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By East Tennessee State UniversityMedicine Health & Fitness Education

White Coat Radio episodes

November 10, 2025 Episode 26 - Interview with Steve Ellis
In this episode we chat with Steve Ellis, Assistant Dean of Student Affairs at ETSU Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy. After Gatton was founded in 2005, Ellis played a key role in the college’s early development, officially joining in 2008 to lead the Office of Student Affairs. This office supports students throughout their entire journey—from recruitment efforts starting as early as high school, to current student services, and even alumni engagement after graduation. Ellis also serves on the college’s Executive Committee and has held leadership roles at the university level.
Steve recently celebrated his 30th anniversary working at ETSU and was honored with a special scholarship in his name to support students. You can support this scholarship by visiting our Gatton donor page: Under Designation, select "Write In Your Choice," and type in "Steve Ellis Scholarship."

Transcript
Introduction Teaser:
Steve Ellis
There's nothing that brings me greater joy than than watching them grow and be successful and know that they're going to go out in the world and and make such a difference, you know, in people's lives.
Full 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. In this episode, we chat with Steve Ellis, assistant dean of student affairs at ETSU Gatton College of Pharmacy. Steve recently celebrated his 30th anniversary working at ETSU and he was honored with a special scholarship in his name to support students. You can learn more about that in the show notes for this episode.
Stephen Woodward
Steve has extensive experience serving students, starting his career at Texas A&M University, his alma mater, and Louisiana State University before coming to ETSU Quillen College of Medicine, where he served as assistant dean for student affairs and director of student support services and outreach programs. After Gatton was founded in 2005, Steve played a key role in the college's early development.
Stephen Woodward
Officially joining in 2008 to lead the Office of Student Affairs, this office supports students throughout their entire journey, from recruitment efforts starting as early as high school to current student services and even alumni engagement after graduation. Steve also serves on the college's executive committee and has held leadership roles at the university level. Well, Steve, thank you for coming to White Coat Radio.
Stephen Woodward
It's good to have you.
Steve Ellis
Well you're welcome. Thank you for the invitation.
Stephen Woodward
So you recently celebrated 30 years of service at ETSU. So how many years of those have been at Gatton?
Steve Ellis
Well, I guess it depends exactly how you want to count that. Gatton is celebrating, you know, as many people know, 20 years from its founding in 2005, and I've seen all 20 of those years. However, from an absolutely official capacity, it's 16 that I became the assistant dean for student affairs in 2009.
Steve Ellis
During the years prior to that, I had been at first unofficially involved helping the founding dean, Larry Calhoun, with some things. He, you know, we shared some office space, if you will. So I would help him with some stuff related to student affairs. And then that morphed a little bit into a formal relationship where I was splitting time 50/50, if you will, between the College of Medicine and the College of Pharmacy.
Steve Ellis
And for anybody who thinks that sounds great, 50/50 really is 100/100.
Steve Ellis
Okay.
Steve Ellis
So don’t ever be misled.
Steve Ellis
With that…
Steve Ellis
Idea there. We got about 50% of your time.
Michele Williams
Don't agree to that. Yeah.
Steve Ellis
Absolutely. So, and of course, I've enjoyed all my time here at ETSU, but in particular, I've enjoyed my time here with the College of Pharmacy. Yeah.
Michele Williams
So how did you wind up coming to Gatton full time? Not 50/50. Can you tell us a story about that?
Steve Ellis
Sure, sure. You know, I can tell lots of stories, but I'm actually reminded of this story a little bit in terms of how I came to Gatton. Every week on interview days, we interview applicants for pharmacy school on Mondays, and we show them a brief video of our history so they can have some understanding of how we got founded and that sort of thing.
Steve Ellis
And in the video, of course, the founding dean is speaking. And in his little blurb where he talks about the beginning of the college, he says, “Well, the first thing that Ron Franks asked me on that very first day—besides ‘Larry, I hope you can find an office’—is ‘I hope you can do this. Good luck.’” And it always reminds me of how I came to Gatton because that is how Larry and I met.
Steve Ellis
At the time, I was the acting student affairs dean for the College of Medicine. And the weekend before Larry Calhoun was to start as the founding dean, Ron Franks and I—Ron was the dean of medicine at the time—were coming back from a meeting and were on the same flight. While we were waiting for our connecting flight, he said, “Hey, Steve. Larry’s going to be starting on Monday, and he doesn’t have an office. You think you can help him?” And it just so happened we had an extra office within student affairs in the College of Medicine at the time.
Steve Ellis
So I volunteered that space. And as they say, that was the beginning of a relationship. That’s how I became initially involved with pharmacy, and I continued, as I said a moment ago, in a part-time relationship helping to run admissions in particular at that time because staffing was somewhat limited.
Steve Ellis
And I had a lot of experience with medicine, you know, in the admissions processes. And then when the student affairs dean position opened here in the College of Pharmacy, Larry asked if I would take it on an interim basis. That was in 2008. And then of course that morphed finally in 2009 to be officially the student affairs dean in the College of Pharmacy.
Steve Ellis
So, a little bit of a serendipitous type of initial meeting between he and I that has led to what’s become, I guess, a lifelong kind of love affair—in terms of me and the College of Pharmacy. Yeah.
Stephen Woodward
I feel like now, you know, 20 years—we’re celebrating our 20th anniversary now—and, you know, the college has raked in all these awards, we’re nationally recognized and have a great reputation across the country. But there had to be a lot of fear coming in to a brand new school then. I imagine things were a lot different. Can you kind of talk about that and maybe some of the apprehension you might have felt or challenges that were there in the early times?
Steve Ellis
Yeah, absolutely. As you can imagine, there was a lot of fear. I mean, you’re doing things on faith and hope and all of those sorts of things. And I think in particular about our inaugural class of students, but even the first few years of students, because unless you understand the accreditation process, the program does not become fully accredited until you graduate your first class of students.
Steve Ellis
So there’s a four-year period of time that in theory everybody’s taking a chance—and especially your students. So I oftentimes thought about what type of apprehension the applicants and those who signed on as students were feeling because we actually had them sign a disclaimer at the time they were being accepted that in effect said, “I understand where the college is in terms of accreditation,” and essentially, “we’re going to do everything we’re supposed to do and fully expect to gain accreditation—but at the same time, this could go south, and you can’t really blame us.”
Steve Ellis
Not too long ago I came across some of those signed forms, so it brought back memories. And in a way you can think the same thing with all the faculty and staff, you know, many of whom truly uprooted. For me, my uprooting was to cross the sidewalk, but at the same time you were stepping out on faith.
Steve Ellis
But it was such an exciting endeavor. The people of this region—those familiar with the history of the college’s founding—were just so, so supportive of the college getting started, not only with money but really with whatever it took. Pharmacists came forward to serve as preceptors, and people volunteered in whatever capacity they could.
Steve Ellis
So while you were taking a chance, deep down you knew this was going to work. But when you think about the awards and recognitions, as you mentioned a few moments ago, obviously none of that was in our minds. Our mind was: “Hey, let’s get this college off the ground, make it a quality thing, and produce pharmacists,” because at that time there was a huge shortage nationally and in the region. Basically, we wanted to serve this region and overcome that shortage.
Steve Ellis
Right. And obviously we did a good job with that over the years. But I think, to your question of what's changed over the years—in many ways nothing has changed in terms of that culture. We've always emphasized the importance of culture here in terms of the workplace.
Steve Ellis
You know, that it's a good place to work and a good place for students to learn and have an overall quality experience. But what you were not prepared for—as you grow over the years—is growth. In the early years, we used to comment, “We’re like a rowboat. If you're going in one direction and you realize it isn’t working, you just turn and go in a different direction.” You could do that quickly and meaningfully.
Steve Ellis
Whereas when you grow—bureaucracy hits and structure and processes develop—it becomes not more challenging necessarily, but a very different process to make changes quickly.
Steve Ellis
I liken it to an individual who decides to open a business because they love what they do: baking, painting, whatever it may be. But then all of a sudden it becomes a business, and the dynamics change.
Steve Ellis
But at the same time, that's exciting because of the growth that's going on and watching things change. And along with that came the awards and excitement associated with those kinds of things.
Steve Ellis
One of the biggest memories I’ll always have was the first time our students won the American College of Clinical Pharmacy clinical skills challenge. Streaming was still kind of new at that time. I can vividly see us all huddled around one computer in a cubicle.
Stephen Woodward
I've seen the photo.
Steve Ellis
Yes, yes. And cheering like we were at a baseball game or something. It was really something special. I'll never forget that moment in time for sure.
Michele Williams
Well that's really so interesting. I didn't know all that about the early days of Gatton. And so your position here at the college—you’re the assistant dean for student affairs and you're a member of the executive committee. Can you tell us a little bit about some of the things you're responsible for?
Michele Williams
Keeping in mind that we have a time limit, but it's going to take you a huge amount of time to say all the things. I'm just kidding. But maybe talk a little bit about your job and the day-to-day of your job.
Steve Ellis
Yeah, sure. Be glad to share some of that. Student affairs is a big animal because it affects so much with students. Almost anything associated with students that’s not directly academics can fall in that bucket. And sometimes I feel that way—if the word “student” gets used, oftentimes they're like, “Oh, Steve and his staff, you all handle this.” But it's always a wonderful thing because of the students.
Steve Ellis
A lot of what student affairs does is provide student services and support—just helping them be successful. They have enough to do as students. Going to pharmacy school is their job, and that's a full-time job. So we try to make the other stuff as easy as possible—for example, getting through financial aid processes.
Steve Ellis
We try to provide services so they can get the things they need. Financial aid—we do those things in-house. Registrar’s services—course registration—so they're not thinking, “Oh gosh, I forgot to turn in a form.”
Steve Ellis
We oversee admissions and recruiting processes, and that has changed a lot over the years. In the early years of the college, there was no shortage of applicants because it was the new kid on the block and nationally there were a lot of opportunities. But things change, the field self-corrects, and the need for recruiting has changed a lot.
Steve Ellis
So the admissions staff, student affairs as a whole, and the college collectively spend a lot of time educating people about what pharmacists do as a career.
Steve Ellis
Pharmacy has always been, in my opinion, the invisible profession. Unless you have a need—an interaction with a local pharmacist—many people think of them only as the corner drugstore. They have no idea what pharmacists really do or their role in the health care system.
Steve Ellis
Pharmacists are truly the drug experts. And these are things I've come to learn over the years. I often laugh when watching commercials where they say, “Ask your physician.” And I always think, “No, ask your pharmacist,” because that’s truly the drug expert.
Steve Ellis
So we spend a lot of time helping people understand what pharmacists do and using that platform from a recruiting and admission perspective. And I think it's a nice service we provide to the community, not just to get students but to help people navigate the health care system better.
Steve Ellis
But to get back to the question: In student affairs—and in my job as the leader of that—we focus on trying to make the student experience as fulfilling as it can be, especially outside the classroom, and to support them when they have struggles. Life doesn’t hit the pause button when you're in school.
Steve Ellis
So we try to help ameliorate some of that and really do all we can to help them have a quality experience while they're here.
Michele Williams
I have to agree with you 100%. And I also want to give a little shout-out to your amazing staff. The people that work in student affairs are really, really student-oriented. You create an environment where people really want to help students, and I’m always surprised at all the things student affairs does to support students.
Steve Ellis
Yeah. Well, I appreciate that. And truly, I think it's a real love for the staff. If you look at the student affairs staff, most of us have been here for a good period of time. I mean, I've been 30 years at ETSU, 20 in fact with the College of Pharmacy.
Steve Ellis
But in addition, there's an individual who's been here for 17 years in student affairs, another individual at 17 years. So it's really a nice situation. They are so invested in students’ well-being. And it just makes it nice. And I think our students know that.
Steve Ellis
They know they can count on people in student affairs. And we're talking about student affairs because that’s my area, but it's the college. People know they can count on everybody in the college to be in their corner. It’s easy to be in someone’s corner when times are going good.
Steve Ellis
But I think the students realize that we’re all in their corner—maybe even more so when times are tough—to help them meet challenges and still be successful.
Stephen Woodward
Well, one thing student affairs is known for—maybe famously or infamously—is Halloween celebrations. And I don't know, this will come out probably after Halloween, but tomorrow we're celebrating Halloween here. Can you talk about your favorite Halloween performances you've…
Stephen Woodward
…done in classrooms?
Stephen Woodward
Performed or spent? Yeah. College dance party.
Steve Ellis
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.
Steve Ellis
You're right. There have been a lot of wild things over the years. All good fun. All good fun, of course.
Steve Ellis
Yeah.
Steve Ellis
I think my favorite one—and I can't specifically remember the year, but somewhere around 2014—was when we did a performance to a song that was one of those one-hit wonders that came out that year. And the song was “What Does the Fox Say?”
Steve Ellis
It was by this Canadian duo—don’t even ask me what their names were. And it was just such a fun thing. We spoofed it up to entertain the students. And of course, as always, I seem to be the guy that either has to make the fun or get made fun of.
Steve Ellis
So I was the senior dancer, if you will, for that event. And it was just a really, really fun time. The class had a ball. I had fun. And let me be sure PETA people are not mad at me—I had a faux fox tail I was wearing.
Steve Ellis
Just, you know… It was just really a fun time. And that whole Halloween celebration that happens every year was one of those things that happened by accident.
Steve Ellis
It was like, “Oh, we should just do something for the students.” So we decided to do a costume contest and trick-or-treating, and the student affairs staff dressed up as the Village People.
Steve Ellis
And someone got the idea: “We should go downstairs and see what’s going on with the class.”
Steve Ellis
And we did. And the next thing you know, students start expecting that every year: “What are you all going to do?” So it's just been a lot of great laughs over the years.
Michele Williams
Yeah, it is a lot of fun. Yeah.
Stephen Woodward
I'm curious how you've seen ETSU change in your time here—at the university as a whole. Gatton started as a private college within a public institution. I think it was the only one in the country at that time. It was a very unique situation.
Steve Ellis
It was definitely unique. And we were—at least in terms of pharmacy—the only one in the country. So that was unheard of. And I think even here, maybe people surprised themselves.
Steve Ellis
Not that it became successful, but just the idea. For your state institution, for so many years people had been going to the state appealing to establish a college of pharmacy. In large part because of the history of the medical school being started in the mid‑70s and the impact that had on the overall quality of life in this region.
Steve Ellis
And I think someone said—tongue in cheek—“Why do we have to have the state's money?” Everyone laughed. But then it was like, “Wait… why do we have to have the state's money?”
Steve Ellis
So that idea took root. That’s the East Tennessee spirit—don’t tell us we can’t do something. Just watch us.
Steve Ellis
It was a big endeavor for the university, though. ETSU was—and still is—a regional school. But maybe even regional in its thinking at that time. “We’re going to be in our designated world and do the things we do.”
Steve Ellis
But over time the university—especially under the leadership of the current president for more than a decade—began to think bigger. Yes, we might be regional in founding and history, but we are a world‑class university in terms of the educational experience. We attract students from all over.
Steve Ellis
That’s something I've seen change—the mindset of people in the region and at the university. And that’s been a good thing. We’ve attracted students from across the country and internationally. We've enrolled international students in the College of Pharmacy.
Steve Ellis
We’ve been able to attract faculty and staff and make a name for ourselves in this little corner of Tennessee—one that has impacted the world. So that’s a big change for me.
Stephen Woodward
Yeah, that’s well said. Flash forward from when it started without state funding—of course, a few years ago we received some state funding for the college. And we've also established the early admission pathway program, which has become a huge part of Gatton. Can you tell our audience what the early admission pathway is and why it's important?
Steve Ellis
Absolutely. And just to comment on the state support—we do receive some state dollars now. We're not fully private as we were. And it's important—it wasn’t about chasing state dollars because we needed money.
Steve Ellis
It was part of our commitment to students—to lower tuition. And we've done that and continue to do that. Pharmacy education, especially in southern/central Appalachia, needs to be accessible. Many students come from rural areas, might be first‑generation students. The idea of becoming a health professional might feel far‑fetched.
Steve Ellis
So we want to do all we can, including with tuition. And under the leadership of our current dean, Dr. Byrd, we’ve been able to do some of that and continue forward.
Steve Ellis
That also helped feed into the EAP program—the Early Admission Pathway. As we've changed recruiting, we're spending time educating students in high school and even middle school about what pharmacists do and what the pathway looks like.
Steve Ellis
Through the EAP program, students are able—as early as high school—to be, air quotes, “admitted” into pharmacy school coming out of high school. It removes the pressure of “I have to make all A’s,” and the feeling that classmates are competitors for a limited number of spots.
Steve Ellis
It removes that pressure because they know they have a spot. They still have to perform academically, but because they're in the pathway, we see them from day one as our students, even while completing undergraduate coursework.
Steve Ellis
And we support them—Dr. Williams assists with academics, we help them grow professionally, and we provide some scholarship money.
Steve Ellis
The program has grown. The first cohort in 2020 was 12 students—only four ultimately started the PharmD program, which is expected due to attrition and young people making life decisions.
Steve Ellis
But our most recent PharmD cohort from the program was 20 students. And the newest incoming EAP cohort of freshmen at ETSU is 50.
Steve Ellis
So it has really grown. Students are seeing what the pathway can offer and what a career in pharmacy can offer. We love working with those students.
Stephen Woodward
Yeah, it’s been great seeing them at the tailgates this football season.
Steve Ellis
Yeah, it has been. And I think they appreciate that because even though they know, “Hey, I’m in pharmacy school as a freshman,” they still have trepidation. But then to come to a tailgate and the dean is there to welcome them, the faculty are there and know who they are—not just “Hi, who are you?” but “Hi Megan, glad to see you today”—that goes a long way.
Steve Ellis
And our current students talk with them and put an arm around them and see them as part of the group. That helps them feel at home and know we are here to support them fully through the journey.
Michele Williams
That's great. Tell us a little bit about the Steve Ellis Scholarship.
Steve Ellis
Well, the Steve Ellis Scholarship was a real surprise to Steve Ellis. A lot of scholarships are started by someone or a family. But this one—which makes it so special—was created by you all, my colleagues here, in appreciation and recognition of my time at ETSU.
Steve Ellis
We’re still working through details, but the scholarship will support students from that overall student‑support perspective. It’s not for the student who makes the best grades but to help students who need support or want to take advantage of certain types of experiences—things aligned with student affairs.
Steve Ellis
They're currently emphasizing collecting donations because we want it endowed—not something that’s spent and gone—but something lasting.
Steve Ellis
I was blown away and surprised when the college presented it to me. I generally try to be even‑keeled, but I was about to cry. I was so moved.
Steve Ellis
I’m excited to see what the scholarship can do to help students grow and develop as pharmacy students.
Stephen Woodward
Yeah. That’s awesome. We'll put a link in the show notes for folks who want to donate and help it reach endowment.
Steve Ellis
Yes, yes. Same type of thing as how the school got started—no amount is too small, and people have a heart for things that directly impact students.
Stephen Woodward
And if people want to see the look on Steve's face at the surprise party when the dean presented it, you can go back on social media and find the photos.
Steve Ellis
Yes, absolutely. I was definitely surprised.
Michele Williams
That's great. Well, I was really looking forward to this because I knew it would be a fun conversation. And you did not disappoint me. Is there anything we haven’t asked that you wish we had?
Steve Ellis
No, I think you asked great questions—some good thought‑provoking ones, and some that brought back great memories. I think perhaps students, faculty, staff, administrators—they don't always know us as people. They see our roles but not us.
Steve Ellis
I try to help students know I'm just a regular guy like they are. We all have struggles. But truly, I’m going to be here for them—whatever it takes to help them be successful. I want to be in their corner.
Steve Ellis
There's nothing that brings me greater joy than watching them grow and be successful and know they're going to go out in the world and make such a difference in people’s lives.
Stephen Woodward
Well said. Okay. Thank you for being on the podcast.
Steve Ellis
Well thank you. I've enjoyed this opportunity, and hopefully somebody out there might appreciate something we talked about today, and who knows—might make a difference in their life.
Stephen Woodward
We'll have you back on in your 60‑year.
Steve Ellis
Okay. Okay.
Steve Ellis
Well, yeah, you know—I need to stay on because at the celebration you do get gifts the longer you’re here.
Steve Ellis
You know, there's that rocking chair that looms out there. But I’ve got to put in a lot more years to get the rocking chair. You get one of those nice… I can say that.
Steve Ellis
All right. Well thank you all. I really appreciate this and enjoyed it.
Michele Williams
It's great, you know.
Stephen Woodward
Thanks for listening to White Coat Radio. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe and leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts. To learn more about East Tennessee State University Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy, visit us at etsu.com/pharmacy or follow us on social media @ETSUPharmacy. We'll see you next time.

35 min
October 03, 2025 Episode 25 - Interview with Dr. Anthony Pudlo, CEO of TPA
In honor of American Pharmacists Month, we sat down with Dr. Anthony Pudlo, Chief Executive Officer of the Tennessee Pharmacists Association (TPA). Dr. Pudlo leads an organization that advances, protects, and promotes high-quality, pharmacist-provided patient care in the state of Tennessee. In this interview he talks about the importance of TPA, the state of the profession, and advice for students. Learn more about TPA on their website, tnpharm.org, or on social media.
Transcript
Introduction Teaser:
Anthony Pudlo
Happy American Pharmacists Month or whatever day you might be listening. It could be Pharmacy Technician Day, Women in Pharmacy Day. There's a lot of great points that we try to celebrate the profession this month. So, thank you to everybody out there listening for what you do each and every day for the profession and the patients you serve.
Full 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. Today we're joined by Doctor Anthony Pudlo, chief executive officer of the Tennessee Pharmacists Association. In this role, he leads an organization that advances, protects and promotes high‑quality pharmacist‑provided patient care in the state of Tennessee. You can learn more about TPA on their website, TNPharm.org or on social media.
Stephen Woodward
We'll put links in the description. Doctor Pudlo, we appreciate you coming today. Welcome to White Coat Radio.
Anthony Pudlo
Thank you so much for having me. Really appreciate being here.
Stephen Woodward
So talk about what brings you to Gatton this week.
Anthony Pudlo
Oh, goodness. When am I not at Gatton, right? No. A lot of the visit this week has really stemmed from an outbound effort from the association to meet and collaborate with our local district pharmacy associations around the state. So actually, later this evening we'll be hosting a great dinner program with our colleagues at the First District Pharmacists Association.
Anthony Pudlo
And yeah, anytime you come out to Johnson City, you’ve got to make sure you visit some pharmacies and visit some members, talk to the students. So it has been a jam‑packed week already. I've been enjoying it.
Michele Williams
It's really great to have you here. And for some of our students who may not have gotten the message yet, can you talk a little bit about the role of the Tennessee Pharmacists Association?
Anthony Pudlo
Yeah, it's a great question. And I do think students should know a few different things. First and foremost, there are a whole lot of different organizations out there, and we encourage people to get involved in as many of them as they want to. But at the state level, the Tennessee Pharmacists Association—plain and simple—we are a membership‑based professional society that represents the practice of pharmacy.
Anthony Pudlo
Our members are pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and students of the profession. Wherever you see them practice—large health‑system practices, small critical‑access hospitals, large national chains, regional chains, independently owned community pharmacies, long‑term care, home infusion, nuclear pharmacy, managed care, academia. And so we bring those voices together. Very uniquely in Tennessee, we're able to be one voice for all those pharmacists and technicians and students to advocate for the profession and help make sure we're promoting the profession in the right way to policymakers and other stakeholders—educating the profession, whether it's formal continuing education or just helping people stay up with the times on what's going on in practice.
Anthony Pudlo
And I would also say helping advance the profession as well. So we do that through a lot of different mechanisms. Some of that is really wielded through the work of our foundation. But in the end, our members tell us—tell me—what to do.
Anthony Pudlo
We're a membership‑based organization, and we stay focused on the state of Tennessee. But as I was saying earlier, we work very closely with all those national pharmacy associations too. We are either direct or indirect affiliates with our colleagues at the American Pharmacists Association, American Society of Health‑System Pharmacists, National Community Pharmacists Association, AMCP, AACP—you go down the list.
Anthony Pudlo
We work very closely. As many people can imagine, there’s a lot going on in the world of pharmacy, and we try to collaborate and coordinate as best we can across all facets of the industry.
Michele Williams
That's wonderful. And what are some of the member benefits for students?
Anthony Pudlo
For students, for sure—there's a whole lot. And I even think back to my days as a student and what professional involvement means. But plain and simple, I always tell students that depending on what year you're in school, there's different things that TPA probably means to you. Maybe as a first‑year student, you're just trying to learn the acronyms, learn what's going on in the world of pharmacy—and that's fine. That's perfect; you should be.
Anthony Pudlo
So I tell people we have a weekly communication called our “10 for 10” newsletter that comes out, and we try to spotlight the ten most important things that happened in the world of pharmacy in the last week—some national‑level issues, some state practice issues, whatever it might be.
Anthony Pudlo
And plain and simple, as a P1 that’s probably perfect, right? They just want to learn and understand, and these things help augment what they're learning in the classroom. But as they get older in the curriculum—as a P2, P3—I think we offer a whole host of engagement opportunities, whether through our conferences, networking events, or opportunities to meet pharmacists doing unique, cool things in practice.
Anthony Pudlo
We also have an executive summer internship program. We offer a practice site for fourth‑year students. We offer scholarships through our foundation. And then probably the biggest thing I encourage students on is helping them hone and find their voice for the patients out there—through advocacy.
Anthony Pudlo
We want to make sure students are attending our Pharmacy Day on the Hill every year at the end of February. Later today I’ll be meeting with some student groups to talk about advocacy efforts and how you find that voice.
Anthony Pudlo
This week on Friday we host a big residency showcase where residency programs from across the region come to Nashville and students interested in post‑graduate training can meet them—making it easier than having to travel to wherever ASHP Midyear is that year.
Anthony Pudlo
There’s a little bit of everything. But plain and simple, we are a network—a network of pharmacy professionals to help a student learn the profession and how we operate.
Anthony Pudlo
Even if students don’t plan to practice in Tennessee, I think we're doing some cool, great things in our state. Take that knowledge and apply it wherever you go. And yes—the college would probably love to see alumni come back someday and apply that knowledge here, because it makes us all stronger together.
Michele Williams
That's awesome. It sounds like there's something for everybody.
Anthony Pudlo
Yeah, very much so.
Stephen Woodward
Can you tell us what the CEO does and give us a day in the life of what you do?
Anthony Pudlo
Well, let's throw this week out the door because it's a little bit unique—but maybe not. In a nutshell, it's important to realize how we operate to know what I do. Like I said earlier, TPA is run by the members. But even more specifically, TPA is still organized in a way—probably one of about 15 or 20 states—that still has a House of Delegates.
Anthony Pudlo
They are our policymaking body. They meet at our winter and summer conferences. Students can observe or speak. That’s our legislative branch. They decide our stance on medical cannabis, artificial intelligence, telepharmacy—you name it.
Anthony Pudlo
Those statements drive decisions of our board of directors and committees. Our board is essentially our executive branch. They approve our budget and strategic plan.
Anthony Pudlo
They also employ me. So they hand me the strategic plan and budget, and I figure out how we get the work done.
Anthony Pudlo
I manage our small but mighty team—five full‑time staff, a few part‑time. I manage committees. And I make sure we accomplish what the profession needs from us within budget constraints.
Anthony Pudlo
A big part of my role is legislative work. During session I’d be running around the Capitol a couple days a week working with our contract lobbyists, advocating for the profession, helping legislators understand our pain points.
Anthony Pudlo
Even outside session, I meet with legislative leadership to prepare for the next year.
Anthony Pudlo
Yesterday was the end of the month, so I worked with our finance team and auditors on closing the audit. There's a little bit of everything.
Anthony Pudlo
I also spend a lot of time coordinating with counterparts in other states and national organizations—learning from each other, identifying strategies, amplifying messages, troubleshooting issues.
Anthony Pudlo
Any bigger‑level strategic issues—those are on my plate.
Stephen Woodward
Okay. Thank you. So I know today is October 1st—we're recording at the beginning of American Pharmacists Month. We want to ask you: what's the state of the profession of pharmacy, and what is the importance of pharmacists in today's day and age?
Anthony Pudlo
Yeah, great question. And thanks for the reminder—it is October 1st. We have a lot we're planning to push out. So yes, to all our listeners—Happy American Pharmacists Month, or whatever day you're listening. It could be Pharmacy Technician Day, Women in Pharmacy Day. We celebrate the profession in many ways this month. Thank you to everyone for what you do.
Anthony Pudlo
But to your question, Stephen—it's an interesting time. I've been meeting with pharmacists the last couple days. We see a lot of challenges in the profession—undue influence from outside groups. But also opportunities.
Anthony Pudlo
Maybe I'm a glass‑half‑full person. People tell me it feels like the early days of the pandemic—big decisions being made, ripple effects on how we live and care for patients. There's ongoing advocacy work to amplify our voice to decision makers.
Anthony Pudlo
Some decisions may have undertones of things the profession has asked for a long time—proper regulations around influencers on the profession.
Anthony Pudlo
But finances are challenging. Community pharmacy closures. A big long‑term care group recently filed bankruptcy. Health systems struggling with 340B, reimbursement, etc. There’s a lot of challenge.
Anthony Pudlo
But pharmacists are problem‑solvers—detectives. We navigate difficult issues. We bring solutions. Tennessee has had success—PBM reform, scope expansion recognizing pharmacists can independently provide care and be paid for it. Not across every payer yet, but opportunities exist.
Anthony Pudlo
There are challenges, but people are not alone. People are working hard to overcome them. And there’s opportunity when we use our voice together.
Michele Williams
It sounds like there are so many important facets to your job. When you think back to pharmacy school, were there experiences that led you to where you are now?
Anthony Pudlo
We could go down a long path about choosing pharmacy, but in a nutshell—I didn't come from a family of pharmacists. Pharmacy somewhat fell into my lap. My older sister went into physical therapy; I chose pharmacy.
Anthony Pudlo
Because I didn’t have direct exposure to the profession, I soaked up everything I could. I got involved in different organizations almost every semester—independent ownership, managed care, hospital practice—you name it.
Anthony Pudlo
I wanted to be a sponge, to make the right choice for my career. Looking back, I learned a little of everything. And now, in my role, I see medications as the common thread across all health care.
Anthony Pudlo
That broad exposure helps me understand what different pharmacists deal with. My job isn't to know everything—but to know who to call.
Anthony Pudlo
I learned early to communicate, understand people's passions and issues, and amplify their needs in the right way. That helps when talking to the Governor’s office, legislative leaders, members of Congress—you need real examples to illustrate why change is needed.
Michele Williams
That's amazing. Thank you for sharing that.
Stephen Woodward
You were reflecting on pharmacy school. Looking back, what advice would you have for a current P1 or someone just starting their career?
Anthony Pudlo
Doesn’t matter if you're a first‑year or fourth‑year—be a sponge. Learn every facet of the profession. The PharmD degree offers so much flexibility. You can work anywhere.
Anthony Pudlo
But learn your passions. Learn your clinical interests. Yes, you have to be a jack‑of‑all‑trades to pass boards, but also learn what you really care about.
Anthony Pudlo
Know the clinical areas you love—become the expert. Learn the trials, the guidelines. And also learn your colleagues’ passions. You won’t know everything. You need to know who to call.
Anthony Pudlo
There’s mutual respect when you know your limits and rely on colleagues. Be a resource to each other. Not only in school, but when you're alumni caring for patients.
Stephen Woodward
Great. That's great advice.
Anthony Pudlo
Thank you.
Michele Williams
That's awesome. Are there any other things you'd like to talk about that we haven't touched on yet?
Anthony Pudlo
How much time do we have? It's important for people to realize—sitting in this chair as CEO of TPA for years now—there are a lot of positive things the association is doing externally that people may or may not see.
Anthony Pudlo
But there's also a lot internally—revamping communications, new website, new emails, better social media. If you don’t tell your story, others make their own narrative. My leadership has been clear—we need to peel back the curtain and showcase what TPA does.
Anthony Pudlo
We've revamped advocacy strategies. We've revamped financial processes—being efficient with the membership dollar.
Anthony Pudlo
For anyone who hasn't considered what TPA is or what it means to you, I encourage you to take a look at our website, www.TNPharm.org.
Anthony Pudlo
I'd appreciate advice, too. I'm still soaking up information—ways we can be better, more relevant to pharmacists and technicians who need our help. There’s more to come. Some exciting things on the horizon.
Michele Williams
That's awesome.
Stephen Woodward
We'll put a link to your website in the episode description, and we hope this episode helps you tell your story and more about TPA. We really appreciate you joining us today.
Anthony Pudlo
Thank you both. Really appreciate it. And I guess it’s time to go talk to more students in person.
Stephen Woodward
That's great. All right, that's a wrap. Thank you very much. Thanks for listening to White Coat Radio. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe and leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts. To learn more about East Tennessee State University Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy, visit us at etsu.com/pharmacy or follow us on social media @ETSUPharmacy.
Stephen Woodward
We'll see you next time.

26 min
August 25, 2025 Episode 24 - Interview with Dr. Jim Thigpen
In this interview with Dr. Jim Thigpen, Associate Professor of Pharmacy Practice at East Tennessee State University Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy, we discuss his pharmacotherapy course and how to succeed, leadership in pharmacy, and Dr. Thigpen's favorite pastime: fly fishing!

Transcript:
Introduction Teaser
Jim Thigpen
You're in too big of a hurry fishing, you're not going to do well. And if you're in too big of a hurry as a pharmacist, you're going to make mistakes. And that's dangerous. And so learning to be patient and taking your time is important.
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. Today we're joined by Doctor Jim Thigpen, associate professor of pharmacy practice, a pediatric pharmacist by trade whose practice site is Ballad Health’s Niswonger Children’s Hospital, which is located right next to the college. Doctor Thigpen has been with the college essentially from the beginning, starting in 2008 after working as a clinical pharmacist for nearly 15 years.
Stephen Woodward
He is originally from Charleston, South Carolina, and attended Clemson University before going on to pharmacy school at the Medical University of South Carolina. He moved to Johnson City in 1993. Doctor Thigpen coordinates Pharmacy Practice V and Pharmacotherapy III, as well as an Advanced Pediatrics elective course. We hope you enjoy today’s interview.
Michele Williams
What would you like students to know about being successful with your material that you wish they knew—something maybe you don't say out loud in class?
Jim Thigpen
Don't be intimidated by it. You know, don't think that it's that different than what you've learned. About 70% of all the children in the U.S. are cared for by pharmacists that are not pediatric specialists. There are 200 children's hospitals in the United States, and I’d ballpark maybe 2,000 pediatric specialists who work in those hospitals.
Jim Thigpen
But here there’s four in East Tennessee. And so the vast majority of children are going to be seen by pharmacists that are not pediatric‑trained. They all have to have some level of comfort taking care of a child and recognizing the bad things—when they need to go to the ER right now, or when it's something they don’t need to worry about at that moment.
Jim Thigpen
I hope by being exposed to pediatrics through the program, they develop a comfort level so they can say, “Yes, you need to call your doctor,” or “You need to make an appointment,” or “Yes, you need to go to the emergency room,” or “No, we can treat that with Tylenol.”
Jim Thigpen
And just develop a level of comfort with children because you will be somebody’s pharmacist, and somebody will call you at 4:00 in the morning and say, “My son has a fever. What should we do?” And you need to know what to do.
Stephen Woodward
What are the steps that a student right here at Gatton would need to take in order to become a pediatric pharmacist?
Jim Thigpen
You need to get involved with the national organization. If you're serious about pursuing residency in pediatrics, join pediatric pharmacy groups such as the Pediatric Pharmacy Association. They love students—they welcome them at national meetings. Meet people and figure out if that’s what you want.
Jim Thigpen
Pediatrics is limited. Tennessee has children’s hospitals in Johnson City, Knoxville, Chattanooga, Nashville, Memphis. That’s it. You can't be a pediatric pharmacist anywhere—you have to live in a city with a children’s hospital.
Jim Thigpen
Thirty years ago we were in high demand—and still are—but you may have to move.
Jim Thigpen
If you want to do pediatrics, talk to me and talk to preceptors like Robin Modern. Pharmacy is a small world; pediatrics is even smaller. People know each other. It’s about connections and making a good impression.
Jim Thigpen
Residency often means moving. I was going to leave Charleston for a residency at VCU, but we found out we were having a baby, and I didn’t want to take my eight‑months‑pregnant wife to a strange city. That’s the only reason I stayed. I recommend going elsewhere for residency—it’s a good learning opportunity.
Michele Williams
We were talking just a minute ago about the pharmacotherapy series. That’s where your course content primarily lives, right? During the P3 year?
Jim Thigpen
Yes, historically.
Michele Williams
If I were a student about to start the spring P3 year, what advice would you give me to be successful with your course content?
Jim Thigpen
Don’t worry about it. There are probably only three or four drugs that are exclusive to pediatrics. The rest are used in adults and then used in children. About 25% of drugs are FDA‑approved for children; the rest aren’t, but we still use them.
Jim Thigpen
There are only a handful of drugs you’ll need to learn that you don’t already know.
Jim Thigpen
People think pediatrics is so different—it’s really not. A lot of diseases are the same; the drugs are the same. It’s just a little different for children.
Jim Thigpen
You need to develop comfort with acute issues in kids—things you need to be able to recognize. I will drill that into you. If someone calls you in the middle of the night about their kid, you need to know what to tell them—and say it in a way that doesn’t terrify them.
Jim Thigpen
You need to talk to parents—help them give medicine effectively, or explain the importance of managing something like type 1 diabetes. You need to communicate clearly.
Jim Thigpen
Some parents are afraid of vaccines. You need to understand the facts and communicate them without offending them.
Jim Thigpen
Outside of those differences, pediatrics isn’t that different. I highlight the key differences. Don’t be intimidated—but I’ve been doing this for 40 years, so of course I say that.
Stephen Woodward
A few months ago I had the privilege to shadow you in the hospital. I think we often think of pharmacists in the background, but you were in more of a leadership role. Nurses, medical students—they were looking to you for answers. Can you talk about that leadership role?
Jim Thigpen
Well, not trying to be funny, but I'm probably older than everybody there. So it's natural to look up to the old man.
Jim Thigpen
But anyone who’s known me would not say I'm the smartest person in the room. They would say that if they needed help, I’d give it. Brian O’Toole and I worked together for years, and we always tried to help people and make their job easier.
Jim Thigpen
People know I’m someone you can ask without feeling stupid. Medical students especially—they get far less pharmacology than our students do. Some pharmacists make them feel bad for not knowing something. I try very hard not to do that.
Jim Thigpen
I want them to understand the details and feel like they can ask me anything. I try to break the ice—ask where they're from, talk about baseball or fishing or Clemson football—so they don’t see me as “the guy in the white coat.”
Jim Thigpen
For all pharmacists: you're part of the team. You develop a reputation. Students, nurses, doctors—they know whether you’re approachable.
Jim Thigpen
Almost every time I take a student into the NICU, one of the doctors walks up and says, “I’m so glad you’re here—I’ve got a question for you.” It's not scripted—it just happens. They know I’ll help.
Jim Thigpen
It’s not leadership; it’s reputation. If you're nice, people want to ask you questions. If you're not, they'll avoid you.
Jim Thigpen
Don’t ever treat providers condescendingly. They will avoid you forever. Even if they're really messing up, don’t make them feel like they’re messing up. We’ll teach you those skills.
Jim Thigpen
I’ve never thought I was smarter than anybody. I’m usually the dumbest person in the room—but at least I'm willing to help.
Michele Williams
Were you Mr. O’Toole’s specialty?
Jim Thigpen
He was internal medicine. But he was a special person. If you knew him, you loved him.
Jim Thigpen
I better stop before I get emotional.
Stephen Woodward
Well, that’s a great transition to fly fishing.
Jim Thigpen
Yeah, gives me a chance to clear my throat.
Stephen Woodward
Everyone knows you love fly fishing. What is it about fly fishing that pulls you?
Jim Thigpen
I always liked fishing—bluegills and catfish as a kid. I never fly‑fished until I moved to Tennessee. A pharmacist I worked with took me in 1993. First time out, we fished for a while with no luck, and then suddenly the fish went nuts. I caught six in 15 minutes and said, “I’m done, I need to buy a fly rod.” It was magical.
Jim Thigpen
Fly fishing is technical. It’s rhythmic—like in A River Runs Through It. It’s comforting. And trout live in beautiful places—the Watauga, the South Holston, Beaver Dam Creek. It’s just pretty.
Jim Thigpen
There have been days I've caught more fish than I can count—and days I’ve caught one or two, and felt just as rewarded. Catching fish is gravy.
Michele Williams
It sounds like you’d recommend fly fishing. What could a student pharmacist learn from fly fishing that applies to the profession?
Jim Thigpen
Attention to detail. That’s important for pharmacists. Fly fishing requires the right size, the right color, matching the insect. You need patience. If you're in too big of a hurry fishing, you won’t do well. If you're in too big a hurry as a pharmacist, you'll make mistakes—and that's dangerous.
Jim Thigpen
You need to pay attention. Sometimes I wasn’t catching anything and realized I wasn’t paying attention to which insects were around. I kept using the wrong fly. Then I switched and suddenly caught fish.
Jim Thigpen
Attention to detail and taking your time—both are important as a pharmacist.
Michele Williams
When you talked about matching the fly to the insect, it made me think about pharmacists finding “just the right” answer.
Jim Thigpen
Yes. In a perfect world you always use the best option—but the world’s not perfect. Sometimes the patient can’t afford the best medicine. You have to figure out what will get the job done. It’s problem-solving.
Jim Thigpen
We want students to develop critical thinking. Same with fishing—you use something similar if you don't have the perfect fly. Sometimes you choose something that isn’t your first choice but fits the situation.
Stephen Woodward
You should use that with pre‑pharmacy students. Can you talk about advice you give students interested in pharmacy?
Jim Thigpen
I've had this conversation hundreds of times. I never sugarcoat the profession. You don’t have to be a chemistry expert. I made two Cs in organic chemistry and was glad to get them. You do need problem‑solving skills.
Jim Thigpen
Most importantly, you need to communicate. Patients, parents—you must explain what you're thinking in a way they understand and feel heard.
Jim Thigpen
Talk to as many people as you can about the profession. See what you're getting into. Maybe get a job in a pharmacy. There are many paths—you don’t have to work retail. I never did. I worked in hospital pharmacy.
Jim Thigpen
But healthcare carries responsibility. If my son messes up at his job and loses the company half a million dollars, he might get fired—but he didn’t kill anyone. Healthcare is different. The stakes are higher.
Jim Thigpen
The most rewarding parts of my career: seeing parents relax because I'm helping their doctors make good decisions, and seeing students or residents understand something better because of my teaching. Being part of the team for 35 years—that’s rewarding.
Jim Thigpen
I enjoy interacting with the doctors, nurses, everyone. We all help each other and support each other when bad things happen.
Stephen Woodward
That really came across when I shadowed you. It was incredible to watch.
Jim Thigpen
Experience helps. I’ve been there a long time. Only one pharmacist at the medical center has been there longer than me. I've been here 32 or 33 years. I don’t know how it happened.
Michele Williams
It really comes across—you still have enthusiasm and passion. Students love working with you.
Jim Thigpen
I try to have fun along the way. Serious business, but jokes and cutting up with people make difficult days more tolerable. I encourage students to get to know the team—it makes everything more rewarding.
Stephen Woodward
Were you an inaugural faculty member?
Jim Thigpen
Not the first group. They started July of ’07. I started March of ’08.
Stephen Woodward
The college is celebrating its 20th anniversary. Can you talk about how you came to Gatton?
Jim Thigpen
I moved to Johnson City in ’93. I’d been doing the same job for almost 15 years and knew I didn’t want to be an administrator. I didn’t have anywhere else to go in that position.
Jim Thigpen
Larry Calhoun is the reason I came to Johnson City. I thought it’d be fun to work with him again. Maybe they’d need a pediatric specialist. I had taught some at the College of Nursing and College of Medicine, so I felt comfortable teaching.
Jim Thigpen
It was a transition from full‑time clinical to full‑time academia with clinical work. It wasn’t a big change—but it was a good opportunity. People said, “You just wanted to work with Brian O’Toole again.” That was a bonus.
Jim Thigpen
If the College of Pharmacy hadn’t opened, I’d still be at the med center. I never would have left—because we love living here. Coming to Gatton was probably the second-best decision of my life. The first was moving to Johnson City.
Stephen Woodward
Well, Doctor Thigpen, we really appreciate you coming.
Jim Thigpen
Certainly. It’s good to be here.
Michele Williams
It’s a great conversation—no surprise at all.
Jim Thigpen
Everybody says, “Do you have a story for every drug?” And I say, pretty much. If you've done it long enough, you have an experience for everything.
Michele Williams
And a good story too, I’m sure.
Stephen Woodward
Thanks for listening to White Coat Radio. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe and leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts. To learn more about East Tennessee State University Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy, visit us at etsu.com/pharmacy or follow us on social media @ETSUPharmacy. We'll see you next time.

33 min
June 20, 2025 Episode 23 - Interview with Dr. Dowling-McClay about research (Part 2)
Check out Part 2 of our interview with Dr. KariLynn Dowling-McClay, Assistant Professor of Pharmacy Practice at East Tennessee State University Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy. Dr. Dowling-McClay discusses some of the exciting research opportunities for student pharmacists.

Transcript
Teaser Introduction:
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
They're better than TV sometimes. Like, I would just go out and spend time just standing around with my chickens and just watching at.
Full 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. Today we are talking to Doctor KariLynn Dowling-McClay, assistant professor of pharmacy practice again. Her interests include women's health, substance use disorders, and public health.
Michele Williams
Welcome back to White Coat Radio, Doctor Dowling-McClay.
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
Thank you. I'm excited to be back.
Michele Williams
So I believe that you might be unique among our faculty members in that you do both quantitative and qualitative research. Can you tell us a little bit about what qualitative research is, and then also about the areas in which you research?
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
Yes. So qualitative research is such a fun area, and I didn't honestly think about it much at first when I was going through my training and building out my skills in research. First and foremost, I'm a big data nerd. I really like looking at numbers, working with spreadsheets, doing statistical tests. So qualitative research is everything outside of that.
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
And so I wasn't naturally drawn to it until I got some exposure to it. That really started when I was doing my postgraduate training. I went through the Master of Public Health program here at ETSU when I first came here as a pharmacy fellow.
Michele Williams
That's kind of data nerd paradise.
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
It is. I mean, it gives you all the time you want to really dig into those interests. But what I learned through my mentors and instructors in that program is that you can't form a whole story through research that is just numbers‑driven or quantitative data‑driven. Qualitative is a really important piece of the puzzle.
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
So how I look at research now: it’s numbers and it’s stories. And qualitative is the story side of research. With qualitative, you can do a deep dive into a topic—maybe a challenge that a community or population is having—and you can find things you wouldn’t have found just by crunching numbers.
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
An example: I have an ongoing project investigating pharmacist prescribing of contraceptives—something pharmacists can do in Tennessee and several surrounding states. But in practice, it's not happening much, even though the state authorizes it.
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
This is a multi‑pronged research project involving many students over the years. One piece was interviewing community pharmacists to find out what they think about the state law, why they may not participate, and what would help them participate. Generally, they think it's a good idea—but where is the disconnect?
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
To answer that, we needed to talk to the people in the group—community pharmacists. We recruited them, brought them in person or on Zoom, turned on a recorder, asked a bunch of questions, and recorded everything again and again and again.
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
Qualitative research is rigorous—even though it’s not number‑based. You ask the same questions repeatedly until you keep getting the same answers. That's data saturation. Then you analyze the recordings for common themes.
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
By doing that first, we could then better design a survey for a larger group, diving deeper into the questions. I see qualitative and quantitative research working together for full‑perspective research.
Michele Williams
That sounds really interesting.
Stephen Woodward
So you teach a research elective at the college. What can students expect in that class?
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
Yes. I may be biased, but I think it's a lot of fun. They get to do research with me outside the classroom. I offer the Pharmacy Practice Research elective series.
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
What's unique is that pharmacy practice research is research, but it may be totally different from what students picture. We don’t have a lab or animals or cell lines or fancy equipment. We're out in the community doing research with people and pharmacy systems.
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
There’s a lot of human interaction, but also a lot of independent work. I always tell students—as long as they have an internet connection, they can do most of our research from anywhere.
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
Once oriented, we meet every other week, and between meetings they work toward goals to push the project forward. It’s flexible, independent, and hands‑on.
Michele Williams
I can understand why that's such a popular elective. If a student is interested in doing research with a particular professor who doesn’t teach a research elective, is it still possible to do research with that professor?
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
Great question. Yes—there is more research happening than what shows up in the elective menu. Every faculty member has different duties and different amounts of research time.
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
I offer a lot because my job is 50% research. But others may only have 5–10% research time, so they might not advertise opportunities.
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
I always tell students: there’s no harm in asking. And you won’t know unless you ask. Reach out with a professional email, explain your interest and how it aligns with their research, and ask if opportunities exist now or in the future.
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
You’re also building rapport. A professor may think of you later when a new project starts.
Michele Williams
So that's great advice. If a student does that, can they get any sort of academic credit?
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
Yes, absolutely. Students can still register for research elective credit. It’s almost like a hidden option—no guarantees, but when available, students receive credit for the work.
Michele Williams
Okay, a little inside info there first.
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
Yes! It’s like the hidden menu at a coffee shop—you just have to ask.
Michele Williams
Like the veggie burger at some restaurant. Yes.
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
Exactly—they don’t advertise it, but it may be available.
Michele Williams
That's great. And on a personal note, I happen to know that you're really fond of chickens. Not eating chickens—you don’t want to be eating chickens—but as pets. Can you tell me the story behind your fondness for chickens?
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
Yes! Chickens just make me so happy, and I probably talk about them too much. I grew up in a small town in Montana where animals were a big part of life. We had horses, dogs, sheep, goats—lots of animals.
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
I was fascinated by birds, and some neighbors had chickens. I loved observing them: they all looked different, acted differently, had distinct personalities. I begged for chickens, and my parents made me study, plan, and save for a year before letting me get them.
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
When I finally did, I was so proud. I raised them through middle and high school, took them to the county fair, did all the chores. Chickens are more entertaining than people realize. They have different intelligence levels—you have smart troublemakers and simple ones who get stuck in corners.
Stephen Woodward
Those would be my favorite.
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
Honestly, they're better than TV sometimes. I'd just stand outside watching my chickens—that was my entertainment.
Stephen Woodward
Are they loud? If you live in a small neighborhood, would they cause problems?
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
They can. My neighbors have some secret chickens that I think aren't allowed where we live. I personally love it—it makes me feel at home. But yes, chickens are noisy. Not just roosters—they all make lots of noises.
Michele Williams
Having a pet bird, I know there's a lot of flapping and screeching.
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
Yes—that translates completely to chickens.
Michele Williams
That’s how they communicate they are not pleased with something.
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
Yes.
Michele Williams
Doctor Dowling-McClay, thank you for joining us today. It was a pleasure speaking with you and learning more about you.
Stephen Woodward
Thanks for listening to White Coat Radio. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe and leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts. To learn more about East Tennessee State University Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy, visit us at etsu.edu/pharmacy or follow us on social media @ETSUPharmacy. We'll see you next time.

16 min
May 22, 2025 Episode 22 - Interview with Dr. Dowling-McClay on professional identity formation
Check out Part 1 of our interview with Dr. KariLynn Dowling-McClay, Assistant Professor of Pharmacy Practice at East Tennessee State University Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy. Dr. Dowling-McClay explains professional identity formation, imposter phenomenon, and the role those play in the lives of student pharmacists. She also shares her own journey to becoming a professional pharmacist.
Transcript
Introduction Teaser:
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
Doing that job, I had never felt more connected to the community and a sense of responsibility for the well-being of the community.
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. Today we are talking to Doctor KariLynn Dowling-McClay, assistant professor of pharmacy practice again. Her interests include women's health, substance use disorders, and public health. Welcome to White Coat Radio, Doctor Dowling-McClay.
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
Thank you. I'm excited to be here to talk with you all.
Michele Williams
I've learned so much from you. One of the things that I think is a favorite topic of yours is professional identity. And so I thought maybe we could talk about that a bit today. And just kind of in general, what is professional identity and what role does it play for student pharmacists?
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
Sure. I think it's a really interesting topic. And you're correct—it's something I've enjoyed bringing into the classroom. And honestly, I'm still learning about it. So every year when I first come to the topic again, I have more to add, I have some new perspectives, so it's one of those fun ones where it just keeps evolving. But it is a concept that really exists for any profession that's out there.
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
So that includes pharmacy, other health professions, and even things outside of health care, like lawyers—really any group that is united by the career they do or something they have in common. And so the process of professional identity formation for student pharmacists is going through this internalization of thinking, acting, and feeling like a pharmacist.
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
So it's really the idea that they start out as a student. They want to become a pharmacist. But what is this process that they go through to actually be a pharmacist by the time that they graduate and go out into their career? And so I think for a lot of students—and it would be myself included when I went to pharmacy school—I knew I was going through this four‑year curriculum, working really hard, but I kind of felt like I was just a student. And then at graduation or the day after, I would be a pharmacist, like I was just flipping a switch.
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
Which is, yes, flipping a switch—but actually there’s evidence that shows it’s a continual process that really starts from the moment someone is welcomed into a profession.
Michele Williams
Wow.
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
So yes—and it could even be earlier for students who have worked in pharmacy environments or had exposure before school. It may start at different times for different students, but definitely by the time they come here for orientation, they're all on that journey together. And like I said, it’s an internalizing process.
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
Everything they're doing is contributing to how they will use thought processes to solve problems like a pharmacist. It's their sense of belonging—feeling like they're a member of the profession. In recent years, we’ve tried to bring that to the forefront to help students be aware this process is happening. That awareness can also help in times they might struggle with belonging or feel discouraged.
Michele Williams
That makes so much sense. And I imagine there are times when a person really starts to feel like a pharmacist or really feels like they're thinking like a pharmacist—and then times when they don’t feel like that, or feel like they’re pretending to be a pharmacist… like imposter phenomenon.
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
Yes, yes. And unfortunately, I think that is a pretty universal experience. It will hit at different times for every person going through this process. But part of that process is going through those feelings of doubt and coming out the other side and realizing that you do belong in that profession—that you actually are a member of that profession and you're not just portraying that.
Michele Williams
Not fooling people.
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
Right. You actually are. And this has been studied some in pharmacy and a whole lot in medicine and nursing. The scientific field is still learning more about it, but it seems to be a common experience or a common way of understanding how students reach that endpoint of being a member of the profession.
Michele Williams
Yeah, it's good that that's being studied now, because I'm guessing that for a long time people thought they were the only one who felt like they were pulling something off.
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
Yes. Those feelings of imposter phenomenon or feeling like you don’t belong can lead to a lot of doubt—and it can be very isolating. Something we try to do in the program is help students realize they’re not alone when they struggle with those feelings. Guaranteed, there are other people in the room who are or have or will feel the same way.
Stephen Woodward
That's really interesting. So what got you interested in that topic to begin with?
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
Honestly, it wasn’t something I had ever heard about as a pharmacy student. Looking back, I know I went through the process, but I didn’t know there was a term for it or that it was a formal concept. It really wasn’t until I became a faculty member and started interacting not just with pharmacists but with educators.
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
Through pharmacy education conferences I started hearing these buzzwords—PIF, professional identity formation. Once I heard it again and again, I felt like, okay, there must be something here I need to know about.
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
I dug into it, went to talks, looked up resources. The more I read, the more it clicked that it is something always happening for our students, whether we acknowledge it or not.
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
I like to lift the hood on the car for students—not keep everything behind the scenes. So just like we talk about educational outcomes, I like to talk about PIF and help students acknowledge the process while they’re experiencing it.
Stephen Woodward
What do you think causes that imposter syndrome for health care professionals?
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
I think part of it is a disconnect. When you're brand new to something, you don't know what you don't know. Then as you gain more experience, you learn some things—but you also become aware of all the things you haven’t mastered yet.
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
When there's that imbalance, it weaves into imposter feelings. People think, “I can’t think like this, I can’t solve these problems,” when really they’re just learning. That’s part of becoming the professional—they’re still growing toward that endpoint.
Michele Williams
Do you think comparing themselves to others fosters that feeling? Thinking someone else knows all the answers, or their parents are pharmacists, or they’ve worked in a pharmacy for five years… What am I doing here?
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
I think that's actually a huge part of it. Our society and educational system prime young people to measure themselves against others constantly. Many things students must do to get into pharmacy school involve measuring up.
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
You can’t just turn that off. You have to reframe how you see yourself, and not always be in competitive mode.
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
And students are surrounded by people they want to emulate—faculty, preceptors. They’re fully developed pharmacists. But students may not realize those role models had steppingstones too. They struggled in school too.
Michele Williams
That's great. Thank you so much for sharing that. In addition to the PD course that you and I co-coordinate, what are some of the other courses in which you teach?
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
I think I have a really fun job because I get to pop up in some unexpected places throughout the curriculum. I love working with P1s in the PD series. But I also get to teach women’s health topics—early on in self-care in P1 spring, and later in pharmacotherapy.
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
I usually work with groups in the communications course or the APP program. And I take fourth-year students on an academia rotation. They spend a month with me at the college—not as students, but seeing behind the curtain how we do our jobs as educators.
Michele Williams
That's great.
Stephen Woodward
Recently you spoke to incoming P1 students and asked them to reflect on the question, “Why are you here?” What is the why that led you to become a pharmacist?
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
This is a fun exercise. I wish someone had advised me to do this when I started pharmacy school. Honestly, maybe someone did—I just didn’t listen.
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
Sometimes it's hard to put into exact words, which is why writing it down helps. For me, my “why” comes from a deep sense of caring for the community and wanting to find my role in making the community as healthy as possible.
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
Before this conversation, I pulled out my pharmacy school application essay. I wanted to see what I wrote back then. To my relief, I used very similar terminology.
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
At the time, I had started working in a community pharmacy to make sure that’s what I wanted to do. I wrote about how doing that job, I had never felt more connected to the community and felt a responsibility for the well-being of the community. That thread has carried through my entire career.
Stephen Woodward
Okay. Thank you for sharing.
Michele Williams
Thanks. What do you think inspired that desire to be of service to the community?
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
For me, it’s rooted in my upbringing. My dad is a pharmacist—he’s retired now—but he worked in community pharmacy in our hometown for close to 40 years.
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
Growing up, everywhere we went—dinner, shopping—he’d run into someone who knew him as their pharmacist. Most conversations weren’t health related. He was just well known, well liked, held in high esteem because of his care.
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
I grew up in a small Montana town where community mindedness was baked in—what do we do for each other because we all know each other?
KariLynn Dowling-McClay
I probably didn’t realize it at the time, but those experiences made me see that if I wanted to do something meaningful for my community, pharmacy was a powerful way to do it.
Michele Williams
Wow. That's great. Doctor Dowling-McClay, thank you for joining us today. It was a pleasure speaking with you and learning more about you.
Stephen Woodward
Thanks for listening to White Coat Radio. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe and leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts. To learn more about East Tennessee State University Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy, visit us at etsu.edu/pharmacy or follow us on social media @ETSUPharmacy. We'll see you next time.

18 min
May 12, 2025 Episode 21 - Interview with Dr. David Roane
Interview with Dr. David Roane.
38 min
February 05, 2025 Episode 20 - Interview with Dr. Jessica Burchette (Part 2)
We continue our conversation with Dr. Jessica Burchette, Associate Professor of Pharmacy Practice at East Tennessee State University Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy, and dig deeper into the pharmacotherapy and patient care course. She is a clinical pharmacist who helped lead the recent curriculum changes at the college.
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 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, Director of Academic Success, and my co-host is Stephen Woodward, our Communications and Marketing Manager.
Michele Williams
Hi, Stephen.
Stephen Woodward
Hey, Doctor Williams. Joining us today is Doctor Jessica Burchette. Doctor Burchette is an Associate Professor of Pharmacy Practice, and she was selected as the Distinguished Faculty in Teaching at ETSU in 2023. She was also the keynote speaker at ETSU commencement in December of 2023. Doctor Burchette coordinates the Pharmacotherapy and Patient Care course that takes place during the fall of the second professional year. Doctor Burchette, welcome to White Coat Radio.
Jessica Burchette
Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here, Stephen.
Stephen Woodward
Well, can you start by telling us a little bit about the Pharmacotherapy and Patient Care course?
Jessica Burchette
Yes, absolutely. This is one of the courses that I'm most excited about with our new curriculum. It is a four-course series that starts in the fall of the second professional year, as you mentioned in your introduction.
The goal of this course is to start out with very common diseases that our patients have — things like high blood pressure, diabetes, coronary artery disease, influenza, GERD, even heartburn.
We're starting students out in a stepwise approach, and we're trying to really wade them into the water of being a clinical pharmacist and thinking through patient issues clinically. Starting out with a single disease state and then beginning to layer those disease states with each other so that we're not teaching in a silo — we're not learning about one disease state and then forgetting about that and moving to the next disease state.
Everything continues to build. So our students started out this year with very basic topics that I actually taught — allergic rhinitis, which is just seasonal allergies — and then moved into things like heartburn. Then they started talking about lipids, cholesterol, and hypertension. Now they're talking about coronary artery disease, which is impacted by people who have hypertension and lipid problems.
You can see how we're continually growing and building that repertoire and moving things forward. The goal is that by the end of the four-course series, students can rattle off any information they need to take care of a patient with those basic core disease states, and then begin implementing more complex patients as we move through.
The series actually ends with patients who have cancer or other types of oncologic issues. So taking care of a patient that has a very acute disease state — but they still have high blood pressure, they still have heartburn — and making sure that you can look at all those medications safely and decide what's best for a patient.
Michele Williams
So you mentioned that this course is part of a four-part series. What can students expect from the series beyond just getting more complex as it goes along?
Jessica Burchette
Right. I think that's a great question. Our goal in this series is that we slowly provide students with more opportunity for self-growth.
We're starting out teaching students how to read medical literature and where to find guidelines. As we move through, students will be able to take that information and interpret it on their own without the faculty member picking out the most important pieces.
We're really trying to teach students how to teach themselves — slowly removing some of those guardrails and allowing more free thought and self-expression.
By the end, students should feel like they have the power, authority, and autonomy to look at a patient and very confidently say, “I feel like there's something here that I can contribute to this patient based on my own thought processes.”
Stephen Woodward
What should students do to be successful in the course?
Jessica Burchette
This entire course series is built around team learning — taking small teams of students and giving them patient scenarios or complex questions to think through as a group.
The first thing students can do is really lean into that. Ask good questions. Participate with your group.
I always tell students that thinking out loud in learning is like going to the gym and paying someone to teach you how to properly lift weights. They have to see you do it in order to correct your form or encourage the direction you're moving in.
As faculty, we really view ourselves as personal trainers of how you're going to think through problems. The only way we can help you with that is if you speak and really engage in the process.
Participate in class. Participate with your small groups during case discussions and facilitated exercises. And do the pre-reading.
That is a big difference in this course compared to what we've done in the past — asking students to do a small amount of pre-work prior to coming to class so they're ready to engage.
It allows us to maximize class time while also giving students practice in digesting material for themselves. It may not be comfortable at first, but so far, the students are doing a great job. It really shows in their performance and the way they're able to engage with us in the classroom.
Michele Williams
Prior to the new curriculum, students were taking the Integrated Series, which was comprised of discrete courses like pulmonary, renal, and cardio. How has the focus shifted from those separate courses into this integrated series?
Jessica Burchette
That's a great question. The Integrated Series became very compressed and very classroom-heavy. Students might have only three weeks to cover everything related to the renal system — pharmacology, medicinal chemistry, and therapy — all at once.
It was a sprint. Courses never overlapped, and there was never a passing of the baton from one course to the next so information could build.
We also determined that spaced retrieval of information is so important to learning. In the previous model, students would learn pharmacology one day and therapy the next without time to digest. When you understand how a drug works and how the body works, it makes sense why we use certain drugs — but they didn't have time to process that.
Now we've separated pharmacology and medicinal chemistry into a three-semester core series. Then students move into pharmacotherapy, where they apply that information to treating patients.
We've also reduced classroom seat time. We realized we can't expect students to prepare effectively after sitting in class for eight hours. No one has that kind of mental capacity after being mentally fatigued all day.
Previously, we as faculty sometimes defaulted to saying, “I know you didn't have time to read, so here's what you need to know.” We were feeding information rather than allowing students to interact with it.
With the new curriculum — and with Doctor Williams’ help — we've been more intentional about balancing seat time with independent learning. Students now have less classroom time, more time to digest information, and more time to engage with the community through flu clinics, blood pressure checks, and senior center activities.
That experiential learning is just as important as classroom learning.
Michele Williams
One of the things I noticed when sitting in on the class is how it facilitates students making connections across disease states and gives them time to reflect and build memory and retrieval skills.
Jessica Burchette
You've been instrumental in that. Faculty are often faculty because we love school — we're nerds. But not every student thrives in the same way.
Doctor Williams has helped us see things from a student perspective and identify where what we intended didn't always match how students experienced it.
The pharmacotherapy faculty meet every three weeks to discuss how the class is going, what issues we're seeing, and whether it's working the way we expected. That has been instrumental in continuing to grow the quality of the course.
Stephen Woodward
Is there anything else you'd like to add today?
Jessica Burchette
I've been really impressed with the way faculty have jumped in and gone the extra mile. I've also been impressed with the students and the quality feedback they've provided.
We know it won’t be perfect the first time. Student feedback is so important.
I've also been really pleased with the support from the Executive Committee, the Dean, Doctor Lugo, Department Chairs Doctor Stacy Brown and Doctor Sarah Thomason, and Doctor David Stewart over Academic Affairs.
Everyone has stepped back and said, “We’re ready to do what we need to do to make the best graduate for our community and for the pharmacy profession as a whole.”
It’s been humbling to watch everyone rally around this and build something special.
We're already hearing great feedback from introductory pharmacy practice preceptors about how engaged and professional students are, and how they come in on day one with real skills.
I can’t wait to see them move into their advanced pharmacy practice experiences and hear that continued feedback. It’s going to be amazing.
Stephen Woodward
Great.
Michele Williams
That’s fantastic. We did an earlier episode with Doctor Burchette about the curriculum, and this course really illustrates that curriculum in a microcosm.
You’ve done such an amazing job leading the curriculum change and this course. We're very excited about the future and grateful you joined us today.
Jessica Burchette
Thank you for your support and your kind words. I appreciate the chance to share these thoughts with you and with your listeners.
18 min
January 22, 2025 Episode 19 - Interview with Dr. Jessica Burchette (Part 1)
Check out Part 1 of our interview with Dr. Jessica Burchette, Associate Professor of Pharmacy Practice at East Tennessee State University Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy. She is a clinical pharmacist who helped lead the recent curriculum changes at the college.

Transcript:

Stephen Woodward:
Welcome to White Coat Radio, a podcast from East Tennessee State University Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy in Johnson City, Tennessee. Every 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, Director of Academic Success, and my co-host is Stephen Woodward, our Communications and Marketing Manager.
Stephen Woodward:
Hi, Stephen.
Michele Williams:
Hey, Doctor Williams.
Stephen Woodward:
Joining us today is Doctor Jessica Burchette. Our listeners may know Doctor Burchette as an Associate Professor of Pharmacy Practice, but they may not know that she’s a Gatton alum and was a graduate of the inaugural class at Gatton. She was also selected as the Distinguished Faculty in Teaching at East Tennessee State University in 2023. One of her many roles at Gatton is Chair of the Curriculum Steering Committee. So when we began implementing our new curriculum, she led those efforts, and that’s what we’re here to talk about today. Doctor Burchette, welcome to White Coat Radio.
Jessica Burchette:
Thank you, Doctor Williams. I’m so excited to be here with you both today.
Michele Williams:
So we’ll start with the basics. Tell us, what is a curriculum, and what does it mean to change it?
Jessica Burchette:
That is a great question.
I think of a curriculum as one of two things. One is a roadmap. We have a goal in mind that all of our graduates will be excellent pharmacists who take care of the public and serve their communities, and so we need a roadmap to make sure they get there efficiently, in the right order.
The other thing a curriculum is, to me, is like packing a suitcase. If you're going on a trip, you need the right proportion of the right things in order to be successful at your destination. And so when we’re thinking about a curriculum in terms of education, it’s both the science skills — understanding how the body works and how drugs work — and also understanding how to implement those and communicate those to patients, how to communicate with other health care professionals, and how to make good decisions financially and with the resources that patients might have.
And so there’s a lot of different aspects to a curriculum, and our job is to make sure we have all those placed at the right time, in the right order, and in the right proportion to give our students the launch that they need to move into their careers.
Stephen Woodward:
So when did Gatton decide to change its curriculum, and why?
Jessica Burchette:
That’s a great question. I think a curriculum should always be dynamic. It should never be stagnant, because as new things change and as we learn new things about medications and how to best treat people, our curriculum should change as well.
However, what we’re talking about today is a big change, because we revised our curriculum to have a totally different outlook and mindset compared to what we’re calling our legacy curriculum.
I would say this began around COVID. That’s a marker that everyone remembers. We were starting to see in our graduates maybe some places where our curriculum was not meeting their needs as quickly as it could.
So we sat down as a faculty and asked, what is our goal? What are we trying to create? What can we be really good at?
Here at Gatton, we can be really good at creating pharmacists who can impact their communities the day they graduate. They should not need extra training to be practice-ready. While many of our students choose to pursue additional training and have great success, we want to make sure that when our students leave here, they are ready to impact their communities immediately.
And so we asked, what are the key things a pharmacist should know at graduation? And that question really drove our curricular change.
The other driver is that things are always changing in medicine. We’re always learning, and so we need to teach our students how to teach themselves once they graduate, because the information we teach them will be out of date quickly. They need the tools and the skills to go out, learn new information, and digest it as it becomes available.
So those were really the two main drivers of changing our curriculum.
Michele Williams:
Curriculum change sounds like an enormous task. Can you walk us through the mechanics of how you changed it?
Jessica Burchette:
That is a great question. I’m fortunate to lead a Curriculum Steering Committee made up of faculty who truly want to put students first. That was instrumental in making such an enormous change possible.
We started by going back to our mission and vision. What is Gatton here to do? What makes us unique? And how do we lean into that?
Then we mapped out what we believed to be the most important competencies and outcomes for our graduates. Once we had that big picture, we worked backward. We asked, what foundational knowledge needs to happen first? What skills need to be layered in? Where do we need repetition? Where do we need integration?
It was not a quick process. It involved a lot of meetings, a lot of discussion, and honestly, a lot of humility — because sometimes we had to admit that something we had done for a long time might not be the best approach anymore.
We also gathered feedback from alumni, preceptors, and students. We asked them where they felt strong and where they felt less prepared. That external feedback was really important in shaping the direction we took.
Then came the work of restructuring courses — deciding what to move, what to combine, what to expand, and what to remove. And that part required collaboration across departments, because no one course stands alone.
So mechanically, it was a lot of mapping, revising, presenting proposals, getting approval, revising again — and continuing to refine as we implemented.
Stephen Woodward:
That sounds like a huge lift.
Jessica Burchette:
It was. It was. But I will say that it was energizing, too. When you get a group of people together who all care deeply about student success and the future of the profession, it’s motivating.
And we’ve continued to adjust as we go. Curriculum change is not something you do once and then walk away from. It’s something you continue to evaluate and refine.
13 min
October 04, 2024 Episode 18 - Interview with Dr. Shelby Brooks
Hear from Dr. Shelby Brooks, one of the newest editions to faculty in the Department of Pharmacy Practice at East Tennessee State University Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy, and learn about her clinical interests as well as her obsession with Harry Potter!

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 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, and I'm joined today by one of my co-hosts, Stephen Woodward, our Marketing and Communications Manager.
Hi, Stephen.
Stephen Woodward:
Hey, Michele.
Michele Williams:
In this episode, we'll be talking with Doctor Shelby Brooks, one of the newest additions to the faculty in the Department of Pharmacy Practice here at Gatton. Doctor Brooks, welcome to White Coat Radio.
Shelby Brooks:
Hi. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here this morning.
Stephen Woodward:
Doctor Brooks, can you start by telling us what brought you to Gatton and a little bit about your background?
Shelby Brooks:
Absolutely, yes. So before I moved to Johnson City, I lived in Shreveport, Louisiana, and I was also an Assistant Professor at University of Louisiana Monroe on their Shreveport campus. So I've been in academia for about three years now. Really enjoy it. Teaching is definitely one of my passions. And then moving to Johnson City, I really wanted to get back closer to family.
So my family is from the Asheville, North Carolina area, and they live in Marshall, North Carolina now, so it's only about 45 minutes away. So I had been thinking about wanting to move closer to the area, and I saw this job posted, and so it seemed to be a really good fit with working with family medicine and getting back to an area that I really loved.
I also lived in Knoxville for six years to finish up pharmacy school and to do residency. So I was really excited to get back to the area. Once I had my interview here, it really solidified it for me. Everybody was so welcoming, and I felt pretty much part of the faculty even on my interview day. So it worked out really well, and I'm excited to be here and to get started again.
Stephen Woodward:
That's good to hear. Thank you.
Michele Williams:
So in what courses can students expect to see you?
Shelby Brooks:
Yeah, we are still working that out a little bit, but as of right now I will be in the new pharmacotherapy series. So I'll be in Pharmacotherapy One with the P2s this fall, and I'll be teaching coronary artery disease. So they'll get to have me for about two weeks in the classroom. And then in the spring I'm also teaching Pharmacotherapy Two, and I'll teach ischemic stroke in that series as well.
So again, with the P2s. I get to interact with the P1s a little bit. I'll be an IPPE One facilitator for that. And then I will also be a facilitator for the communications course that's starting in a couple of weeks.
Michele Williams:
Oh that's great. Yeah.
Stephen Woodward:
So you're also a practicing pharmacist. Can you tell us about that side of your working life?
Shelby Brooks:
Absolutely. Since residency, I have practiced with inpatient family medicine. That is absolutely my passion. I love working with the family medicine team. So when I was in Shreveport at my previous academic position, I also worked with an inpatient family medicine team. And then now that I'm here at Gatton, I'll also be working with inpatient family medicine, both at Johnson City Medical Center and at Holston Valley Medical Center.
So working in the hospital, working with my team is definitely a huge passion of mine. I love being able to show that with the students and show them the type of pharmacy that I practice, and showing them that you can practice at the top of your license. We see any and all disease states. So family medicine patients tend to be some of the sicker patients in the hospital, besides critical care type of patients. They just have a lot of disease states, and they tend to be a bit of an underserved population, so not as much access to healthcare as maybe a traditional type of patient.
So we really get to dive into all different kinds of disease states with a family medicine team, and that's what I love about it. It keeps me busy. I don't get bored. There's always something new going on.
Stephen Woodward:
If I can ask a follow-up question to that, to speak maybe to the prospective student to Gatton who's weighing different career paths in health sciences, what would you tell them about the importance of pharmacy and the different career paths available to them?
Shelby Brooks:
Yeah, I think pharmacy in general as a career, just as a career path, and the different things that you can go into in pharmacy, really the basis of that is being the medication expert. And so I'm sure that the new students and students that are enrolled here hear that all the time, and prospective students will too.
But that's a really important thing when you look at other professions. So like physicians that you're working with, nurses, any kind of other health profession, they really only get a semester or two of pharmacology. It's not even like pharmacotherapy. So it's really important for us to be able to come into an interdisciplinary team and use that medication expertise to provide the best care possible to our patients.
It seems like a small thing when you're talking about it, but it's really not. And when you get into an interprofessional team and they've not worked with a pharmacist before, it tends to be a bit of a mind-blowing thing for them to have access to us. So it's really important, and I would say definitely take pride in what you do as a pharmacist, because a lot of other health professions really appreciate what we do.
Michele Williams:
Cool. Thank you. Yeah. Sounds like they rely on the pharmacists.
Shelby Brooks:
Absolutely. Yes. There are definitely things like when they are working with a pharmacist, a lot of the times they don't think about what the blood sugars are looking like. They don't think about what the blood pressures are looking like either. A lot of that stuff can kind of fall on us as the pharmacist, and we can make those recommendations to the team, and they really appreciate it.
Michele Williams:
It's great. So during our Getting Ready transition weeks, which we just finished at this point in the year, you gave a great piece of advice to our incoming P1s, which was to not be afraid to say hello to someone. And you emphasized the importance of networking. Can you talk a little bit more about networking when you were in pharmacy school and beyond, and how that can benefit you when you're a student pharmacist or a newly minted pharmacist?
Shelby Brooks:
Yeah, absolutely. I know that networking can be a scary word, so please don't be afraid of it. Really, all that networking is, and it's why I put this piece of advice, it's just saying hello to someone. It is the easiest way to learn about different people in your profession, learn about different people that you're working with that maybe aren't a pharmacist, but they're still going to be in your work circle.
And so that's really important. When I was a student, I started networking by getting involved in my student organizations. So I was in a pharmaceutical fraternity, and then I also was heavily involved in APhA when I was a student. I pursued leadership positions within those organizations. I wouldn't say that you have to pursue those types of positions, but go to the meetings. Go to the annual meetings. Go to the Grand Councils, all kinds of different things. For APhA, go to those meetings.
And be willing to just go and say hi to someone, whether it's another student in a different chapter, whether it's another professor, it really doesn't matter.
And the cool thing about professional meetings, if you are able to go as a student, is that people want you to talk to them. Professors want to talk to you about what they're doing in their pharmacy practice. Other students want to tell you what's going on with their chapter, with whatever particular organization's meeting that you're at. They want to tell you these things.
And the more that you're willing to just go and talk to someone, the more connections that you can make, and you absolutely never know what those connections are going to help you do later in your career.
So as an example, I got involved with ACCP when I was a student. I was involved with ACCP as a resident as well, and I joined some of the committees and different divisions. Within one of the committees that I was in, I actually got a job offer initially when I was coming out of residency. I had worked with her on a couple of projects for the committee. She knew how I practiced, and she knew the type of residency that I was in. And when the position at her institution became available, she emailed me personally and was like, I think this would be a good fit for you. Please consider applying.
So you never know what's going to happen. Definitely say hi to someone. Network, and then stay in touch with them as well.
Stephen Woodward:
It's great advice.
Michele Williams:
Yeah, that does sound like really good advice. And something that you're clearly good at. So just as a side note, you and I met when you came for your interview, and I can remember thinking that you're so easy to talk to and very engaging. And that has an impact when you're looking for a job, that sort of ability to connect with people and talk with them. And I get the feeling that maybe because you put yourself out there and you've practiced a little bit over the years, kind of figured out what feels comfortable for you.
And I think that's probably true of anybody, that you have to find what your style is and what you're comfortable with, and then just like you said, say hello.
Shelby Brooks:
So yeah. And like I, I'm definitely, I consider myself an extroverted person. So I love being around people. I get very energized being around people. But you don't have to be an extrovert to network well. And that is definitely a point that I want to emphasize. You don't have to be extroverted. And I did practice when I was a student. I had my little elevator speech for the different residency showcases that I went to and all that stuff.
So if you put a little time into it, a little bit of practice, practice within your friend group, you're going to become really good at networking and being able to go up and talk to those people and make connections.
Michele Williams:
Awesome.
Stephen Woodward:
So what are you most excited about in teaching again?
Shelby Brooks:
I am really excited to get into the pharmacotherapy series. Pharmacotherapy in general and teaching that type of stuff is really what I'm passionate about. I did a pharmacotherapy residency for two years, so anytime I can get into the therapy and all those things, I really enjoy that.
I also eventually want to develop an elective. That's something that's kind of on the page over the next few years, kind of determining that. I'll be very honest, I have no idea what it's going to look like right now. Probably something inpatient-focused, but just not really sure the direction. But it definitely is part of my goals here in the next few years while I'm here at Gatton.
Michele Williams:
Yeah. Are there any other things that you would like for our listeners, and especially our Gatton students, to know about you or to share with them before we finish up today that we haven't talked about yet?
Shelby Brooks:
Absolutely. I'll get a little nerdy here so you can learn about me as a person and not just a pharmacist for a minute. I'm a huge animal lover. I'm also a huge Harry Potter fan. Since I was a child, I used to go to the midnight book premieres. So I'm aging myself a little bit, but it was the best thing when I was growing up.
So my pet names. I have two dogs. One of them is named Neville, like Neville Longbottom. One is Rowena, like Rowena Ravenclaw. And then I have my cat. Her name is Minerva, like Minerva McGonagall. So obviously very obsessed with Harry Potter. Huge animal lover. So if you ever want to talk about those things, please feel free to stop by my office. I'm always happy to nerd out and to geek out, really, about books in general. So anybody who's a reader, please come and talk about it.
Stephen Woodward:
Or if you're into Harry Potter, did you know about the House program? The in the wellbeing program?
Shelby Brooks:
I did. I found out about that. I am not shy about my Harry Potter fanaticism. And so when I was interviewing, I heard about the Harry Potter — like the Potter houses and the sorting and stuff like that. So I'm very excited to learn more about it. And I know there's a sorting ceremony this week, right? It's Friday.
Yeah, very excited to hear about it.
Michele Williams:
You really fit right in here. Absolutely. Well, Doctor Brooks, thank you so much for joining us today. This has been a great conversation.
Shelby Brooks:
Yeah. Thank you so much for having me.
Stephen Woodward:
It's great chat. Yeah.

14 min
October 04, 2024 Episode 17 - Meet Dr. Kaitlyn North
Listen to this interview with Class of 2022 alumna Dr. Kaitlyn North, who returns to her beloved East Tennessee State University Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy not to visit but as one of the newest editions to faculty in the Department of Pharmacy Practice.
Transcript:

Stephen Woodward:
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, and I'm joined today by one of my co-hosts, Stephen Woodward, our Marketing and Communications Manager.
Hi, Stephen.
Michele Williams:
Hey, Doctor Williams.
Stephen Woodward:
In this episode, we'll be talking with Doctor Kaitlyn North, one of the newest additions to the faculty in the Department of Pharmacy Practice here at Gatton. Well, she's a new addition to the faculty. She's not at all new to Gatton. She graduated from the Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy in 2022. Doctor North, welcome to White Coat Radio.
Kaitlyn North:
Thank you so much.
Michele Williams:
So this probably feels like homecoming, I imagine. Talk about your journey from student pharmacist now coming back as faculty.
Kaitlyn North:
It definitely feels like a homecoming to be back here. I'm very thankful to be back here. When I was a student pharmacist, I was really into peds. I thought, I'm going to be a pediatric pharmacist. And then as I progressed in the curriculum, I started liking the adult disease states more. So during my P4 year, I really solidified that I wanted to go into ambulatory care.
So I matched to my outpatient-focused PGY1 residency in South Carolina. That was a rural program. So I thought my skills that I learned and our mission really helped me there. I practiced at a federally qualified health center, which is like the Johnson City Community Health Center across the street. But I kind of describe it like a fancy health department.
We didn't turn anyone away for inability to pay, anything like that. We did sliding scale fees, things like that. So that really helped me sharpen my rural health skills and definitely helped my ambulatory care skills, being savvy with medication cost, things like that.
And then I did a PGY2 in ambulatory care at the University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville. I think that also helped me with Indigenous populations. We had a lot of people come from all the surrounding rural areas to Knoxville because that is our academic medical center, and towards Middle Tennessee. So I saw people from Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina. That was a really good opportunity for me to also sharpen my ambulatory care skills with some of the more niche clinics like cystic fibrosis and specialty clinics like rheumatology and advanced lipid management, things like that.
But I was definitely ready to come home to Gatton. I feel like I'm ready to apply the skills I've learned elsewhere back here.
Stephen Woodward:
Thank you for sharing. Yeah. So for our current students who may be interested in teaching, what advice would you give them regarding preparing for a teaching career now while they're in pharmacy school?
Kaitlyn North:
I would definitely recommend taking the academia APPE. No matter who you get, you're going to get to go to faculty meetings. I know Doctor Alexander always says it's like pulling the curtain back and seeing how Disney works. I think that's true. I enjoyed that.
Another thing that's really important that I feel helped me sharpen some skills is in residency. Almost every program has a teaching and learning certificate. They call it different things, like Pharmacy Educator Academy, but it's basically your teaching certificate. They do teach you foundational things like how to write exam questions. A lot of them go over how to be a good preceptor, which is something we obviously don't have any experience with.
So I think getting plugged in in those little ways, and then also a lot of times your residencies will let you be a guest lecturer. I know our residents at Gatton definitely get that. A lot of residents will give you as much as you want. Every college of pharmacy. I loved that. I was volunteering myself to help them.
Faculty members typically don't have as much free time on their hands to help grade OSCEs and things like that. So I really think that volunteering myself for those extra things, both of my residencies were associated with colleges of pharmacy, so making those connections in this world. I know students roll their eyes, but pharmacy really is such a small world. So I think all those connections really helped me.
Continuing education, things like that. I'll do extra CE and then attend meetings, things like that. So I think showing your interest and getting plugged in where you can makes a big difference, especially if you don't have that experience like I did not when I was applying for this job.
Stephen Woodward:
And it sounds like also that if you think you might be interested in teaching, those experiences might help you decide if that's what you'd like to do — an academic APPE would also let you know something that doesn't really interest you so much, or doing a certificate or something. So it might even be good if someone's trying to decide if that's what they want to do.
Kaitlyn North:
Absolutely. I had co-residents who were like, yep, this is not for me. And I think a part of academia that you might not realize until you're in residency is that medical residencies that are training physicians will also hire a pharmacist. And pharmacy students versus medical residents are very different audiences to teach.
So I've seen some of my friends really enjoy teaching medical residents. My co-resident from UT that was in ambulatory care actually works for the internal medicine program at UT now. So she doesn't teach at the pharmacy school, not affiliated with them at all. But she's very academic because she's working with the medical residents and teaches them their didactics and things like that. So there might even be more avenues than you think if you're interested in teaching.
Stephen Woodward:
Oh, wow. I didn't realize that. Yeah, that's really interesting.
Kaitlyn North:
I do a little bit of didactic teaching for my residents in the family medicine clinic in Kingsport, as do Doctor Smith and Doctor Doll as well.
Stephen Woodward:
Great.
Michele Williams:
So in addition to teaching, you're also a practicing pharmacist. Can you tell us more about that side of your working life? And in addition to that, can you give us kind of the 10,000-foot view for prospective students about the different kinds of pharmacy practice that they might encounter?
Kaitlyn North:
I definitely thought I was either going into a hospital or a Walgreens when I graduated, and that is not the case. And that's perfectly fine if that's where you want to be. But yes, I love being a pharmacist. I love practicing.
The majority of my time is spent in that clinic in Kingsport with family medicine. So a lot of my role is consultative. So a resident comes to me and they say, my patient's A1C is out of control. What medicines should I consider? I do a lot of counseling on things like that.
The bread-and-butter disease states that I see and help with every day: smoking cessation, COPD, diabetes, high blood pressure. You know, I've had a heart attack. Now what do we do? That kind of thing.
So I love being a jack of all trades with ambulatory care. I don't see myself as a specialist. I see myself as a generalist just in a clinic, which I love because it's something new every day. But a lot of specialized clinical pharmacists do find that niche, like ID, cardiology, something like that. Critical care.
I think we're exposed well to the different career areas. It's kind of intimidating your P1 year, I think. We show you what is available as you go through more and more. Like I said, the more I learned, the more I shifted away from pediatrics. I'm sorry, Doctor Thigpen.
My advice would be never too early to consider residencies. They all have websites. Kind of see if that's something you'd be interested in. You get the advice a lot that it's a year of your life, but it unlocks a lot of doors for you.
There's a lot of cool positions. One of the girls I graduated with is a medical writer. So she works for a drug company and writes their literature and their key documents and things like that. So you would not think a pharmacist would be in that role. But I have some friends in industry that represent drugs and act kind of like a medical science liaison.
There are a lot of interesting jobs out there. But yeah, the backbone is definitely community pharmacy. So if that's where you want to go, then I completely support that too.
Michele Williams:
If I can ask a follow-up to that along the same path, for prospective students who are weighing pharmacy against other health professions — medicine, physician assistant, those kinds of career paths — why should they look more closely at pharmacy, do you think?
Kaitlyn North:
That's a great question. I think if you're considering pharmacy, something to think about is it's really easy to shadow in the pharmacy. I worked as a pharmacy tech when I was an undergrad, and I really enjoyed that.
I think pharmacists are — well, of course I'm going to say they're the backbone of the health system because I am one — but truly, we're the most accessible. You can walk into any independent or chain pharmacy and get medical advice right there. No copays, anything.
I take joy in the fact that I help make decisions. I am responsible for them. But we don't have a lot of the strife that physicians do in terms of how many patients are you seeing in a day and things like that.
I enjoy being someone that physicians lean on instead of someone that needs someone to lean on, if that makes sense.
Stephen Woodward:
Does make sense.
Kaitlyn North:
Thank you.
Stephen Woodward:
So we were talking a little bit about teaching and how you came to Gatton in an academic position. In what courses can students expect to see you?
Kaitlyn North:
That's a great question, especially because we just blew up and reconstructed our curriculum.
My first year, I'm helping with skills labs with things you would see in ambulatory care, like smoking cessation devices, the inhalers, more hands-on labs. I'll be in the CGM, or continuous glucose monitor like Dexcom, that lab for students. In the spring, I'll be teaching the SOAP note writing portion for outpatient practice in the skills labs.
After that next year, I don't know. That's the fun of being a generalist, right? I might teach gout. I might teach who knows what. But I probably will be popping in and out of the pharmacotherapy courses as they need me to.
Stephen Woodward:
That's great.
Michele Williams:
So talk about how you'd like to grow in this new position. What types of things would you like to do in the future?
Kaitlyn North:
That's something I've started doing is piling my goal list and my aspiration list. I really would like to start an ACCP, or American College of Clinical Pharmacy, student chapter here. That is the organization I've plugged into really meaningfully. They have an ambulatory care section, so I'm with like-minded people in there.
We do interact with that organization through our Clinical Pharmacy Challenge, but I feel like I would have really blossomed in that as a student. So that's something in my five-year plan. I have probably groups and coworkers helping me with that.
I'm definitely excited to continue with research endeavors with the rural population that I serve in Kingsport. Most of my patients, I believe, are on TennCare, which is our Medicaid, or Medicare. So we definitely have a population that is underserved.
So I'm excited to have some projects brewing in my mind. I'd like to start at my clinic, but I need some time to get that going and get more settled. I really do want to be an integral part of our faculty and give back because I'm a very proud alumna.
I would go to Gatton again in a heartbeat if I could. And I think that's because of the faculty that are now my colleagues. So I really want to give back in the ways they have.
Michele Williams:
Awesome.
Stephen Woodward:
That's great. And we're extremely excited to have you back here again and in this new role. And it sounds like lots of exciting things ahead for you. So that's terrific. And thank you for joining us today. It's been great getting to chat with you and learning a little bit more about you.
Kaitlyn North:
Yes. Thank you for having me. Also excited to get this invitation.
Stephen Woodward:
To this. Great.

14 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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