with how we do grad school.

Katie Cox
Right? Like I joke, when I have most students, especially when I have a couple of them, I'll say before you make a decision, what do you do? Right? What do you do? You call your friend and you go, hey, I was thinking about doing this. Tabitha, what do you think about me doing this? You think I should do this?

Katie Cox
You think you should do this rotation? Do you think I should go and do this internship? You think I should take this job, right? We vet it from someone else. But. So I'll give the example. We have five girlfriends that all are pharmacists. We all have different jobs, we all live in different states and we all have different personalities.

Katie Cox
And so we all, so we have one who works at Kaiser Permanente. She's an inpatient doing it there. I have one who worked in a nonprofit HIV community clinic, that helps patients there. I have, me that means in a specialty pharmacy, I have someone else who manages a retail site. And we all have equal complaints because work is work, right?

Katie Cox
It's not one or the other, but we all have different personalities. So one of us loves talking to patients all day. Wonderful. One of us is like, no, I'm good on that. I'd like to lead over here in the office and not do that right. And she loves that. Right. And so I think sometimes we lose that in school, a little bit of of utilizing the APIs to learn about ourselves we get so stressed about like especially here at Gatton, like you're good, you're going to pass for that.

Katie Cox
Like you're going, you're going to be a pharmacist. So focus on being your happiest and best self and then figuring out how to use those APIs to figure out what is your best day look like. And then how do I figure out how to create a career for myself where I have the best day? And so I always tell my students, I'm like, I'm sure anyone can think of that one disgruntled person, right?

Katie Cox
He's like, well, I can't believe you went to pharmacy school, which I went through here, you know, waste your time. But it's probably not because of pharmacy, right? It's probably because they're not optimized to like, their self-awareness or their happiness. And so figuring that out early on and and then the other thing that I think is a really great piece of advice is careers aren't where they used to be.

Katie Cox
This is in the 40s and 50s where you picked your job, and that first job is the job you retired from, right? Like, you can move around in your career. And while change is hard for us as humans, I think it's great to be able to explore. So you're just looking for your first job, right? And then figuring out what you use that to leverage to the next.

Katie Cox
I'm actually my first job as a staff pharmacist, and I became a manager. Then I managed a bigger pharmacy. Then I decided I wanted to do specialty pharmacy. Now I manage a specialty pharmacy, and I'm hoping to launch that into managing more specialty pharmacies over different states. But so what's that next growth moment and like space moment for you and then figuring out how to optimize it for you as an individual.

Katie Cox
Instead of feeling like you need to fit yourself into the career of pharmacy.

Tabitha Sineath
I think those breadcrumbs along the way to kind of help like define what that pathway looks like, because you take big bits and pieces from every experience, whether that be as a student on rotations to your first job or what you ultimately grow into. It's the bits and pieces that you know as part of your experience that truly kind of define you over time.

Tabitha Sineath
So don't. My advice to students is don't give up on that and continue to kind of seek those out because you know in your heart where your passion lies, you have to make the pathway, but you have to be proactive about it.

Katie Cox
Yeah, I think when I was younger, I thought lifelong learner meant drugs. And now I'm like, no, no, no. It means so much more than that. It's not just the knowledge for like what you're doing in your work, but it's also like lifelong learner about myself, about my profession, about how to interact with patients and engage them and advocate for them and give them agency and what that looks like.

Katie Cox
And it changes over time as you change, but like recognizing that so that you don't get in there in a rut and think, well, I'm not happy now when I was well, you've evolved, you know, evolve your profession with you and you'll always be happy.

Michele Williams
That's such great advice. Yeah, that's really good advice.

Stephen Woodward
We've we really appreciate you all being here. I think that was a great note to end on. But, thank you all and hope to see you again soon.

Katie Cox
Absolutely. Thank you.

Tabitha Sineath
All. Thanks.

Stephen Woodward
Thanks for listening to White Coat Radio. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe and leave this review. To learn more about ETSU Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy, visit us at ETSU.edu slash pharmacy or follow us on social media at ETSUpharmacy. We'll see you next time.

29 min
February 20 Episode 29 — Dr. David Stewart on NAPLEX success
We’re joined in this episode by Dr. David Stewart, Associate Dean of Assessment and Academic Affairs. Dr. Stewart led Gatton’s efforts to improve NAPLEX pass rates, resulting in the college ranking among the top five accredited pharmacy schools nationwide for the Class of 2025, as well as No. 1 in Tennessee and No. 2 in the Southeast. He shares his thoughts on the excellence of our student pharmacists, alumni, faculty, and staff, as well as the collaborative efforts that led to this success.

Transcript
Introductory Teaser:
David Stewart
I think for a student that's either here at the College of Pharmacy or maybe thinking about coming to the Gatton College of Pharmacy. I hope it gives them confidence that when they finish our curriculum, they go through our training program, they're going to have the tools that they need to be successful as a pharmacist. They're going to be able to pass those exams.
Main Episode:
David Stewart
They're going to be able to get a license.
Michele Williams
Welcome to White Coat Radio, a podcast from East Tennessee State University Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy in Johnson City, Tennessee. Each episode, we cover a wide range of topics about the pharmacy school experience, from study tips to deep dives with faculty and student pharmacists. I'm one of your hosts, Doctor Michele Williams, assistant professor and director of academic success.
Stephen Woodward
And I'm Stephen Woodward, marketing and communications manager. Today we welcome Doctor David Stewart, associate dean of assessment and academic affairs, as well as professor of pharmacy practice. He is an inaugural faculty member at Gatton, joining the Department of Pharmacy Practice in 2007. Doctor Stewart led the college's efforts to improve its NAPLEX Pass rates, and today he shares about that process, as well as his thoughts on the excellence of our curriculum, our students and alumni, as well as faculty, staff, and the collaborative efforts that led to the college's success.
Stephen Woodward
Doctor Stewart, welcome to White Coat Radio.
David Stewart
Well thank you. Thanks for having me as a guest today.
Stephen Woodward
So we have some big news that happened at the college a few weeks ago. Demanded just tell us what happened.
David Stewart
Yeah. So every January we get a report from the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy or in NABP and they give us licensing reports on our licensure exams, the NAPLEX, and North American Pharmacy Licensure Exam, as well as the Multi-State Pharmacy Jurisprudence Exam, also known as the MPJE. And these are the two exams that students need to take in order to get licensed as a pharmacist.
David Stewart
And so we're able to compare our results against the results of schools across the nation. And so for the second time in three years, we had a really high pass rate. I'm proud to say that our class of 2025 was the number five, school in the country for first time pass rate on NAPLEX amongst all accredited schools in the United States.
David Stewart
Also was the number one school in Tennessee and number two in the southeast with a 97.7%, first time pass rate on the network's exam.
Michele Williams
That's amazing.
Stephen Woodward
That amazing.
David Stewart
Yeah. And then, you know, the cherry on top of that is that exam I mentioned the MPJE, our in-state first time attempt, pass rate on that. We were number four in the country, number one in the state and number two in the southeast again. So really strong work from our graduates in the class of 2025 for sure.
Michele Williams
They really did a great job.
David Stewart
Yeah. And I think the exciting thing for me is this is a, you know, just one group. It's it's mostly the students. We tend to celebrate a lot around here. But really see, alumni from the class of 2025 that did all the hard work and took the exam. But it does represent a team effort. It's the, you know, the students, the graduates taking the exam are faculty, staff working as a team to set them up for success.
David Stewart
So really, really proud of everyone's effort.
Michele Williams
So, you mentioned the people behind the, the, pass rates, including our amazing students and our faculty and staff. But these successes also reflect some recent changes to Gatton’s curriculum. Right? And so, what kinds of changes have taken place that sort of led to this success?
David Stewart
Yeah. So really, a couple of things. First, you know, we set out on a curricular revision. We've really been planning that revision since before the Covid 19 pandemic. Going back to the 2018, 2019. That did kind of put a damper on things. But in about three years ago, we launched a new curriculum. So our current P3 class is the first class that's, completely going gone through that new curriculum.
David Stewart
However, I will say that along the way, as we identified things that like foundational things that we needed to do better on a lot of that feedback from students after taking the exam or after going through our curriculum. Our faculty were really good, integrating small changes into our legacy curriculum. So I think that what we're seeing, even though these graduates weren't necessarily graduates of our new curriculum, they're graduating with a new curriculum philosophy in mind from the people that are delivering that curriculum to them.
David Stewart
So I do expect that things will only get better as we see graduates coming through our our revised curriculum, with our first class graduating in the new curriculum from, in 2027.
Stephen Woodward
And these recent results, as I've done, in my opinion, it's not just a one off like a few a couple of years ago, the class of 2023, they were ranked number two in the country for accredited pharmacy schools and number one in Tennessee and our region in the southeast. Right. So this is kind of part of continuing on from just incredible national recognition.
David Stewart
Yeah. And I think if you look back on the history of the Gatton College of Pharmacy, we've always been, you know, kind of at or above average, if you will, when about 4 or 5 years ago, we had, what I would say was a low point for us. I mean, we were right around the national average.
David Stewart
And, if you ask anyone here, our faculty and staff, no one's happy with average. We want to we want to have excellence in all that we do. And so we really embarked on this journey to improve our student success on those exams. And yeah, I think that class of 2023 that you referenced, there is a direct correlation with with some of those changes that we started 4 to 5 years ago about how to better prepare students for the exams.
David Stewart
Cool.
Michele Williams
So, what do you think these successes mean for the college and for students pursuing pharmacy?
David Stewart
Well, I think for a student that's either here at the College of Pharmacy or maybe thinking about coming to the Gatton College of Pharmacy, I hope it gives them confidence that when they finish our curriculum, they go through our training program, they're going to have the tools that they need to be successful as a pharmacist. They're going to be able to pass those exams.
David Stewart
They're going to be able to get a license. One of the newest things that we are doing that started last year with this class of 2025, is that we bring them back a month early, so they actually start their fourth year rotations or APPEs or advanced pharmacy practice experiences. In the month of April of their three year and then during the month of April of their four year right before graduation, we spend about four and a half to five weeks preparing them for the exam.
David Stewart
And that allows us to slow that process down and make sure that they have all the fundamental tools they need to be successful on that exam. I think the initial feedback, and that's been very positive, and of course, the results from this first class going through that model are very encouraging as well. So again, that's just another example of things that we're constantly changing and improving.
David Stewart
So if you're a student in our program or come into our program, you can rest assured that we're going to prepare you. And my goal, I tell them, in that training program, is that they're ready to walk across the stage and go the next week and take their exams and be licensed as a pharmacist without delay.
Michele Williams
So, Doctor Stewart, I know that this is a team effort. Certainly. But you were really the architect of this preparation program that you just described. Can you tell us a little bit more about your, your objectives in developing this program and, and how you put that program together?
David Stewart
Yeah, that's a that's a great question. And, and really speaks to I think it's something that's really important that we had to talk about and work through as a faculty and staff. I mentioned earlier about our our faculty and staff are always focused on excellence. And I think one of the initial, you know, knee jerk reactions when you start talking about exam prep is making sure you're not just teaching an exam, but we want our students to get the necessary skills that they need to go out and be successful.
David Stewart
Pharmacists in making a positive impact on health care and the profession of pharmacy. And so I feel like we really found a sweet spot where we made sure that what we were teaching in the classroom, was, was sound that we were getting those fundamentals in. But as we talked to students, one of the things I did early on is we started revision to this program was just gathered data.
David Stewart
What were the barriers that students were facing as they struggled with these exams? And there's just so many factors out there. Things like, for example, many students come to us now without taking the traditional standardized exams. A lot of folks don't know that. You know, SATs and Acts are not necessarily required for college admissions anymore. Several years ago, they, took away the, PCAT exam, which is the equivalent of the mCAT exam for medical school.
David Stewart
So some of our students, we realized, had never actually taken a high stakes external standardized exam before. So some so a lot of this wasn't necessarily that they didn't have the knowledge that they needed. They didn't necessarily know how to tackle a 5 to 6 hour, really large, standardized exam. And so some of the things we did was just prepare them for that exam process.
Michele Williams
So the environment you try to mimic that testing environment to give them a sense of so they're not surprised by it or they're not thrown off by it.
David Stewart
Yes. When we collected data from our first class that went through some of the revisions I've talked about, and this was about four years ago, one of the things they rated as the most effective in our program was a simulated nap. And at that point in time, we were able to put that together through practice exams that were offered through NABP
David Stewart
And now there's a new product from NABP called the NAPLEX Advantage, which we use for our students. It gives them more data. It gives us more data based on their performance. But it's basically a practice exam so they can take a simulated Nap exam beforehand. In addition to just taking that practice exam, we really strive to simulate the entire experience so the student knows what it's going to be like from the time that they pull up in their car, in the parking lot of that testing center, to the time that they walk out, that they're not surprised by anything in there.
David Stewart
So they're prepared and they can focus on the exam, in performing at the level that that they can perform at, versus being distracted by things that, that they didn't necessarily know were going to happen, like, oh, they're going to take my phone and put it in the locker. Oh, I have to turn my car keys in.
David Stewart
Oh, I forgot my driver's license. It's in the glove box of the car. It's just those little things that can get students flustered on exam day. And what we were hearing from students that weren't used to that or didn't expect that, is that made a big impact on their ability to think and perform well on the exam.
Michele Williams
That can really throw you off your game if you don't know how regimented that environment is.
David Stewart
Well, if you look at, you know, any you get high performing athletes. As an example, you can bet that they're simulating the game environment. They're preparing for that big game, whether it's the Super Bowl or the World Series or whatever. And we're trying to do the same thing for our students. We want to simulate that environment. And have them as prepared as possible for those things so they can focus on doing what they need to do.
David Stewart
And that's, using their knowledge to perform at their highest level on the exam.
Michele Williams
I think that's great. And then how did you put together the other elements of the the preparatory program?
David Stewart
Yeah. So the very first class, that, that I helped to go through the exam process, we did an assessment after the fact. And one of the things, that that is unique about, our data set, and we're in the process of publishing these data so that others can benefit from this is there's a lot of information getting students opinions and perceptions.
David Stewart
Preparatory materials or courses as they're in school before they take their exam. We actually surveyed our graduates after they sat for the NAPLEX exam. So their perspective may be different. And we found in some ways it offers additional information than a student who hasn't taken the NAPLEX exam. So then we use the information we got from those graduates after they took their knapsacks, asking them what components of our program set you up for success?
David Stewart
What was effective? What was less effective? And then each year in an iterative process, we make minor changes. But really the things that they said were the highest impact. The back to the the simulated exams, and then some of the, preparatory content that we provided for them. And then things that were less effective, like, for example, at one point we had faculty meeting with students every week during their fourth year.
David Stewart
The students told us that's really not effective. We don't feel like it helped as much as other things. So we've taken that away. It's less burdensome for the students. It's less burdensome for the faculty. Yet we're seeing a continual rise in our scores because we're focusing on the high impact interventions that we can make.
Michele Williams
So that constant feedback from students and at various points along the way have really informed the way you put this program together.
David Stewart
Yeah. We've really we've really room for a data driven approach to do all that we do. And looking at, you know, not just what do other people do but other people who have successes, what are they doing? You know, looking at your data from people that are in a position to tell us this is what was helpful for me to be successful on this exam.
David Stewart
And we're incorporating those things. Not that other perceptions aren't important, but we feel like those perceptions are more valuable in getting the outcome that we want, which is our students being successful on those exams.
Michele Williams
So it sounds like it's about a lot more than just, you know, the the content, the questions. It's it's the totality of the experience of being prepared for the exam.
David Stewart
It is. And I want to reiterate that this is really a curricular experience that starts in the P1 year. Yeah. And some of the things that we do are actually going back and reinforcing things like pharmacy calculations. Yeah. They're oftentimes questions on the exam are mirrored in the practice models that students are in in their fourth year.
David Stewart
And so we want to make sure that they know how to do those types of calculations. And if and when they show up on the exam. We also recognize that there are some things that our students do over and over and over and get really good at. But, for example, they probably are really good at taking care of patients with diabetes and heart failure.
David Stewart
Those are chronic diseases that we see a lot here in rural Appalachia. But not all of our students feel, real comfortable about, calculations around, nutrition support in an inpatient hospital setting. Yet there are questions about that on the exam. Had it in the curriculum, but they've not practiced it day in and day out. So we're just getting them.
David Stewart
I would I would say we're getting them reps on the types of things that they may not be doing every single day on rotations, that that we know are going to be on that exam so that when they see those questions, they're comfortable and able to appropriately, you're accurately answering them.
Michele Williams
So sort of a broader approach so that they don't get, you know, too much of a certain type of question, but kind of broader look at the content.
David Stewart
One of the things that I will tell the students is you can't re learn everything in our curriculum during your fourth year. There's a lot of things that you already know, as a fourth year student pharmacist, one of the goals of our program is to help our students self-assess what they know and then what areas they need to work on more, and then encourage them to focus their study time on the areas that they need to, that they need more work in.
David Stewart
And so it's not going to be the same for everyone. So while our program is somewhat of a one size fits all in that they all go through it in the same way, a lot of what we're coaching them and mentoring them on throughout the year is that self-assessment of don't waste your time studying the things that you know and are comfortable with.
David Stewart
I think, Doctor Williams, you probably see this in your own work as director of academic success and in my experience with students on rotation, was if a student understood, say, the pathophysiology and treatment of diabetes really well, they always wanted to talk about diabetes. They wanted to do their their presentations about diabetes. They wanted to pick up all the patients in the clinic or on the service that had the disease, diabetes, because they were comfortable with that.
David Stewart
One of my goals in this preparatory program is to get them to start focusing on the things they're comfortable in, and spend more time studying the areas that they're uncomfortable with so that they're prepared for that rigorous broad exam that ask questions across a plethora of disease states.
Stephen Woodward
Well, it's been really great talking with you, Doctor Stewart and seeing how Gatton is leading in licensure pass rates not only at the state level but on the national level. This is just been that's really exciting news. So we appreciate you coming out today.
David Stewart
Yeah. Well thank you. Thank you for having me. And again, just a shout out really to the graduates. Just the class of 2025. And we mentioned our graduates from the class of 2023 as well. They put in a lot of time and a lot of hard, hard work. So, the huge congratulations to any of our alumni that are out there listening today.
Stephen Woodward
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for listening to White Coat Radio. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe and leave this review wherever you listen to podcasts. To learn more about East Tennessee State University Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy, visit us at etsu.edu, slash pharmacy or follow us on social media @ETSUPharmacy. We'll see you next time.
19 min
January 28 Episode 28 — Dr. Ralph Lugo on the role of AI, Gatton's culture, and its 20th Anniversary
We’re joined in this episode by Dr. Ralph Lugo, Senior Associate Dean and Professor at East Tennessee State University Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy. He has been with the college since its founding, joining in 2006 as the founding Chair of the Department of Pharmacy Practice and serving in that role for 17 years before being promoted to Senior Associate Dean. Dr. Lugo discusses the role of AI in pharmacy education, including both the benefits and risks of the technology. He also reflects on the college’s 20th Anniversary, how Gatton has grown and evolved over the years, and where he believes it is headed in the future.
Transcript
Teaser Introduction:
Ralph Lugo
What you're going to get here at Gatton is a great education, where you also have high impact opportunities and a wonderful culture, a community focused culture, a student centric culture with relatively small class sizes compared to many other schools where you're going to know your professors and they're going to know you, and you're going to develop lifelong relationships with your colleagues.
That doesn't always happen in all schools.
Main Episode:

Michele Williams
Welcome to White Coat Radio, a podcast from East Tennessee State University Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy in Johnson City, Tennessee. Each episode, we cover a wide range of topics about the pharmacy school experience, from study tips to deep dives with faculty and student pharmacists. I'm one of your hosts, Doctor Michele Williams, assistant professor and director of academic success.
Stephen Woodward
And I'm Stephen Woodward, marketing and communications manager. On this episode, we talk with Doctor Ralph Lugo, senior associate dean and professor at ETSU Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy. He's been with the college since its founding, joining in 2006 as founding chair of the Department of Pharmacy Practice and serving in that role for 17 years before being promoted to Senior Associate Dean.
Stephen Woodward
During this time, again, Doctor Lugo is primarily focused on administration, program development, and teaching. And before coming to Etsu, he served as vice chair of Pharmacotherapy at the University of Utah. Doctor Lugo‚Äôs practice experience and interest is in pediatrics, specifically in pediatric intensive care. His research interests include lifestyle medicine, pediatrics, neonatology, pediatric intensive care, analgesia, sedation, and his research has been supported by the National Institutes of Health.
Stephen Woodward
Well, Doctor Lugo, thanks for coming to Waco Radio today.
Ralph Lugo
Yeah. Thank you, Stephen, for having me. Doctor Williams, thank you for having me today. Look forward to our conversation.
Michele Williams
We're happy to have you here.
Stephen Woodward
So you came again as founding chair of the Department of Pharmacy Practice. Can you talk about your long history here and what roles you currently serve in?
Ralph Lugo
Sure. I came to Gatton in 2006. I was hired in 2005, so I've been here 20 years now, which is just amazing to think that I've been here that long. And I was hired initially as the founding chair of the Department of Pharmacy Practice. As you all know, we have two academic departments Pharmaceutical Sciences and Practice. At the time, at the time, I was at the University of Utah as vice chair of Pharmacy practice and an associate professor in pediatrics.
Ralph Lugo
I think most people know that my specialty area had been pediatrics in my up but in the air quotes. Former life as a as a clinician in the pediatric intensive care unit. And I had always wanted to come back to the East coast. Was born on the East Coast. I trained in North Carolina, worked in North Carolina. I really enjoyed the South East a lot.
Ralph Lugo
So my wife and I, we started a family out in Utah, and we really had a desire to come back east and specifically the southeast. So I saw this position open up, and it was just a natural move for me to move from a vice chair position to a chair position. And I had been in academia long enough that 13 years at the time to be able to handle such a thing.
Ralph Lugo
Of course, it's always very challenging, but really look forward to the opportunity. But there were some things in particular, I think, that really attracted me to Gatton. Number one, we were starting a college of pharmacy from scratch. There's not a lot of opportunities that come up in the country to start a pharmacy school from scratch, to no avail.
Ralph Lugo
And and you know, there's as you go around the country and you train in different places, you realize that some things you know, I might do a little differently or the culture may not be as I would want it to be in certain places. And so here was this opportunity to start with a clean sheet of paper.
Ralph Lugo
And I thought, what a wonderful professional opportunity that really doesn't come around very often. And and then I interviewed the for the position and was just overwhelmed by the community support for this for this college of pharmacy. Nothing I've really seen before coming from Salt Lake City. City of 1 million plus College of Pharmacy doesn't get much airtime or press.
Ralph Lugo
And it seemed like here at the College of Pharmacy was in the newspaper towns, the city press constantly above the fold type of articles, on the news, on the marquees, on the bumper stickers. I mean, it was just all over and I was just amazed that the community support, so that really attracted me here, as well as meeting with Dean Calhoun at the time, really communicated a student centric focus to Gatton, which I really appreciated.
Ralph Lugo
So between all of those things, the stars just aligned the right way from a career standpoint for me and Gatton seemed real attractive in a place that I wanted to live. And then, you know, the place sort of got pushed off into the background somewhat in front and center was there's a great opportunity here in Johnson City to establish something really unique, and I want to be a part of it.
Ralph Lugo
So that's really what what got me here. And that's what's kept me here for 20 years.
Michele Williams
That's great. So what is your favorite part about your job?
Ralph Lugo
Well, I love working with students. I'm an administrator at least half my time, but I still teach a lot in the classroom. So depending on the semester, I may be teaching 30 or 40% of my time. In some semesters, I'm teaching 50% of my time. So I teach more than most administrators teach. And that's not something that I wish to give up.
Ralph Lugo
I really enjoy being in the classroom. I really enjoy being around the students. That's not unique to being a founding chair of the department, but that's a part that I really wanted to hang on to and have hang on to, you know, because I could have given that up in various ways over the years, but I intentionally retain that, especially since I, I no longer practice, and I love practicing, too.
Ralph Lugo
So I gave that up because there just wasn't enough time in the day to do all those things. So I gave that up, but did not want to give up teaching. So love teaching, love working with students, love working with the faculty. And that's the that was the hook for me about being a department chair is you really have an opportunity to work closely with the faculty and trying to create opportunities for faculty members, trying to promote them.
Ralph Lugo
I don't mean promote the necessarily from assistant to associate, but promote them in their career development, to promote them in their daily practice and just just helping them come along as faculty members. That was something that was very attractive to me, and I've enjoyed that ever since. And that's the one thing I actually miss, in being in my current position right now, is I don't work as closely with the faculty members, but I still do work with them.
Ralph Lugo
So, because I'm no longer department chair, I'm sure we'll get to that, soon, but, but those are the things I think that I really enjoy about my position.
Stephen Woodward
Can you talk about your transition from department chair to senior associate dean now?
Ralph Lugo
Right. So, so several years ago, after serving in that as a department chair for, for 17 years, Dean Byrd was, was provided with a wonderful opportunity to serve as interim dean of the College of nursing. And, in order to make that happen, we really needed to have somebody here that could assist, her to continue that leadership role.
Ralph Lugo
And so she asked me to serve as it was at that point, it was called executive associate dean, which has since transitioned, entitled Who's Senior Associate dean. But essentially it functions in the same way. So, a few years ago, that transition occurred when she took over that, that interim role in the College of Nursing. And then she served in that role for a period of time and is now back full time here in the College of Pharmacy.
Ralph Lugo
And I'm still in that position of senior associate dean. So that's how that transition occurred. That's what prompted that transition. I moved into the senior associate dean role, and then Sarah Thomas and moved into the department chair role. And it's been a wonderful transition, a wonderful new challenge for me as well. And I still do many of the same things I did before, even as a department chair, with the exception of working as closely with the faculty, as I mentioned earlier, earlier.
Michele Williams
So, what is something that people at Gatton might not know about you?
Ralph Lugo
I think.
Michele Williams
Ralph Lugo
I think many people, some people might know about my recent interests from a professional standpoint. As you all know, I trained in pediatrics, served in that capacity for a number of years, and still have an interest in that. But professionally, as the years went on, my interests sort of blossomed in other areas. And that particular area is lifestyle medicine.
Ralph Lugo
And so about 25 years ago, an organization was formed called the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, and it was formed by a number of physicians. And the primary goal and mission of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine is to try to address the root causes of disease and try to improve health through lifestyle interventions. As we all know, we have a very needy, sick population in this country and we have various epidemics that are unfolding as we speak.
Ralph Lugo
Certainly, diabetes would fall in the category Alzheimer's disease would fall under that category, and cardiovascular disease continues to be the number one killer worldwide and in the US, and of course, cancer as well. And all of these things absolutely need to be addressed. But there's not a lot of reimbursement opportunities to try to prevent disease and try to get at some of the root causes.
Ralph Lugo
So that that has been an area that's been somewhat ignored over the years. So this organization was created to try to address root causes and lifestyle modifications. And lifestyle modifications are in many of the guidelines that currently exist for treating various diseases. But the problem is that when physicians say you need to change your diet or you need to change your lifestyle, that's as far as they go in many cases in terms of describing that.
Ralph Lugo
And the patients don't necessarily know what that means. And if you ask ten patients what it means to change your diet, you're going to get 15 different answers. So so this organization is really about trying to prevent disease. So I really sort of latched on to that about ten years ago. And so I'm now working with a number of students, seven students actually to write four papers.
Ralph Lugo
No, it's actually more than that. It's 8 or 9 students to write four papers on the pharmacist's role in lifestyle intervention, the community pharmacist in particular. So things like preventing dementia, things like preventing anxiety and depression, that's what we're writing on. We're writing on we're we're considering just writing on the pharmacist role in lifestyle modifications in the community pharmacy, trying to educate pharmacists and give them the tools necessary to be able to address these issues in their patients.
Ralph Lugo
We have a captive audience here. We have patients coming to the pharmacy, and pharmacists are the most accessible health care workers. So there's a great opportunity for this intervention. But pharmacists need to be educated in this area of lifestyle medicine, and it's not currently in the curriculum. So I'm trying to champion more education about that. Part of the way I'm doing that is through scholarship, writing articles and engaging students.
Ralph Lugo
I hope to develop an elective in this area in the near future, and I think a number of students would probably be very interested in that.
Michele Williams
Definitely.
Ralph Lugo
So I think if you just bring this back to your question, Doctor Williams, I, I think probably many students don't know that some faculty might know it, but not all faculty might know. And so I'd say that's that's an area that, that's probably at least known about me.
Michele Williams
And they know it now. So yes, that's right. More requests for students to participate in that research. That's right. You're doing. Yeah.
Stephen Woodward
What? And I know everybody knows about you that you're a huge fan of AI and that the rise of AI over the past few years is just it seems like it's taken over, not quite in like, Terminator style yet, but maybe we're getting close to that. Can you talk about how you got interested in artificial intelligence and what do you find most useful about.
Ralph Lugo
Yeah, AI is is really interesting. I like to utilize technology as a tool, not just I, you know. Yeah, some of the faculty, they'll probably poke, poke fun at me because I'm always looking for a better app to do certain things. You know, whether it's project management and some faculty. I won't name any names, but some faculty may laugh at me in terms of, you know, the newest and the greatest project management tool, a doctor you logos using well, whether it's Trello or whether it's Clickup, which is which is what I'm using right now.
Ralph Lugo
So there's a little bit of fun there that folks have with me. So I've always been very interested in utilizing technology to improve efficiency. I'm very much about maximizing efficiency, whether it's.
Ralph Lugo
Driving a car that has good gas mileage or whether it's squeezing every dollar out of your budget or whether it's, trying to get the most work out of a work day. You know, that's just kind of like how I'm wired. And so technology has always been a part of that. So that got me interested. And then when I found out about I happened to be in a, I was in a, a faculty meeting on main campus, it was a it was a group of faculty members, that were addressing, it was actually a number of chairs that were meeting and we were addressing the charge to write a faculty handbook for new
Ralph Lugo
chairs. This was about four years ago. And the, the, person that was leading this, this committee said I used ChatGPT to give me an outline of what a faculty handbook would look like. And he showed it and I was like, wow, that is amazing. Now, meanwhile, I had heard of ChatGPT. I wasn't quite sure exactly what it did or what it was, but I was amazed at the output.
Ralph Lugo
So I started tinkering a little bit with it and then, you know, and then things began to snowball. And then we had a number of, faculty development sessions here at the college. I actually gave one of those sessions and, and we went to a number of national meetings where we had sessions on a all things I. So I learned a lot about it.
Ralph Lugo
And now I would consider myself. I'm certainly not an expert at it, but I'm probably an early adopter and I'm very enthusiastic about its potential. I'm not completely ignorant about the downside of using AI. It certainly does have downsides and limitations and disadvantages, but I think a lot of things do, you know, and people say the internet has downsides.
Ralph Lugo
Yeah. If you're in the wrong places at the wrong time, it can be very detrimental. Right? But it's got a huge upside to so it's just a matter of trying to balance that and learning when to best utilize and how to best utilize AI in order to help you in your productivity guardrails. So let me talk a little bit about guardrails with AI use, because that's what people will ask about is this like, how do we how do we put guardrails around its use so that it can be used wisely?
Ralph Lugo
So I would say, first and foremost, we need as a foundational issue, we need transparency. It needs to be clear when AI is being used. It's a, it's a, some measure of academic honesty and, being genuine is to declare when AI is used in order to assist with certain things. And that's coming from a professional standpoint, but from a student standpoint, too, academic honesty really depends on disclosing when I was used.
Ralph Lugo
And so we need to we need to set up guardrails about disclosure. And I think that needs to be in policies as we move forward. Things are changing so rapidly. Policies are being developed, guidelines are being developed. So I think those things will be important to include moving forward. The other part of guardrails is we need to be careful about not encouraging students to take shortcuts around critical thinking.
Ralph Lugo
We are trying to teach critical thinking here at the College of Pharmacy. That is an important outcome, and there are certain exercises that require critical thinking. It's not necessarily we're trying to get the answer as quickly as possible. We're trying to put you through that exercise of critical thinking and synthesizing and taking all this information that you're learning over the years and coming up with a cohesive, cogent answer.
Ralph Lugo
And that's the exercise. That's the benefit. You got to struggle a little bit with that. Well, we can assign that to AI and come up with an answer. And, a 10th of the time, perhaps, but the student will not have grown from that exercise of critical thinking, and they may not know how to critically think if they continue to take shortcuts.
Ralph Lugo
So we need to have mechanisms in place to protect those critical thinking opportunities. Also, clinical reasoning students need to be able to reason through certain questions, and they need that practice. They need also to, demonstrate competencies. You know, our skills, we have these skills here in the in the college. They have certain things like oral exams or direct observations or practice labs where you have to display certain competencies.
Ralph Lugo
You're able to do certain things. AI is not going to help you there. So so that's an important part of the guardrail as well. And then, faculty development from our faculty need to be, competent users themselves before they can be thoughtful regulators. So we as faculty need to create these guardrails. We need to create these policies.
Ralph Lugo
But we also need to be able to utilize them, utilize AI ourselves so that we know where the pitfalls are, where the landmines are, and where students can get into trouble. So, we're in the process of, in AI and I say we I mean, college pharmacy, Etsu, the academy, the profession. You know, we're in the process of developing these things as we go along.
Ralph Lugo
And in the meantime, we have people that are, like, totally embracing it. And we have people that are tepidly cautious. And then we have people that are naysayers. And so all the above, I, I'm, I'm enthusiastic, but not ignorantly, ignorantly. So in other words, I'm not just embracing everything. I, I think it needs to be within the context of guardrails.
Ralph Lugo
Michele Williams
I agree, I share some of your concerns about AI co-opting somebody's ability to think critically or to even just practice those skills of reasoning through a problem and problem solving. On their own. I know in the classroom they have opportunities to do that, but it, it does seem like it would be very tempting to get AI to do some of that.
Michele Williams
So I think, yeah. What you talk about with, with guardrails and, and not only guardrails, but sort of offering rationales and helping students look further down the road to why is it that you need to be the person doing this sort of reasoning and thinking?
Ralph Lugo
Yeah. And and how to use AI in the context of that reasoning? You know, I can be right. Appropriately, AI can be a tool in that reasoning process, maybe to provide them with some information as long as the information is double checked in terms of accuracy. But the reasoning is really important, and human judgment enters that reasoning very often.
Ralph Lugo
So things like empathy, things like, context of patient care, you know, understanding Mrs. Jones social situation and the fact, whatever her limitations are socially, you know, she doesn't get out of the house or she limited mobility or all these things go into helping to make decisions for patients that I can't necessarily reason through. And you have ethical decisions as well that come up.
Ralph Lugo
And I again, may not be able to help with that. I, we have to recognize that AI is trained on a data base that exists in the past. And so there may be some ethical situations that come up which are contemporary, which are not necessarily in the training data base that one needs to think through critically in order to come up with an answer to best fit that patient.
Ralph Lugo
It's kind of like evidence based medicine in a way. We can have all of the objective clinical trial data on a drug. We can say very clearly, this is the most efficacious drug for this disease. State, but if Mrs. Jones is not going to take it, or if it's too expensive for Mrs. Jones, or if there's three other reasons why it's not going to work and Mrs. Jones, then it may not be the best drug for Mrs. Jones, even though it has the most compelling data.
Ralph Lugo
So it's the same with I may gave you some very good objective information, but it needs to be contextualized so that you can determine what is best for this patient. That requires empathy, human reason, human judgment, contextualization and AI at this point doesn't do all of those things. Yeah.
Ralph Lugo
You know, I might I might mention another thing. And I know Doctor Williams, this kind of resonates with you with regard to professional identity formation. I know that's an area of interest for you. But, you know, one of the things as we're trying to develop professionals here at the Gatton College of Pharmacy is we want students to be able to wrestle with difficult questions and sometimes failure, sometimes critique, sometimes not having the right answer, sometimes struggling and being corrected helps with that professional identity formation so that it helps them become a better professional.
Ralph Lugo
And, you know, I can think we were just having a conversation just recently, another faculty member and I, about some of the students in the past that may have had some academic or behavioral challenges, shall we say. And I'm talking about the distant past. And I think in some cases, some of these some students may be young. They may they may not have that full maturity.
Ralph Lugo
Certainly they're not fully matured professionally, that professional identity formation. But they've they went through a process that helped to correct them, to guide them, to corral them and shepherd them. And in that process, they came out on the other end and have created wonderful careers for themselves through that process. And sometimes a few hard knocks along the way will help people correct course, correct along the way, and help them become more successful.
Ralph Lugo
So that's, you know, it's not always about having the right answer. That's true. And having all your eyes dotted and t's crossed, which I tends to do. Right. Great answer. I now let's put it in the context of training pharmacy students.
Michele Williams
I agree, I agree.
Stephen Woodward
It's got to be pretty satisfying to see a student from a long time ago struggle, but then come out on the other side and then go on to in a career.
Ralph Lugo
Yeah. Very much succeed. Right. Yeah. And and you don't appreciate it or recognize it immediately until years down the road and you kind of look back and you say, wow, this person's really made a name for herself or himself. And and it's not always about making a name for yourself, but that making a name for yourself is usually because you're a great pharmacist and you take care of patients in a in a great way.
Ralph Lugo
And, you do all the things necessary to be a wonderful practitioner. And so that's really what it's about, whether you make a name for yourself or not. Yeah.
Stephen Woodward
Well, so you talked about you came to Gatton, I think you were hired in 2005, which was at the time of the founding 20 years ago. We're celebrating our 20th anniversary this academic year. Talk about the importance of our 20th anniversary here at Gatton, how far you've seen us come and where you think we're going in the future.
Ralph Lugo
Yeah, that's a that's a great question. 20 years is a great milestone. So it's 25 and we'll probably have, you know, even a bigger celebration at 25. But it sort of represents similar milestones in some respects. And what I mean by that is that many of our founding faculty are still here, and we can look back at the early days and we can appreciate the struggles, and we can appreciate the challenges, and we can appreciate where we have come from and what we have built over the years.
Ralph Lugo
So in many respects, 20 years, 25 years represents as somewhat of an inflection point where you have enough people here that were here in the beginning that recognize that the first 20 years was like maybe chapter one, or maybe it's, you know, maybe it's one with various sub chapters, but really it's it was when we started, it was we were getting things off the ground, and we achieved a number of wonderful things in those first 20 years in not only accreditation and re accreditation, of course, but we also achieved great academic, achievements nationally.
Ralph Lugo
You know, winning a CCP clinical Challenge award twice, community service awards at the national level. Our operation study is an award winner. Now I think it's 12 years in a row, either national or regional. And it's just it's just amazing to think that a new school would achieve that level of national recognition and, national prowess, in the first two decades.
Ralph Lugo
I think as we look forward, not only oh and I'll, I'll mention one more thing about those first 20 years is that we grounded ourselves in an amazing and outstanding culture. And that's where Gatton really shines in many respects. There are a lot of good schools academically. There are a lot of good schools that do community service.
Ralph Lugo
When I tell applicants that that, applied to Gatton is you can get a pharm.d from many places where academically you're going to get a great education. What you're going to get here at Gatton is a great education, where you also have high impact opportunities and a wonderful culture, a community focused culture, a student centric culture with relatively small class sizes compared to many other schools, where you're going to know your professors and they're going to know you, and you're going to develop lifelong relationships with your colleagues, that doesn't always happen in all schools.
Ralph Lugo
And so in the beginning, that was our aspiration to create that culture. That was the vision of Larry Calhoun, our founding dean. And he did that very well. And he articulated that to the faculty and the students and to the leadership team. And we just have propagated that forward over the last 20 years. And now, of course, Dean Debbie Byrd is in place for the last ten years.
Ralph Lugo
And she of course, that's what she's about as well. So it was like we didn't even misstep when we changed deans. And so it's been this continuous progress of developing this amazing culture. Great place to work, great place to learn, student centric, people come first, you know, all bathed in academic excellence and, and community and student service.
Ralph Lugo
Right. So that's a great three legged stool, right? Service. Community service, academic excellence and culture. Now in the next 20 years, we're going to have people retire. We're going to have people that maybe weren't here in the beginning. So there's going to be a little bit of a different flavor. But I'm fully anticipating that the culture is here to stay because we have foundationally set it in concrete and then the concrete is dry.
Ralph Lugo
So I don't think it's going anywhere. And, you know, in the first three years or five years, maybe the concrete hadn't dried yet, but but now I think the concrete is dry. Everybody carries this culture, you know, inside of them. It's part of the fabric of who the faculty and students are. We talk about it a lot. We cultivated and and so I don't think it's going to change in the next 15, 20 years.
Ralph Lugo
So that's going to continue. But now we've added some other things, you know, now we're we're working on streamlining our curriculum to become the most relevant, essential curriculum for training pharmacists. So that's what we just recently did in our curricular revision. And and also we're looking out towards our research and trying to improve our scholarship and our productivity from a research perspective so that we can become better known for our scholarly output and our research productivity, especially in the context of Etsu use research strategic plan and their, desire to improve scholarship as headed up by Nick Haggar.
Ralph Lugo
Meyer, who's also one of us, here at the College of Pharmacy. So I think as we project out, it's a little bit of an inflection point. Just to summarize a little bit of an inflection point. And over the next 10 to 20 years, you're going to see people are not going to remember the beginning anymore. But I think we've wound this thing up sufficiently that there's enough momentum keeping it moving forward in the ways that are important, these high impact ways that it's not going to turn around anytime soon.
Ralph Lugo
And we can just build on our successes and make it even a better place next decade, next two decades. Good to great is kind of our motto.
Stephen Woodward
I love what you said about culture. I feel like, I mean, I've been here almost seven years. I don't think I realized how important culture is for just organizations in general. But hearing you articulated, kind of experiencing it here from a newer, newish organization like it's super important as the foundation and just helps lay the groundwork for everything else that is laid upon it as a like a good, solid structure.
Ralph Lugo
You know, I think that's the reason why we've been so successful in, attracting students. I mean, every, every year we sit down with the PS1 students. The dean has a lunch with subgroups of the P-1 class, 8 to 10 at a time. And we ask them why they came here and what are the things that attracted them about Gatton College of Pharmacy?
Ralph Lugo
And everybody talks about there are a number of things that attracted them. Of course, geographic location is always important, and there's a number of things that are important. But the culture and the receptivity and the warmth. Yeah. On their interview day is somewhat unmatched by other places. And so they felt at home here immediately, and that that's what attracts them.
Ralph Lugo
Also, I think that's what keeps people here, both staff and faculty. Is that it? For that reason, it's a good place to work. You don't you don't have the, some of the, problems that other universities have with, disgruntled employees and backstabbing and competitiveness, and it just doesn't exist here. So it's just from that standpoint is just a wonderful place to work.
Ralph Lugo
And I think we probably after a while, we probably take that for granted. And, you know, if you went to another school someplace else, you might say, oh, I think things a little bit differently. Yeah. So, you know, I've been to a number of schools around the country, and, things are different here again.
Michele Williams
Yeah. And I, I think that culture is very intentional. That's not, it it doesn't just accidentally work like.
Ralph Lugo
Yeah. That's right. Yeah. Yeah, it is definitely something you have to work at. It's got to it has to be something that's articulated from the leaders of the college initially. And, and it needs to be reinforced regularly. And it needs to not just be said you actually need to live the words walk the walk talk the talk.
Ralph Lugo
You know, do all of those sayings. Right. And, and eventually people start to embrace it and it becomes clear when somebody is operating outside of those cultural boundaries. And I think there is just this natural pressure towards in a good way towards this is how we are. I get, you know, this is the Gatton way. You know, people have said that before, right, that this is not the Gatton way or this is the other way.
Ralph Lugo
So it helps us and everybody knows what that means. You know, and probably I would say the students know what that means too. So it's something that that is cultivated, something that is repeated. And we even talk about it in our strategic plan, you know, in terms of environment. Yeah.
Michele Williams
This has been such an interesting and sort of far reaching conversation. I've enjoyed every minute of it. Are there any other things that that you would like to talk about or that we haven't asked you about?
Ralph Lugo
Well, you know, I think something just came to mind, that I think may be worth discussing and that's wellbeing and something that Gatton is all about to, and that's somewhat unique among colleges is we pay a lot of attention to the well-being of our students, the well-being of our faculty and staff. We're doing a survey this year for our staff, for wellbeing faculty and staff, for wellbeing.
Ralph Lugo
And of course, we surveyed the students and we have for a number of years now. So we're able to track their well-being in all of the domains that Gallup would promote. And we track that over time, and we can see where students will drop in their wellbeing scores. And that's a great time for us as a college to intervene and try to promote wellbeing during that time.
Ralph Lugo
So, with that as a background or a backdrop, I, the faculty advisor, one of the faculty advisors on the wellbeing Student Wellbeing committee. And one of the things that I'm working on with the research subcommittee of the Student Wellbeing Committee, that's a lot of work.
Stephen Woodward
That and also loves its committees.
Ralph Lugo
Yes. That's right. Yeah. Great committees. So that's the research subcommittee. We're working on ways that we can take the current research dealing with wellbeing and wellness and lifestyle medicine. As I mentioned earlier, this all fits together right. And yeah. And and draw on the research that is coming out relative to nutrition, relative to physical activity, relative to stress reduction, relative to social connection and, and encourage our students to promote their wellbeing through being aware of the research, adopting the research habits and patterns that are being developed.
Ralph Lugo
So for example, we're just we're working on our first push out. I think that's a word. We're working on pushing out our first, I'll call it publication. Our first, information from this student wellbeing subcommittee, research subcommittee. And we're trying to do it in ways where students will appreciate the the presentation. So we're thinking about maybe infographics.
Ralph Lugo
We're thinking about a short podcast of maybe, like 5 or 6 minutes with some graphics of a video podcast. We're thinking about a short written document. So just ways that we can encourage students to adopt some of the, contemporary research findings relative to wellbeing. And, and then at the same time, they learn about this to help their patients in the future.
Ralph Lugo
So it's not just about them, it's about helping their patients as well. So we're going to be coming out with our first, stuff publication, here in the next few weeks. I had a meeting with them this week, and we've prepared some materials. Which I would actually meant to bring down so you all can look at it and see it.
Ralph Lugo
I'd love to share that with you and get your thoughts on it before it gets pushed out. But, yeah, we're we're really excited about this aspect of, the Gatton culture, because that is really part of our culture too, is to try to enhance wellbeing.
Stephen Woodward
Yeah. That's great. Thanks for sharing. I think that's a wrap. Thank you for being here. I appreciate your time.
Ralph Lugo
Thank you for this podcast. And this podcast has been amazingly successful. So, kudos to both of you. And in creating this and keeping it going. And I think it does a great service to our students and faculty and staff, our community, and even across the country.
Stephen Woodward
So we appreciate it. Thank you very much.
Michele Williams
Thank you. All right.
Stephen Woodward
I'll get it off. Thanks. Awesome. Thanks for listening to White Coat Radio. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe and leave this review wherever you listen to podcasts. To learn more about East Tennessee State University Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy, visit us at etsy.com, slash pharmacy or follow us on social media at Etsy Pharmacy. We'll see you next time.
Ralph Lugo
What you're going to get here at Gatton is a great education, where you also have high impact opportunities and a wonderful culture, a community focused culture, a student centric culture with relatively small class sizes compared to many other schools where you're going to know your professors and they're going to know you, and you're going to develop lifelong relationships with your colleagues.
That doesn't always happen in all schools.
Michele Williams
Welcome to White Coat Radio, a podcast from East Tennessee State University Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy in Johnson City, Tennessee. Each episode, we cover a wide range of topics about the pharmacy school experience, from study tips to deep dives with faculty and student pharmacists. I'm one of your hosts, Doctor Michele Williams, assistant professor and director of academic success.
Stephen Woodward
And I'm Stephen Woodward, marketing and communications manager. On this episode, we talk with Doctor Ralph Lugo, senior associate dean and professor at ETSU Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy. He's been with the college since its founding, joining in 2006 as founding chair of the Department of Pharmacy Practice and serving in that role for 17 years before being promoted to Senior Associate Dean.
Stephen Woodward
During this time, again, Doctor Lugo is primarily focused on administration, program development, and teaching. And before coming to Etsu, he served as vice chair of Pharmacotherapy at the University of Utah. Doctor Lugo‚Äôs practice experience and interest is in pediatrics, specifically in pediatric intensive care. His research interests include lifestyle medicine, pediatrics, neonatology, pediatric intensive care, analgesia, sedation, and his research has been supported by the National Institutes of Health.
Stephen Woodward
Well, Doctor Lugo, thanks for coming to Waco Radio today.
Ralph Lugo
Yeah. Thank you, Stephen, for having me. Doctor Williams, thank you for having me today. Look forward to our conversation.
Michele Williams
We're happy to have you here.
Stephen Woodward
So you came again as founding chair of the Department of Pharmacy Practice. Can you talk about your long history here and what roles you currently serve in?
Ralph Lugo
Sure. I came to Gatton in 2006. I was hired in 2005, so I've been here 20 years now, which is just amazing to think that I've been here that long. And I was hired initially as the founding chair of the Department of Pharmacy Practice. As you all know, we have two academic departments Pharmaceutical Sciences and Practice. At the time, at the time, I was at the University of Utah as vice chair of Pharmacy practice and an associate professor in pediatrics.
Ralph Lugo
I think most people know that my specialty area had been pediatrics in my up but in the air quotes. Former life as a as a clinician in the pediatric intensive care unit. And I had always wanted to come back to the East coast. Was born on the East Coast. I trained in North Carolina, worked in North Carolina. I really enjoyed the South East a lot.
Ralph Lugo
So my wife and I, we started a family out in Utah, and we really had a desire to come back east and specifically the southeast. So I saw this position open up, and it was just a natural move for me to move from a vice chair position to a chair position. And I had been in academia long enough that 13 years at the time to be able to handle such a thing.
Ralph Lugo
Of course, it's always very challenging, but really look forward to the opportunity. But there were some things in particular, I think, that really attracted me to Gatton. Number one, we were starting a college of pharmacy from scratch. There's not a lot of opportunities that come up in the country to start a pharmacy school from scratch, to no avail.
Ralph Lugo
And and you know, there's as you go around the country and you train in different places, you realize that some things you know, I might do a little differently or the culture may not be as I would want it to be in certain places. And so here was this opportunity to start with a clean sheet of paper.
Ralph Lugo
And I thought, what a wonderful professional opportunity that really doesn't come around very often. And and then I interviewed the for the position and was just overwhelmed by the community support for this for this college of pharmacy. Nothing I've really seen before coming from Salt Lake City. City of 1 million plus College of Pharmacy doesn't get much airtime or press.
Ralph Lugo
And it seemed like here at the College of Pharmacy was in the newspaper towns, the city press constantly above the fold type of articles, on the news, on the marquees, on the bumper stickers. I mean, it was just all over and I was just amazed that the community support, so that really attracted me here, as well as meeting with Dean Calhoun at the time, really communicated a student centric focus to Gatton, which I really appreciated.
Ralph Lugo
So between all of those things, the stars just aligned the right way from a career standpoint for me and Gatton seemed real attractive in a place that I wanted to live. And then, you know, the place sort of got pushed off into the background somewhat in front and center was there's a great opportunity here in Johnson City to establish something really unique, and I want to be a part of it.
Ralph Lugo
So that's really what what got me here. And that's what's kept me here for 20 years.
Michele Williams
That's great. So what is your favorite part about your job?
Ralph Lugo
Well, I love working with students. I'm an administrator at least half my time, but I still teach a lot in the classroom. So depending on the semester, I may be teaching 30 or 40% of my time. In some semesters, I'm teaching 50% of my time. So I teach more than most administrators teach. And that's not something that I wish to give up.
Ralph Lugo
I really enjoy being in the classroom. I really enjoy being around the students. That's not unique to being a founding chair of the department, but that's a part that I really wanted to hang on to and have hang on to, you know, because I could have given that up in various ways over the years, but I intentionally retain that, especially since I, I no longer practice, and I love practicing, too.
Ralph Lugo
So I gave that up because there just wasn't enough time in the day to do all those things. So I gave that up, but did not want to give up teaching. So love teaching, love working with students, love working with the faculty. And that's the that was the hook for me about being a department chair is you really have an opportunity to work closely with the faculty and trying to create opportunities for faculty members, trying to promote them.
Ralph Lugo
I don't mean promote the necessarily from assistant to associate, but promote them in their career development, to promote them in their daily practice and just just helping them come along as faculty members. That was something that was very attractive to me, and I've enjoyed that ever since. And that's the one thing I actually miss, in being in my current position right now, is I don't work as closely with the faculty members, but I still do work with them.
Ralph Lugo
So, because I'm no longer department chair, I'm sure we'll get to that, soon, but, but those are the things I think that I really enjoy about my position.
Stephen Woodward
Can you talk about your transition from department chair to senior associate dean now?
Ralph Lugo
Right. So, so several years ago, after serving in that as a department chair for, for 17 years, Dean Byrd was, was provided with a wonderful opportunity to serve as interim dean of the College of nursing. And, in order to make that happen, we really needed to have somebody here that could assist, her to continue that leadership role.
Ralph Lugo
And so she asked me to serve as it was at that point, it was called executive associate dean, which has since transitioned, entitled Who's Senior Associate dean. But essentially it functions in the same way. So, a few years ago, that transition occurred when she took over that, that interim role in the College of Nursing. And then she served in that role for a period of time and is now back full time here in the College of Pharmacy.
Ralph Lugo
And I'm still in that position of senior associate dean. So that's how that transition occurred. That's what prompted that transition. I moved into the senior associate dean role, and then Sarah Thomas and moved into the department chair role. And it's been a wonderful transition, a wonderful new challenge for me as well. And I still do many of the same things I did before, even as a department chair, with the exception of working as closely with the faculty, as I mentioned earlier, earlier.
Michele Williams
So, what is something that people at Gatton might not know about you?
Ralph Lugo
I think.
Michele Williams
Ralph Lugo
I think many people, some people might know about my recent interests from a professional standpoint. As you all know, I trained in pediatrics, served in that capacity for a number of years, and still have an interest in that. But professionally, as the years went on, my interests sort of blossomed in other areas. And that particular area is lifestyle medicine.
Ralph Lugo
And so about 25 years ago, an organization was formed called the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, and it was formed by a number of physicians. And the primary goal and mission of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine is to try to address the root causes of disease and try to improve health through lifestyle interventions. As we all know, we have a very needy, sick population in this country and we have various epidemics that are unfolding as we speak.
Ralph Lugo
Certainly, diabetes would fall in the category Alzheimer's disease would fall under that category, and cardiovascular disease continues to be the number one killer worldwide and in the US, and of course, cancer as well. And all of these things absolutely need to be addressed. But there's not a lot of reimbursement opportunities to try to prevent disease and try to get at some of the root causes.
Ralph Lugo
So that that has been an area that's been somewhat ignored over the years. So this organization was created to try to address root causes and lifestyle modifications. And lifestyle modifications are in many of the guidelines that currently exist for treating various diseases. But the problem is that when physicians say you need to change your diet or you need to change your lifestyle, that's as far as they go in many cases in terms of describing that.
Ralph Lugo
And the patients don't necessarily know what that means. And if you ask ten patients what it means to change your diet, you're going to get 15 different answers. So so this organization is really about trying to prevent disease. So I really sort of latched on to that about ten years ago. And so I'm now working with a number of students, seven students actually to write four papers.
Ralph Lugo
No, it's actually more than that. It's 8 or 9 students to write four papers on the pharmacist's role in lifestyle intervention, the community pharmacist in particular. So things like preventing dementia, things like preventing anxiety and depression, that's what we're writing on. We're writing on we're we're considering just writing on the pharmacist role in lifestyle modifications in the community pharmacy, trying to educate pharmacists and give them the tools necessary to be able to address these issues in their patients.
Ralph Lugo
We have a captive audience here. We have patients coming to the pharmacy, and pharmacists are the most accessible health care workers. So there's a great opportunity for this intervention. But pharmacists need to be educated in this area of lifestyle medicine, and it's not currently in the curriculum. So I'm trying to champion more education about that. Part of the way I'm doing that is through scholarship, writing articles and engaging students.
Ralph Lugo
I hope to develop an elective in this area in the near future, and I think a number of students would probably be very interested in that.
Michele Williams
Definitely.
Ralph Lugo
So I think if you just bring this back to your question, Doctor Williams, I, I think probably many students don't know that some faculty might know it, but not all faculty might know. And so I'd say that's that's an area that, that's probably at least known about me.
Michele Williams
And they know it now. So yes, that's right. More requests for students to participate in that research. That's right. You're doing. Yeah.
Stephen Woodward
What? And I know everybody knows about you that you're a huge fan of AI and that the rise of AI over the past few years is just it seems like it's taken over, not quite in like, Terminator style yet, but maybe we're getting close to that. Can you talk about how you got interested in artificial intelligence and what do you find most useful about.
Ralph Lugo
Yeah, AI is is really interesting. I like to utilize technology as a tool, not just I, you know. Yeah, some of the faculty, they'll probably poke, poke fun at me because I'm always looking for a better app to do certain things. You know, whether it's project management and some faculty. I won't name any names, but some faculty may laugh at me in terms of, you know, the newest and the greatest project management tool, a doctor you logos using well, whether it's Trello or whether it's Clickup, which is which is what I'm using right now.
Ralph Lugo
So there's a little bit of fun there that folks have with me. So I've always been very interested in utilizing technology to improve efficiency. I'm very much about maximizing efficiency, whether it's.
Ralph Lugo
Driving a car that has good gas mileage or whether it's squeezing every dollar out of your budget or whether it's, trying to get the most work out of a work day. You know, that's just kind of like how I'm wired. And so technology has always been a part of that. So that got me interested. And then when I found out about I happened to be in a, I was in a, a faculty meeting on main campus, it was a it was a group of faculty members, that were addressing, it was actually a number of chairs that were meeting and we were addressing the charge to write a faculty handbook for new
Ralph Lugo
chairs. This was about four years ago. And the, the, person that was leading this, this committee said I used ChatGPT to give me an outline of what a faculty handbook would look like. And he showed it and I was like, wow, that is amazing. Now, meanwhile, I had heard of ChatGPT. I wasn't quite sure exactly what it did or what it was, but I was amazed at the output.
Ralph Lugo
So I started tinkering a little bit with it and then, you know, and then things began to snowball. And then we had a number of, faculty development sessions here at the college. I actually gave one of those sessions and, and we went to a number of national meetings where we had sessions on a all things I. So I learned a lot about it.
Ralph Lugo
And now I would consider myself. I'm certainly not an expert at it, but I'm probably an early adopter and I'm very enthusiastic about its potential. I'm not completely ignorant about the downside of using AI. It certainly does have downsides and limitations and disadvantages, but I think a lot of things do, you know, and people say the internet has downsides.
Ralph Lugo
Yeah. If you're in the wrong places at the wrong time, it can be very detrimental. Right? But it's got a huge upside to so it's just a matter of trying to balance that and learning when to best utilize and how to best utilize AI in order to help you in your productivity guardrails. So let me talk a little bit about guardrails with AI use, because that's what people will ask about is this like, how do we how do we put guardrails around its use so that it can be used wisely?
Ralph Lugo
So I would say, first and foremost, we need as a foundational issue, we need transparency. It needs to be clear when AI is being used. It's a, it's a, some measure of academic honesty and, being genuine is to declare when AI is used in order to assist with certain things. And that's coming from a professional standpoint, but from a student standpoint, too, academic honesty really depends on disclosing when I was used.
Ralph Lugo
And so we need to we need to set up guardrails about disclosure. And I think that needs to be in policies as we move forward. Things are changing so rapidly. Policies are being developed, guidelines are being developed. So I think those things will be important to include moving forward. The other part of guardrails is we need to be careful about not encouraging students to take shortcuts around critical thinking.
Ralph Lugo
We are trying to teach critical thinking here at the College of Pharmacy. That is an important outcome, and there are certain exercises that require critical thinking. It's not necessarily we're trying to get the answer as quickly as possible. We're trying to put you through that exercise of critical thinking and synthesizing and taking all this information that you're learning over the years and coming up with a cohesive, cogent answer.
Ralph Lugo
And that's the exercise. That's the benefit. You got to struggle a little bit with that. Well, we can assign that to AI and come up with an answer. And, a 10th of the time, perhaps, but the student will not have grown from that exercise of critical thinking, and they may not know how to critically think if they continue to take shortcuts.
Ralph Lugo
So we need to have mechanisms in place to protect those critical thinking opportunities. Also, clinical reasoning students need to be able to reason through certain questions, and they need that practice. They need also to, demonstrate competencies. You know, our skills, we have these skills here in the in the college. They have certain things like oral exams or direct observations or practice labs where you have to display certain competencies.
Ralph Lugo
You're able to do certain things. AI is not going to help you there. So so that's an important part of the guardrail as well. And then, faculty development from our faculty need to be, competent users themselves before they can be thoughtful regulators. So we as faculty need to create these guardrails. We need to create these policies.
Ralph Lugo
But we also need to be able to utilize them, utilize AI ourselves so that we know where the pitfalls are, where the landmines are, and where students can get into trouble. So, we're in the process of, in AI and I say we I mean, college pharmacy, Etsu, the academy, the profession. You know, we're in the process of developing these things as we go along.
Ralph Lugo
And in the meantime, we have people that are, like, totally embracing it. And we have people that are tepidly cautious. And then we have people that are naysayers. And so all the above, I, I'm, I'm enthusiastic, but not ignorantly, ignorantly. So in other words, I'm not just embracing everything. I, I think it needs to be within the context of guardrails.
Ralph Lugo
Michele Williams
I agree, I share some of your concerns about AI co-opting somebody's ability to think critically or to even just practice those skills of reasoning through a problem and problem solving. On their own. I know in the classroom they have opportunities to do that, but it, it does seem like it would be very tempting to get AI to do some of that.
Michele Williams
So I think, yeah. What you talk about with, with guardrails and, and not only guardrails, but sort of offering rationales and helping students look further down the road to why is it that you need to be the person doing this sort of reasoning and thinking?
Ralph Lugo
Yeah. And and how to use AI in the context of that reasoning? You know, I can be right. Appropriately, AI can be a tool in that reasoning process, maybe to provide them with some information as long as the information is double checked in terms of accuracy. But the reasoning is really important, and human judgment enters that reasoning very often.
Ralph Lugo
So things like empathy, things like, context of patient care, you know, understanding Mrs. Jones social situation and the fact, whatever her limitations are socially, you know, she doesn't get out of the house or she limited mobility or all these things go into helping to make decisions for patients that I can't necessarily reason through. And you have ethical decisions as well that come up.
Ralph Lugo
And I again, may not be able to help with that. I, we have to recognize that AI is trained on a data base that exists in the past. And so there may be some ethical situations that come up which are contemporary, which are not necessarily in the training data base that one needs to think through critically in order to come up with an answer to best fit that patient.
Ralph Lugo
It's kind of like evidence based medicine in a way. We can have all of the objective clinical trial data on a drug. We can say very clearly, this is the most efficacious drug for this disease. State, but if Mrs. Jones is not going to take it, or if it's too expensive for Mrs. Jones, or if there's three other reasons why it's not going to work and Mrs. Jones, then it may not be the best drug for Mrs. Jones, even though it has the most compelling data.
Ralph Lugo
So it's the same with I may gave you some very good objective information, but it needs to be contextualized so that you can determine what is best for this patient. That requires empathy, human reason, human judgment, contextualization and AI at this point doesn't do all of those things. Yeah.
Ralph Lugo
You know, I might I might mention another thing. And I know Doctor Williams, this kind of resonates with you with regard to professional identity formation. I know that's an area of interest for you. But, you know, one of the things as we're trying to develop professionals here at the Gatton College of Pharmacy is we want students to be able to wrestle with difficult questions and sometimes failure, sometimes critique, sometimes not having the right answer, sometimes struggling and being corrected helps with that professional identity formation so that it helps them become a better professional.
Ralph Lugo
And, you know, I can think we were just having a conversation just recently, another faculty member and I, about some of the students in the past that may have had some academic or behavioral challenges, shall we say. And I'm talking about the distant past. And I think in some cases, some of these some students may be young. They may they may not have that full maturity.
Ralph Lugo
Certainly they're not fully matured professionally, that professional identity formation. But they've they went through a process that helped to correct them, to guide them, to corral them and shepherd them. And in that process, they came out on the other end and have created wonderful careers for themselves through that process. And sometimes a few hard knocks along the way will help people correct course, correct along the way, and help them become more successful.
Ralph Lugo
So that's, you know, it's not always about having the right answer. That's true. And having all your eyes dotted and t's crossed, which I tends to do. Right. Great answer. I now let's put it in the context of training pharmacy students.
Michele Williams
I agree, I agree.
Stephen Woodward
It's got to be pretty satisfying to see a student from a long time ago struggle, but then come out on the other side and then go on to in a career.
Ralph Lugo
Yeah. Very much succeed. Right. Yeah. And and you don't appreciate it or recognize it immediately until years down the road and you kind of look back and you say, wow, this person's really made a name for herself or himself. And and it's not always about making a name for yourself, but that making a name for yourself is usually because you're a great pharmacist and you take care of patients in a in a great way.
Ralph Lugo
And, you do all the things necessary to be a wonderful practitioner. And so that's really what it's about, whether you make a name for yourself or not. Yeah.
Stephen Woodward
Well, so you talked about you came to Gatton, I think you were hired in 2005, which was at the time of the founding 20 years ago. We're celebrating our 20th anniversary this academic year. Talk about the importance of our 20th anniversary here at Gatton, how far you've seen us come and where you think we're going in the future.
Ralph Lugo
Yeah, that's a that's a great question. 20 years is a great milestone. So it's 25 and we'll probably have, you know, even a bigger celebration at 25. But it sort of represents similar milestones in some respects. And what I mean by that is that many of our founding faculty are still here, and we can look back at the early days and we can appreciate the struggles, and we can appreciate the challenges, and we can appreciate where we have come from and what we have built over the years.
Ralph Lugo
So in many respects, 20 years, 25 years represents as somewhat of an inflection point where you have enough people here that were here in the beginning that recognize that the first 20 years was like maybe chapter one, or maybe it's, you know, maybe it's one with various sub chapters, but really it's it was when we started, it was we were getting things off the ground, and we achieved a number of wonderful things in those first 20 years in not only accreditation and re accreditation, of course, but we also achieved great academic, achievements nationally.
Ralph Lugo
You know, winning a CCP clinical Challenge award twice, community service awards at the national level. Our operation study is an award winner. Now I think it's 12 years in a row, either national or regional. And it's just it's just amazing to think that a new school would achieve that level of national recognition and, national prowess, in the first two decades.
Ralph Lugo
I think as we look forward, not only oh and I'll, I'll mention one more thing about those first 20 years is that we grounded ourselves in an amazing and outstanding culture. And that's where Gatton really shines in many respects. There are a lot of good schools academically. There are a lot of good schools that do community service.
Ralph Lugo
When I tell applicants that that, applied to Gatton is you can get a pharm.d from many places where academically you're going to get a great education. What you're going to get here at Gatton is a great education, where you also have high impact opportunities and a wonderful culture, a community focused culture, a student centric culture with relatively small class sizes compared to many other schools, where you're going to know your professors and they're going to know you, and you're going to develop lifelong relationships with your colleagues, that doesn't always happen in all schools.
Ralph Lugo
And so in the beginning, that was our aspiration to create that culture. That was the vision of Larry Calhoun, our founding dean. And he did that very well. And he articulated that to the faculty and the students and to the leadership team. And we just have propagated that forward over the last 20 years. And now, of course, Dean Debbie Byrd is in place for the last ten years.
Ralph Lugo
And she of course, that's what she's about as well. So it was like we didn't even misstep when we changed deans. And so it's been this continuous progress of developing this amazing culture. Great place to work, great place to learn, student centric, people come first, you know, all bathed in academic excellence and, and community and student service.
Ralph Lugo
Right. So that's a great three legged stool, right? Service. Community service, academic excellence and culture. Now in the next 20 years, we're going to have people retire. We're going to have people that maybe weren't here in the beginning. So there's going to be a little bit of a different flavor. But I'm fully anticipating that the culture is here to stay because we have foundationally set it in concrete and then the concrete is dry.
Ralph Lugo
So I don't think it's going anywhere. And, you know, in the first three years or five years, maybe the concrete hadn't dried yet, but but now I think the concrete is dry. Everybody carries this culture, you know, inside of them. It's part of the fabric of who the faculty and students are. We talk about it a lot. We cultivated and and so I don't think it's going to change in the next 15, 20 years.
Ralph Lugo
So that's going to continue. But now we've added some other things, you know, now we're we're working on streamlining our curriculum to become the most relevant, essential curriculum for training pharmacists. So that's what we just recently did in our curricular revision. And and also we're looking out towards our research and trying to improve our scholarship and our productivity from a research perspective so that we can become better known for our scholarly output and our research productivity, especially in the context of Etsu use research strategic plan and their, desire to improve scholarship as headed up by Nick Haggar.
Ralph Lugo
Meyer, who's also one of us, here at the College of Pharmacy. So I think as we project out, it's a little bit of an inflection point. Just to summarize a little bit of an inflection point. And over the next 10 to 20 years, you're going to see people are not going to remember the beginning anymore. But I think we've wound this thing up sufficiently that there's enough momentum keeping it moving forward in the ways that are important, these high impact ways that it's not going to turn around anytime soon.
Ralph Lugo
And we can just build on our successes and make it even a better place next decade, next two decades. Good to great is kind of our motto.
Stephen Woodward
I love what you said about culture. I feel like, I mean, I've been here almost seven years. I don't think I realized how important culture is for just organizations in general. But hearing you articulated, kind of experiencing it here from a newer, newish organization like it's super important as the foundation and just helps lay the groundwork for everything else that is laid upon it as a like a good, solid structure.
Ralph Lugo
You know, I think that's the reason why we've been so successful in, attracting students. I mean, every, every year we sit down with the PS1 students. The dean has a lunch with subgroups of the P-1 class, 8 to 10 at a time. And we ask them why they came here and what are the things that attracted them about Gatton College of Pharmacy?
Ralph Lugo
And everybody talks about there are a number of things that attracted them. Of course, geographic location is always important, and there's a number of things that are important. But the culture and the receptivity and the warmth. Yeah. On their interview day is somewhat unmatched by other places. And so they felt at home here immediately, and that that's what attracts them.
Ralph Lugo
Also, I think that's what keeps people here, both staff and faculty. Is that it? For that reason, it's a good place to work. You don't you don't have the, some of the, problems that other universities have with, disgruntled employees and backstabbing and competitiveness, and it just doesn't exist here. So it's just from that standpoint is just a wonderful place to work.
Ralph Lugo
And I think we probably after a while, we probably take that for granted. And, you know, if you went to another school someplace else, you might say, oh, I think things a little bit differently. Yeah. So, you know, I've been to a number of schools around the country, and, things are different here again.
Michele Williams
Yeah. And I, I think that culture is very intentional. That's not, it it doesn't just accidentally work like.
Ralph Lugo
Yeah. That's right. Yeah. Yeah, it is definitely something you have to work at. It's got to it has to be something that's articulated from the leaders of the college initially. And, and it needs to be reinforced regularly. And it needs to not just be said you actually need to live the words walk the walk talk the talk.
Ralph Lugo
You know, do all of those sayings. Right. And, and eventually people start to embrace it and it becomes clear when somebody is operating outside of those cultural boundaries. And I think there is just this natural pressure towards in a good way towards this is how we are. I get, you know, this is the Gatton way. You know, people have said that before, right, that this is not the Gatton way or this is the other way.
Ralph Lugo
So it helps us and everybody knows what that means. You know, and probably I would say the students know what that means too. So it's something that that is cultivated, something that is repeated. And we even talk about it in our strategic plan, you know, in terms of environment. Yeah.
Michele Williams
This has been such an interesting and sort of far reaching conversation. I've enjoyed every minute of it. Are there any other things that that you would like to talk about or that we haven't asked you about?
Ralph Lugo
Well, you know, I think something just came to mind, that I think may be worth discussing and that's wellbeing and something that Gatton is all about to, and that's somewhat unique among colleges is we pay a lot of attention to the well-being of our students, the well-being of our faculty and staff. We're doing a survey this year for our staff, for wellbeing faculty and staff, for wellbeing.
Ralph Lugo
And of course, we surveyed the students and we have for a number of years now. So we're able to track their well-being in all of the domains that Gallup would promote. And we track that over time, and we can see where students will drop in their wellbeing scores. And that's a great time for us as a college to intervene and try to promote wellbeing during that time.
Ralph Lugo
So, with that as a background or a backdrop, I, the faculty advisor, one of the faculty advisors on the wellbeing Student Wellbeing committee. And one of the things that I'm working on with the research subcommittee of the Student Wellbeing Committee, that's a lot of work.
Stephen Woodward
That and also loves its committees.
Ralph Lugo
Yes. That's right. Yeah. Great committees. So that's the research subcommittee. We're working on ways that we can take the current research dealing with wellbeing and wellness and lifestyle medicine. As I mentioned earlier, this all fits together right. And yeah. And and draw on the research that is coming out relative to nutrition, relative to physical activity, relative to stress reduction, relative to social connection and, and encourage our students to promote their wellbeing through being aware of the research, adopting the research habits and patterns that are being developed.
Ralph Lugo
So for example, we're just we're working on our first push out. I think that's a word. We're working on pushing out our first, I'll call it publication. Our first, information from this student wellbeing subcommittee, research subcommittee. And we're trying to do it in ways where students will appreciate the the presentation. So we're thinking about maybe infographics.
Ralph Lugo
We're thinking about a short podcast of maybe, like 5 or 6 minutes with some graphics of a video podcast. We're thinking about a short written document. So just ways that we can encourage students to adopt some of the, contemporary research findings relative to wellbeing. And, and then at the same time, they learn about this to help their patients in the future.
Ralph Lugo
So it's not just about them, it's about helping their patients as well. So we're going to be coming out with our first, stuff publication, here in the next few weeks. I had a meeting with them this week, and we've prepared some materials. Which I would actually meant to bring down so you all can look at it and see it.
Ralph Lugo
I'd love to share that with you and get your thoughts on it before it gets pushed out. But, yeah, we're we're really excited about this aspect of, the Gatton culture, because that is really part of our culture too, is to try to enhance wellbeing.
Stephen Woodward
Yeah. That's great. Thanks for sharing. I think that's a wrap. Thank you for being here. I appreciate your time.
Ralph Lugo
Thank you for this podcast. And this podcast has been amazingly successful. So, kudos to both of you. And in creating this and keeping it going. And I think it does a great service to our students and faculty and staff, our community, and even across the country.
Stephen Woodward
So we appreciate it. Thank you very much.
Michele Williams
Thank you. All right.
Stephen Woodward
I'll get it off. Thanks. Awesome. Thanks for listening to White Coat Radio. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe and leave this review wherever you listen to podcasts. To learn more about East Tennessee State University Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy, visit us at etsy.com, slash pharmacy or follow us on social media at Etsy Pharmacy. We'll see you next time.

41 min
December 05, 2025 Episode 27 — Maddie Stacey, Early Admission Pathway student
In this episode we chat with first-year student pharmacist Maddie Stacey, who found confidence — and a community — through ETSU Gatton College of Pharmacy’s Early Admission Pathway. A native of Kingsport, Stacey learned about the college’s EAP program while in high school. For her, the program has made the adjustment to pharmacy school much easier.
Open to high school seniors and first-year ETSU students, the Early Admission Pathway enables students to earn both a Bachelor of Science and a Doctor of Pharmacy degree in just six years. EAP students also join the college’s Pre-Pharmacy Student Organization, designed to introduce them to different specialties in pharmacy and to foster connections with their classmates. Learn more at www.etsu.edu/RxEarlyAdmit.

Transcript
Teaser Introduction
Maddie Stacey
I think some of the things that the early admissions pathway has made me as a student as confident. I would say that the transition pathway is very smooth. They again, they put everything in line for you. I mean, they give you your schedule, they tell you what you need to do. And so I think that it makes everything much more cohesive.
Main Episode:
Michele Williams
Welcome to White Coat Radio, a podcast from East Tennessee State University Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy in Johnson City, Tennessee. Each episode, we cover a wide range of topics about the pharmacy school experience, from study tips to deep dives with faculty and student pharmacists. I'm one of your hosts, Doctor Michele Williams, assistant professor and director of academic success.
Stephen Woodward
And I'm Stephen Woodward, marketing and communications manager. First year student pharmacist Maddie Stacey from Kingsport, Tennessee, sat down for us to talk about her experience going through Gatton's early admission pathway opened high school seniors and first year ETSU students. The early admission pathway enables students to earn both a Bachelor of Science and the Doctor Pharmacy degree in just six years.
Stephen Woodward
The pathway offers students the assurance of a seat, mentoring, scholarships, research opportunities, and flexible start options for the pharmacy curriculum. For Stacey, the early admission pathway has made the adjustment to pharmacy school much easier and helped her to find confidence and a community. The deadline to apply is March 31st, 2026. Learn more at Etsu Edu slash. Early admit.
Stephen Woodward
Let's hear more about her experience now. Well, hi, Maddie, welcome to White Coat Radio. Start by telling us what got you interested in pursuing pharmacy.
Maddie Stacey
I'm interested in pursuing pharmacy because when I was younger, I realized how much one medication could do for one person. Right? And if it can just do so much to change a person's life, to make it more accessible, I want to know everything about how that drug was able to do that for that person. And what else can it do for another person?
Maddie Stacey
So I'm really interested in pursuing pharmacy because I want to know how all the drugs can help people be better and function in their lives and be able to enjoy their lives. And so I really love that about pharmacy.
Stephen Woodward
Well, what was it like going through our early admission pathway, which is for high school seniors attending ETSU and ETSU freshmen?
Maddie Stacey
I got really interested in pharmacy when I was in high school. And in high school they start to tell you about college options. And when you look at ETSU, you figure out that there are a lot of opportunities. So I was invited to a event for the Honors College and at the Honors College, they have a lot of the other colleges come and set up like Quillen and Gatton.
Maddie Stacey
And at that event, Becky Dunkelberger was there and she was there representing Gatton. And that's when I first got to figure out that there was a place here in Johnson City, really close to my hometown, Kingsport, that was offering a pharmacy program, which was very exciting. I was excited about that. And she told me there were a lot of opportunities.
Maddie Stacey
So the Early Admissions Pathway isn't just, you get here as soon as you can. It's a you create what you want to do. So there was a two years of undergraduate, and then you go in and you can start getting those requirements for your PharmD. Or if you want to get chemistry, biology, health sciences, any of those, you can do three years of undergraduate and then go in.
Maddie Stacey
And Becky explains all this very well. For me, I chose to go ahead and do the two years, and I also chose to get a Bachelors of Pharmacy studies, which is an option, and I chose to do that. It's just a few more requirements. But again, I never had to worry the school was with me along the way.
Maddie Stacey
So when you choose to be an Early Admissions Pathway student, you meet once a semester with either Steve Ellis or Becky, and they're like, okay, here's where you're at. Here's what you need to do. How does that sound? And you either are like, yeah, I can do that. Or, you know, this class is full. I don't think I can take this.
Maddie Stacey
And they help you every step of the way. If you can't do it, if you can do it. So, it sounds like a lot. Being like, oh, I need to do everything before I come to pharmacy school. But you do it one step at a time. And I love that. About the early admissions pathway. And I would do it again if I, if I was asked, I would definitely do it again.
Maddie Stacey
It's very smooth transition.
Stephen Woodward
Talk about your experience in the pre pharmacy student organization at Etsu. Also known as. So what was that like.
Maddie Stacey
So when you decide to become an early admissions pathway student Becky invites you to join pre pharmacy student organization which is so and so this organization works to invite pharmacists from the surrounding areas, from the faculty to come and speak about their specialties, their advice or their disciplines. And pharmacy. And it gives students like a wide range of options to see, oh wait, pharmacy is not just something that happens behind the counter at a Walgreens or a CVS.
Maddie Stacey
There's so much more to pharmacy and that's something I really loved about pre pharmacy student organization. So once you start going it's like once every other Wednesday night. And something great about pre pharmacy student organization is that as an early admissions pathway student it's a requirement. So obviously everybody there is also going to be in your program or a year behind you maybe a year ahead of you.
Maddie Stacey
But you're connected with all of these students that go to Etsu and are going to go with you to that program. So my class is 63 people, and of that 63 going in, I knew about 30 people, which is pretty incredible considering that, you know, they're students from out of state that didn't have that same opportunity. And that's just something that the early admission pathway offers.
Maddie Stacey
If you go to Etsu as well. And I loved getting to do that. And in addition to doing that, our faculty advisor is Doctor Thigpen. He's one of the pediatric pharmacists, and he's a faculty member. So, as president of the club, I got to talk to him a lot and make a relationship with him. And that was really great, because coming here, whenever they matched me up with an advisor, he actually ended up being my advisor to sorry, already had that relationship.
Maddie Stacey
And that's just like something that just falls into place. Something really great I can say about him is that when I was first starting with the requirements, you have the option of an elective, but my class was one of the first where physiology was a requirement, but, physics wasn't. And so I had a question. I was like, you know, is this still an option for an elective?
Maddie Stacey
Like. And it was like getting close to deadline. I was nervous, I was like, what if they just don't let me in because I didn't know there is an elective? And he was really fast to get back to me within, you know, a day he was like, yeah, that's all good. Get inside. That's okay. And it's like, I had that relationship with him.
Maddie Stacey
I was able to ask me that question, and I got my answer within a day because I knew him. And I think that connection was really great to have from that club to.
Stephen Woodward
So what advice would you give someone interested in applying for the early admission pathway? Again?
Maddie Stacey
Something that I think is a really big deal. Gatton is not just about having good grades or, you know, making the best grades. I think it's really important that you're going to be somebody that cares about your patients. And I think they care about seeing that in your essays. So I would say the essay portion is a big part of the admissions.
Maddie Stacey
And I would I would challenge, people who are interested in joining the program to ask themselves, what impact are you making right now, whether that be in an area and shared, say you help with child care. You do volunteering at a certain place. What impact are you making now? And, you know, I would ask, you know, how can you connect that in your essay to say, how does being a pharmacist help you make more of an impact in that area?
Maddie Stacey
What is being a pharmacist do to make an impact for you? And I think that's important because when you're connecting that, you're really showing how, you're not just interested in it for, you know, maybe the life, but you're interested in it for the way that you're going to impact patients. And getting is very patient centered. And I love that.
Maddie Stacey
That's why I chose, again, they love their patients and they love making people, the best they can be in that area.
Stephen Woodward
So as you know, getting offers a unique two week bridge program to help students transition into pharmacy school ... What was that experience like?
Maddie Stacey
Getting Ready is the first two weeks of your first year of pharmacy school. So in those two weeks you get introduced to all the classes. You will be taking, in the following semester. So you it's a little bit different from what your actual schedule will be like, but it encourages you to think about how you are going to balance and time manage the rest of the semester, which is the most important part that I feel like I got from getting ready.
Maddie Stacey
I think that it's nothing more challenging than you have done. I think that they prepare you in everything that is in the first two weeks you can do. It just feels like a lot because it kind of is. Everything is all at once in those first two weeks, and then, you know, after your first week, you have to prepare for your white coat ceremony, too.
Maddie Stacey
So it's just a lot of events at first, and I think that can be the most challenging. But as far as the transition, I would say that it got me prepared to think about what materials I wanted to use. You know, pharmacy school, there's a lot of notes, and I thought I was going to come in and do a lot of paper notes.
Maddie Stacey
But after that first two weeks, I was like, you know what? I think I'm actually gonna go digital for the first time. So I think those first two weeks really show you how the rest of your semester can go and what you want to do that works best for you. And I think that's what a lot of my peers would say, too.
Maddie Stacey
It's about learning about how you want your semester go and how you're going to attack your semester. So, you know, I'm really glad that I went digital. It helped me keep up in class. And a lot of people will tell you that, too. When you're just covering so much volume of material, it's faster when you're able to highlight the PowerPoints.
Maddie Stacey
And addition to that, you get to meet all of those advisors and all of those, professors in the first two weeks, which was really great. They were very helpful. They clearly outline how you can meet with them when you can meet with them. If you have questions where you can get those resources. So I really enjoyed that part.
Maddie Stacey
I think trying to think if there's anything else that I could say about, getting ready other than it's, it's not bad. I think I was, I was, I was intimidated, I was really scared. I was like, oh, they're trying to win me out here. This is where if I don't want to do it, they're trying to get me out.
Maddie Stacey
But it's not as scary as it sounds. So that's that's the comforting part.
Stephen Woodward
What? So what was the interview day process like for you as an early admission pathway student?
Maddie Stacey
So the interview process for me was during Covid. So unfortunately, I wasn't able to come on to campus and get to interview. I had my interview online and it was a set of two separate interviews in the same day. And once you one was with a small group and then one was individual with a mine was with a student instead of a faculty member.
Maddie Stacey
And it may have just been, Covid. I'm not sure how they do it now. And then once you get accepted, something that is very good about the early admissions pathway is that as long as you're on track, you have a seat reserved at the pharmacy school. So there's no second applications, there's no second essays, there's no second interviews.
Maddie Stacey
Once you're accepted, you have a shot at being here and you have that seat ready for you. When you're ready.
Stephen Woodward
You know, we hear from a lot of our students, alumni, faculty and staff that the culture and people are just highly valued at the college. How would you describe our culture here as a first year student pharmacist?
Maddie Stacey
I absolutely adore our staff so much. I can't tell you how much I adore them. You know, one thing I'd love to highlight as a pharmacy student and coming there are like obviously a million people for you to meet. Add on the professors, add on the the patients. Like there are just so many people for you to meet.
Maddie Stacey
I just want to give a shout out to Demers. She did so great. You know, introducing herself, making herself very approachable, you know, tells you about her career and something that I love you do as a pharmacy student. First year, you get to have lunch with the dean, which is so cool. So you have the small group, you come meet with the dean, she asks you these questions and like individually as you, it's not like, oh, I don't know your name.
Maddie Stacey
It's oh, she knows your name. She's already looked at your picture and the book. She knows who you are. How are you doing? Where are you at in this process? And that is so awesome. I don't know if other pharmacy schools do that, but we do here, and that's something I love. And then the one other thing I wanted to comment on was a time I was struggling and an advisor helped me, which was great because they're not even my personal advisor.
Maddie Stacey
They're just the professor of that class and offered to help me. I was really, really scared of vaccines. I was afraid of hurting somebody. I was afraid that I was going to make somebody really like. I was so afraid of hurting somebody, which I think is reasonable when you're starting to learn that. And when I started, after I got certified, the first thing I did when I gave vaccines was I would shake really bad because I was just so afraid of hurting people, you know?
Maddie Stacey
And it made me really upset. And I felt really disappointed in myself because I couldn't give a vaccine. And instead of, you know, just being quiet about it, letting that go on for four years, I reached I reached out to doctor J. Rob and Doctor Alexander. I was like, hey, I'm struggling, I'm not doing good and I'm okay.
Maddie Stacey
Admit that. Can you help me? And, doctor J. Rob. She was like, hey, come to my office at 8 a.m. and we can talk about it. And I thought we were just gonna be talking about it. And she had brought, syringes, needles. She brought saline, and she's like, we can get better today, and I will let you give me a shot in both my arms.
Maddie Stacey
And what what other school is going to have professors that offer up their arms? You know, when I say, hey, I'm struggling, I don't know how good I am. She's like, that's okay, you can do it on me. That's that's a pretty big ask. And then on top of that, she said, and down the hall, Doctor Dowling, you can give her two shots.
Maddie Stacey
Two after you give them to me. So she's just offering up everybody's arms. What other school are you going to get that that professors would be brave enough to be confident in me that, you know, I know you're struggling, but I know that you can. You're here because you can. So I think that's a really great, you know, a testament to how great the faculty is that they would be willing to give their arm for me to learn.
Maddie Stacey
So I love that.
Stephen Woodward
All right, well, tell us what you want to do when you graduate.
Maddie Stacey
So I think something to remember is, even if you're a first year student, you don't have to make plans as soon as you get here. You don't have to know what you want to do. As soon as you get here. Obviously, you're here because you're interested in pharmacy. In my case, though, I have a vision and I would love to see myself working at a pediatric hospital.
Maddie Stacey
I would love to see myself helping that population of patients. So right now, after I finish pharmacy school, I would absolutely love to go on to a residency that has a PGY1 and a PGY2, which, is focused in pediatrics. But something that I would really love is to be close to home. So the one that I'm looking at that I'd be very interested in is wake Forest.
Maddie Stacey
They have a pharmacy general, your first one, which means, you get to see all the disciplines within pharmacy and they have, I mean, a lot of different patients. I see a lot of different cases. And I think that would be a great learning opportunity. And, if I could get there my first year, I would love to apply to their pediatric program, which will be intensive.
Maddie Stacey
And that population of patients, how you work with them in those different areas. And I would absolutely love to continue to learn that. I love helping, children. And it's a lot of different dosing. They're not just little humans. They are they have different metabolism, different things they need. And I would love to learn more about that.
Maddie Stacey
So that's where I would love to see myself after Gatton.
Stephen Woodward
Was, you know, getting offers. A lot of student organizations and leadership opportunities. Tell us about what you're involved in and why that's important for students here.
Maddie Stacey
Okay, I'm in a few clubs and organizations here at Gatton. I am in the Pediatrics Pharmacy Association club, and what they do is they meet once a month and they go over some pharmacists or patient cases that pharmacists look at in their day, and they talk about how there's a range of cases and then you have volunteering opportunities in that club.
Maddie Stacey
And then I'm also in a residency based club. And what they do is they bring in, pharmacists that have either been through residency or, or who are very specialized in residency and, can help you a lot with looking at that. And that's a really great club to be in. I think if you are interested in residency, because it tells you early on what to expect, how can you make yourself competitive?
Maddie Stacey
And that one also meets about once a month. And the best part about clubs at Gatton is you have a free period. Usually in your day it's, lunch and then they call it common time. And most of the clubs meet during that day, so you don't have to commit extra time outside of school because it's within schools within those hours.
Maddie Stacey
So you have extra time to still work and, you know, have your work life balance. And that's something I think is really great about the clubs that you don't get an undergraduate. I would love to be a student ambassador. And that comes out at the end of the semester. You get to start to apply for those things, and it just gives you more opportunities to represent Gatton and get to look into the types of students that want to apply and get to talk to them and just encourage them about what's going on here.
Stephen Woodward
What impact do you think the early admission pathway had on you as you transition to Gatton? Now that you're going through your first semester?
Maddie Stacey
Yeah, I think some of the things that the early admissions pathway has made me as a student as confident, I would say that the transition pathway is very smooth. They again, they put everything in line for you. I mean, they give you your schedule, they tell you what you need to do. And so I think that it makes everything much more cohesive.
Maddie Stacey
Whereas if I was applying and for years I would be getting everything together myself, I would be applying to multiple things. I would be looking for all of these things. But the early missions pathway gives you everything in one place, and I think that's something really great. And that's something that has made me confident now, because again, I know those people coming in and I met a lot of advisors coming in and I know who to ask if I have questions.
Maddie Stacey
I think that's something the programs offered me.
Stephen Woodward
So of course, Gannon's mission is to train pharmacists who help serve rural and underserved patients. Service is really important here at the college. Talk about why that's important to you.
Maddie Stacey
Yeah. Something great about Gatton is how it aligns with what I want to do, whether that's in my values and morals. And I think that the college has done a great job. So something that we often talk about at Gatton is how important it is that we give back to our community, whether that's in the rural and underserved area or any of those areas around that we can do.
Maddie Stacey
And I think the school has really supported me and the ability to do that because they're consistent and constant volunteering opportunities in our area. And something that I think is really cool. We do, it's in combination. So Gatton and Quillen both work together. And this thing, it used to be called street medicine, but now it is under a different name and it helps to look at the people in our area, look at who is not getting enough healthcare, how can we help them?
Maddie Stacey
How can we bridge the gap and make sure that they're getting what they need? And, something great about Gatton again is that we're always considering those factors. So something they often tell you is, someone may need their insulin, but do they have a place to keep it? And, you know, we never want to make that patient feel bad just because they can't keep their insulin somewhere.
Maddie Stacey
And I love considering those things. I think it's so important that it's not just about helping people, but how can we make sure that the people were helping can stay healthy?
Stephen Woodward
Well, Maddie, we're really thankful that you would be part of this interview and be part of some of the publicity that we're rolling out as part of showcasing the early admission pathway and helping to educate students, in high school and at Etsu, about this pathway, as well as our other flexible admissions pathways. Can you kind of talk about your passion for Gatton, Etsu, and the early admission pathway?
Stephen Woodward
What is it about the university in the college that makes you just want to encourage others to to follow in the same path?
Maddie Stacey
That's a good question. I think something that Gatton does for me that makes me want to support them so much is the reason that they chose to support me. You know, when you apply to schools, you choose them. And it's at that point they have their opportunity to choose you. It's their turn. And you know, when Gatton chose me, they didn't just give me one opportunity.
Maddie Stacey
They have continuously given me opportunities. And you know, I have love how supported I felt here. And if I was to, tell our students about my experience, I'd want to be honest. I'd always be honest, and I don't have anything bad I can say about what they've done for me. You know, even more, I go further to say that if I did have something bad, I could tell them and they'd be like, okay, well, let's think about how we can fix it.
Maddie Stacey
I mean, and that's what, lunch with the Dean is like, as I was talking about, she wants to know what's going on. She wants to know how she can help us. And that's why I would constantly and consistently say that Gatton has made this a great experience for me. They will do whatever they can to make sure that I get the best education, and I feel like that's why I talk so well about them, because I want other students to get to experience what I have, and I don't want anybody miss out on that experience because it's really great.
Stephen Woodward
Well, Maddie, thank you so much for joining us today. Thanks for listening to White Coat Radio. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe and leave this review wherever you listen to podcasts. To learn more about East Tennessee State University Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy, visit us at etsu.edu slash pharmacy or follow us on social media @ETSUPharmacy. We'll see you next time.

23 min
November 13, 2025 Episode 13 - Meet your Student Success Coordinators
The Student Success Coordinators at ETSU Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy are dedicated to supporting pharmacy students throughout their academic journey. Whether through connecting students with tutoring, setting up labs, or offering general support to students and faculty, the coordinators play a crucial role in fostering a positive and successful experience for all of pharmacy students. Hear from Justin White (P1 Coordinator), Kerstin Kromker (P2 Coordinator), and Lindsey Feltman (P3 Coordinator) in this episode.

Transcript:

Michele Williams
Welcome to White Coat Radio, a podcast from East Tennessee State University Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy in Johnson City, Tennessee. Each episode will cover a wide range of topics about the pharmacy school experience and study tips to deep dives with faculty and student pharmacists. We're your hosts. I'm Doctor Michele Williams, director of academic success.
Dan Vanzant
And I'm Dan Vanzant, instructional design and IT manager. In this episode, we'll be talking with our new Student Success Coordinators at Gatton. These are brand new positions that the college has added to support faculty and students in the P1, P2, and P3 years.
Michele Williams
Yeah, we're really happy that you're here. And because this is such a new position again, we've gotten a lot of questions from faculty and staff, students. I'm sure you've heard some of these questions about what the student success coordinators do. So I'd like to take a minute just to kind of give a general overview of the job. And if you want to know more, there's going to be more information on Gatton’s Pharmacy Student Success page.
You can find pictures of Justin, Kirsten, and Lindsey and list their responsibilities. Student Success Coordinators help faculty with things like grading and skills labs and the SIM lab experiences. They help with the space. They also help with things related to exams, and you may see them proctoring occasionally. They also can help students with information and resources. And beginning next year, they're going to start maintaining the class calendar of important events, which will be really helpful.
And you'll be seeing them during that. And really, they help identify needs of students. So if you're a student and there's something that you have a question about or that you would like the administration to know a little bit about, you can let your student leadership know or talk directly to the student success coordinators, and that'll make its way up to the decision makers.
Dan Vanzant
So let's take a few minutes for each of you to introduce yourselves and tell us what professional year you are working with. And tell us a little bit about your backgrounds and what interested you in working with pharmacy students.
Justin White
Well, he's looking at you, Kirsten, so I feel like you should.
Michele Williams
Thank you. That's what we were going to go by. Yeah.
Justin White
Well, that would make sense. Well, my name is Justin White, and I am the Student Success Coordinator for the P1 students for the first year. And yeah, I've been on—what—since October. I guess it's been about six months now. And yeah, what was the question?
Dan Vanzant
Oh, just an introduction, which you just did, and then a little bit about your background and what interested you in working with pharmacy students.
Justin White
Yeah. Well, my background is a lot different than this. My background is actually more in public history. I majored in history as an undergrad and worked in several museums and historic sites in the area. I worked at the Reece Museum over on ETSU main campus. I most notably worked for Rocky Mount State Historic Site in Piney Flats for several years before COVID, and then moved over to the College of Nursing at ETSU.
And then moved over here about six months ago. So yeah, I just—I really—I'm working on my master's right now. My passion is working with students. I want to work with students. And this job I feel like is a great opportunity to not only do that, but to make the role what I want it to be, because these are brand new positions that we're kind of—Doctor Williams used the term one time that I really like—building the road as we're walking it, and I like that.
I like that we are—because we can ask, “What are student success coordinators doing? What is your day‑to‑day?” And the answer is: we're figuring that out really every day. So it's helping faculty, it's being there for students. And you know, that's what I really wanted was more of a one‑on‑one role where I would get to work directly with students, which is not something I was getting in my previous positions.
Obviously not something I was doing a lot working in the public history sector. So awesome.
Dan Vanzant
Right? But we—the—our P2 Student Success Coordinator.
Kirsten
So I'm Kirsten. I work with the P2s. Background‑wise, my degrees are in translation. So I have a double major in German and Spanish translation. And I used to do a lot of interpreting. So I used to work a lot in hospitals and courthouses. And then, as a translator, most of my stuff actually used to be medical translating as well as military translating.
So kind of familiar with that a little bit more. What drew me to work with the students is probably just because I have a wide range of interests, and I just like to learn more all the time. So I enjoy how much they kind of like—you focus on what they do.
Lindsey
So I'm Lindsey Feldman. I’m the P3 Student Success Coordinator. I’m the most recent addition, having just been hired in February of ’24. However, I do have a little bit of history with Gatton, starting in 2018 as a secretary in Bishop Hall, and then I transitioned into an Educational Coordinator role, which has some overlap with this new Student Success Coordinator role. I helped in the IDEAL Labs and facilitating all the moving parts with those and just other courses in the curriculum.
So I stepped away to be a new mom in 2021, and when I found out that there was a new position that was more student‑focused, I was very excited to see that. And because my background is working with students—I was a high school English teacher—this role is actually a really good fit because I still get to work with students, do the things that I love to do in working with students and helping them succeed.
Without the constantly‑in‑front‑of‑people component. You know—downtime. Yeah, yeah, it helps a lot. So yeah.
Dan Vanzant
Yeah, that's good. Well, now that we have that out of the way, we have some pressing questions and we have a speed round of questions. So I'm going to go around the room, I'm going to call your name, and ask you a question. And I expect you to respond as quickly as possible. So I'm going to start—let’s start with P3—with Lindsey. So first question: Is a hot dog a sandwich?
Lindsey
No, it's not.
Dan Vanzant
Oh, that was quick.
Lindsey
The bun—oh, next slide please.
Dan Vanzant
No, no, please go on about why it's not a sandwich.
Lindsey
The buns are on top and bottom, but on a hot dog it's the opposite—it’s on the sides.
Dan Vanzant
Would anybody else like to weigh in?
Justin White
I mean, I agree. I agree. I mean yes, it's meat between two pieces of bread, but that's where the similarities end. A hot dog’s a hot dog and a sandwich is a sandwich.
Dan Vanzant
It's meat with toppings sandwiched between two pieces of bread.
Kirsten
See, I'm going to agree with them. I don't think it is. I think it's a hot dog. I think that it has condiments. I don't think there’s anything else too much more involved.
Justin White
I can't imagine putting ketchup, mustard, chili on a sandwich. What kind of sandwich has—oh—I mean, a hamburger is a burger.
Kirsten
Right? And I can't imagine adding like cheese and tomatoes and—I don't know what else—to my hot dog. It's just weird.
Dan Vanzant
You ever had a barbecue sandwich with coleslaw on it?
Justin White
I don’t like coleslaw.
Michele Williams
I think it's the hinge. There's a—
Justin White
I agree. It's the hinge. The bun is one piece of bread that swings like a door.
Michele Williams
Yes.
Justin White
It's not two pieces of bread.
Michele Williams
Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
Dan Vanzant
Has anybody had a Five Guys hot dog?
Michele Williams
No.
Dan Vanzant
Okay. So they slice it down—okay, okay. Got it. I wasn't sure. They slice the hot dog down the middle.
Justin White
Yeah, I was—it was not that long ago. And if I had asked for, like, a Chicago‑style sandwich, I wouldn't have gotten a hot dog. I would have gotten an Italian beef sandwich.
Dan Vanzant
That's true. They might not have served you.
Justin White
Yeah, they probably would have.
Dan Vanzant
That's a good point. Chicago dogs are their own thing.
Anyway—moving on. Again, going in reverse order. Kirsten: name five uses of a stapler without staples.
Kirsten
I can use it as a hammer—that’s one. I can use it to break your window.
Dan Vanzant
Okay…
Kirsten
Life‑saving measures… a doorstop… okay, let’s see… weapon?
Justin White
I guess I'm going to say weapon.
Kirsten
Yeah, I'm trying to keep it—
Justin White
I mean, if you're desperate enough.
Kirsten
That's true. I feel like I can use it to reach something—like the last one I need.
Dan Vanzant
As an extension. Okay. All right. That’s fine.
Justin White
Where the little staples go in—yeah.
Kirsten
Yes, right.
Dan Vanzant
Other acceptable answers…
Michele Williams
Supportive object.
Justin White
A paperweight.
Dan Vanzant
Or if it's a red stapler—a conversation piece.
Michele Williams
Yes. Movie memorabilia.
Justin White
That’s right. Movie memorabilia. If it's a red Swingline.
Dan Vanzant
All right. Excellent. Question three. Justin: What is the most recent song that you listened to on repeat?
Justin White
Oh gosh. Well actually, I've had a song on repeat today. It's recently come out. I don't want to sound too hipster, but I doubt anyone has heard of it. It’s a guy who makes music under the name Nourished By Time, and he has a new EP out, and the first song on that is called Hell of a Ride, and I've listened to that like 20 times today. It’s—
Michele Williams
Yeah?
Justin White
It’s kind of R&B. It's not hip‑hop, but it's—I would say more kind of R&B, kind of synth‑pop, kind of dancey. I'll play it for you.
Dan Vanzant
Okay, all right. I'm going to give you another chance, Justin. And then we'll go around the room the other direction. If you were a Microsoft Office program, which program would you be?
Justin White
Microsoft Office program… Can I say like, the old Windows PC games that used to come pre‑loaded? Like Chips Challenge and SkiFree and Minesweeper?
Dan Vanzant
Are those technically Microsoft Office programs?
Justin White
No. I guess those are just Microsoft. An Office program… I mean, it's not Excel because I'm not Excel. Absolutely not. I mean—maybe PowerPoint, because I like to think I’m a little creative, and I feel like you can get the most creative with that. Or with Publisher. Okay—PowerPoint or Publisher.
Dan Vanzant
Kirsten—same question.
Kirsten
Same question. I have a question for that then… you know the old Draw—like Draw—
Justin White
MS Paint?
Kirsten
Yes! MS Paint. There we go.
Justin White
Again, that's not Office though.
Kirsten
Oh darn it. That would be my choice.
Dan Vanzant
Maybe they incorporated that into the Whiteboard tools.
Kirsten
Yeah. Yeah.
Dan Vanzant
Okay, all right, we'll accept it.
Michele Williams
Okay.
Dan Vanzant
And Lindsey, same question.
Lindsey
Yeah, it makes me feel very boring, but Word is probably what I would pick just because I'm an English person. You know—the editor, that sort of thing.
Justin White
Yeah, when I was doing my history undergrad, I loved Word because of how easy it made creating bibliographies and citations and references. It made it so easy.
Dan Vanzant
It's only getting easier. Back in the day you used to be able to turn off spell check, right?
Justin White
Oh yeah.
Dan Vanzant
Now it's automatic. You can still—can you? As an English Word person, would you ever turn it off? Maybe for everybody.
Justin White
I don't see ever turning it off. As long as I have the option to ignore—like mark this as ignore—I don't see the point in turning it off.
Lindsey
I would turn off spell check because it's usually—not—I don't usually need it. But the grammar check is wrong sometimes. It is.
Justin White
It is. Oh yeah.
Dan Vanzant
Have any of you used Grammarly?
Justin White
Yeah.
Kirsten
Of course. Yeah. I actually use it a lot when translating because sometimes you just write too directly from one language to the other and I need a different perspective.
Dan Vanzant
Okay.
Kirsten
But I like it.
Dan Vanzant
Last speed round.
Michele Williams
Yeah.
Justin White
These speed rounds—we are getting through this—it's just mind‑blowing. It's like a NASCAR race.
Kirsten
As I said, the sloth is kind of my spirit animal.
Dan Vanzant
Okay. Last question. Kirsten: Cilantro—yes or no?
Kirsten
Yes.
Lindsey
Yes.
Michele Williams
Yes.
Justin White
Yes.
Dan Vanzant
I didn't ask me—I'm going again. I have gone back and forth. Actually, sometimes there are periods in my life where I feel like my taste changed a little. I couldn't eat it—it tasted like rubber soap or something. I think there's some cilantro that's fresher, that's stronger, whereas you can get more mild cilantro.
Justin White
I'll even get pico that has cilantro in it and then add some extra cilantro.
Dan Vanzant
Wow. Okay, I'm doubling down on cilantro.
Justin White
I'm on board.
Dan Vanzant
Yeah, okay. All right. Excellent. Well, that concludes the speed round.
Michele Williams
And so finally, how can students find you if they have a question or if they'd just like to say hello?
Justin White
Well, we're all in the same office, so that makes it super convenient no matter what year you are. We are in Bishop Hall on the first floor, basically on your left as soon as you walk in the building. We are in room 112—the Student Success and Research Coordinator office.
That's where you can find us. Also, you can make an appointment with us on EAB Navigate. We recently got that set up, so hopefully we'll be using that a lot more in the future. Of course you can shoot us an email any time. My email is [email protected]. Feldmanl1…
Kirsten
…and [email protected]. And you also have the phone.
Justin White
What is the number to that phone?
Michele Williams
439‑6401.
Dan Vanzant
All right. Well, thank you all for joining us today. Nice to get to know you guys a little bit more—I think good for the students as well. Thank you. Michele, do you have anything to add?
Michele Williams
Again, we're really glad you're here.
Justin White
I'm glad we're here too.
Michele Williams
Thank you guys.
Justin White
Yeah. Thank you.

17 min

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“White Coat Radio” provides listeners with helpful advice, stories, and insights from the faculty, staff, and student pharmacists at East Tennessee State University Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy…

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