I remember entering pharmacy school, where, at the University of Michigan, we were required to do a PharmD project. This project, required by some pharmacy schools, was that the student had to complete their own project, from start to finish- writing the protocol, conducting the research, and finishing the project- and then presenting it in an hour long presentation. "Ugh, research?" I had originally thought. Prior to pharmacy school, the only research I was involved in was converting documents of caries studies in the dental school into electronic format, for 4-8 hours at a time. Not super exciting.
Then began a journey. I was accepted into the prestigious NIH MCriT program my first year in, and thus, is where I fell in love with research. Here was a time, where we, as pharmacists, had influence in developing studies that involved medications alongside physicians, statisticians, nurses, and other healthcare professionals. That summer, I was able to develop a research project, later to become my PharmD project, studying auto BMT patients and co-morbidites with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis with one of the top BMT physicians in the hospital and a med student from Notre Dame. Super cool.
After that, became a flurry of research opportunities- from interning in IDS, to rotating in pharmaceutical industries and the FDA. Still cool. After school, I started staffing in the intensive care units, cardiology, and just general hospital- but I had missed the research aspect of it. I was fortunate, last summer, to be offered a spot in Investigational Drugs- I had come back to the original job I had interned in, in pharmacy school, but this time, as a pharmacist.
And day after day, I enjoy it. I think, as a pharmacist, you learn to like all aspects of the job- it doesn't matter if you're retail, managed care, a certain speciality, or whatever it is- at the end of the day, medications still excite you and you love every moment of it because you're helping patients get better. Simple as that. I find it exciting to sit down with physicians and develop methods of how to formulate the drug they want to work with, to help the study progress, and work with both industry and other healthcare professionals who all want to advance research further.
And as a new practioner, I'm getting to the point now, where I am beginning to see my classmates' research being published in AJHP. It's exciting. What I had originally thought was "ugh", turns out to be one of the best decisions of my life. I think there is huge value in being in research- as a pharmacist, you're constantly applying your skills in all different areas, knowing the drug inside and out, eduating others on the drug as well.
There's a value of research. I hope to see there be more emphasis on research in the pharmacy community someday. And I hope as pharmacists we can become even more involved in the development of research, as there is a huge need for it in our present day. There is an immense value to it- an aspect that I hope all those in pharmacy can appreciate.
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