Dose of Travel

I learned some things there about specialty pharmacy and then was able to leverage that experience to working for a medical group specialty pharmacy. That might be helping them create work flows to optimize their oral oncology business to opening a brand new pharmacy and tips on how to hire an oncology pharmacists. We were able to refer her to someone who was in a role similar to something she was interested in and on the Feb call, she was happy to report she already had a new job. You’ve been able to use your skills and knowledge as a pharmacist to work for several different companies, organizations, etc.

I love my job and love that I still have time to do the things I love outside of work such as painting, working out, hiking, drinking wine, and spending time with my puppy. I didn’t end up doing a residency due to personal/health reasons around the time of graduation and took several months to myself to study for the NAPLEX / MPJE and dive into my art career. This level of interprofessional patient care in the ED definitely played a huge role in my landing my current position as an Emergency Department Pharmacist. When applying from my retail position to a hospital position, the hiring manager was actually a Lambda Kappa Sigma alumni as well and I think that is one of the things that caught her attention on my application.

In this interview, I chat with Dr. Karine Wong who is a full-time pharmacist, author, and business owner of Guiltless Treats. In the evening, I work on My Guiltless Treats and that includes administrative work such as invoicing, payroll, taxes, insurance, updates to the website, and social media engagement. For pharmacy students looking to pursue a residency or looking to pivot into being a clinical pharmacist , what advice do you have for them? Instead of waiting behind the counter in the retail pharmacy, go out in the aisles and help customers who are having trouble with selecting OTC meds.

My biggest advice for pharmacy students wanting to pursue a residency is to seek out opportunities that will make them well rounded and really more importantly find their why and passion for wanting to pursue one. If you are already a pharmacist looking to change career paths without a residency, I would encourage you to seek a per diem position at a hospital or clinic (anything that will allow you to grow into clinical position) and to pursue advancements in training. Our patient population during COVID may be different and we may have more things to tackle as a department, like all the new drugs coming to market and running as many COVID vaccine clinics as possible, but our roles as clinical pharmacists have largely remained the same…if anything our roles are now more important than ever. I promise you from my own experience…when you help correct orders or therapies that could have caused patient harm or help your nurses with administration issues or help draw up and direct therapy during a code or so many other things