TNP Student series is for pharmacy students looking to get ahead. The tips in these videos are not taught in pharmacy schools, but absolutely necessary to decide on a career. Kalyn gives us a fresh student perspective!
Name: Kalyn Davis
Position: P3 Student at Samford University
Interview Summary
Matt: [00:00:55] Matt Paterini here with The Nontraditional Pharmacist, part of the Pharmacy Podcast Network. Welcome to the first installment of The Nontraditional Pharmacist’s student series. We’re very excited about this new series that we’ve created here at The Nontraditional Pharmacist, all about pharmacy students for pharmacy students, really in the response to the changing pharmacy job market. We’ve found (and we’ve talked a lot of other people) that traditional pharmacy training is great and necessary of course; but, there are a lot of other things throughout your time in pharmacy school and entering the job market that you need to be aware of, need to think of ahead of time before you either decide on a career path that may not be right for you, or choose one that you’ve never even seen coming and end up being a great career for the rest of your working life. So that’s what this pharmacy podcast series is all about. But we can’t take all of the credit. This series was actually the genesis of a conversation we had with the wonderful Kalyn Davis, who just by pure chance we were looking through Facebook, as we often do on social media, and we see comments from pharmacy students, pharmacists, on a number different topics and Kalyn reached out to Tony Guerra on one of his posts, who is another great co-host of The Pharmacy Podcast Network, commenting about the current state of the pharmacy job market. So we want to talk with Kalyn and many other pharmacy students to get their perspective on what it’s like to be a pharmacy student and that transition into the pharmacy job market. So Kalyn welcome to The Nontraditional Pharmacist. Thank you so much for taking the time to be with us.
Kalyn: [00:02:48] I’m so excited about this. Everything you said is true. I think this is going to be seriously something awesome. I’m really excited about it.
Matt: [00:02:57] Awesome so Kalyn is a P3 at Samford University and the first question we’ll ask Kalyn is “why did you go to pharmacy school in the first place?” There’s a lot of different choices, either further education or professional training. Why did you choose pharmacy school?
Kalyn: [00:03:16] Yeah really it wasn’t my first option. I had been told back in high school that pharmacy is a great career, it’s a great career for women who want to also have a family. It has a lot of options or opportunities. I guess at first I was really timid to do something that was so high-esteemed. I wasn’t science-inclined from the get go. So I was pre-business, but found myself extremely unsatisfied and really just started to explore other options because I knew that wasn’t going to be what I wanted to do. I was looking for something that was going to be sustainable, going to allow work-life balance, but also it was going to be challenging and rewarding and pharmacy school just kept kind of coming back and back and so I decided to look more into it and then took a very large leap. And here we are.
Matt: [00:04:31] Interesting. So it wasn’t so much the science aspect that drew you to pharmacy. So you did really consider a lot of different aspects of pharmacy as a profession BEFORE deciding to go to pharmacy school?
Kalyn: [00:04:47] Yeah I would say that’s true. A lot of people I talked to, you know they’ve known they wanted to do it for the longest time or they’ll say something like I’ve always loved science or I wanted to be a doctor but then chose this instead. I never grew saying that I wanted to be a doctor or I wanted to do this. I just was looking for something that, you know a lot of people say they want to help people. And I could say that was true for me. And this just kind of fit what I was looking for.
Matt: [00:05:18] Has the experience been similar to what you expected? Has it met expectations or has it been totally a crazy, wild ride that you weren’t expecting?
Kalyn: [00:05:28] 100% a crazy wild ride that I wasn’t expecting. I don’t have any family that’s not only are they not pharmacists, but they’ve never been through a program like this before or higher education like this. And so I had no idea what to expect. I asked a couple mentors and some friends that were doing what it was like. But I don’t think we truly know what it’s like until you start to do it. I know you know that. It was a culture shock. I mean honestly it’s just extremely demanding and requires a lot of commitment.
Matt: [00:06:10] You know it really does. And I think sometimes people overlook how difficult pharmacy school as a program can be. It’s tough to see the big picture also when you’re in the middle of school and there’s so much activity, there’s so much studying that needs to be done. How do you keep the big picture in mind, knowing that you will be graduating some day and school work is important, but it may not be the most important when you’re considering what career path take after graduation.
Kalyn: [00:06:49] I think it just takes a lot of self reflection. I have to ask myself, “why did I choose this in the first place?”.
Matt: [00:06:57] Why are you putting yourself through this?
Kalyn: [00:07:00] Exactly! Why did I choose this life?! But I think having mentors or really looking up to someone that’s doing what you want to do, finding those people that are successful at it and just channeling your energy to them. Like how did they do it? What did they do? How did they get through the process helps a lot. One thing I didn’t expect in school, or the profession itself, was I was so unaware of the opportunity. I know we’ve talked a lot about that. But you know really all I knew and my family knew in the beginning was just, you worked at CVS or you worked at a hospital, and I was okay with that and still am, but the best thing about school I’ve seen is just there’s so much more to the profession than that and that’s been kind of a way of motivating myself that there’s always going to be an opportunity to do more. So I do love that about pharmacy itself.
Matt: [00:08:08] That is so great to hear and refreshing to hear from a pharmacy student that is able to have the visibility into the whole profession and see that there is all that opportunity out there, it’s just a matter of finding it in the right place, knowing the right people, asking the right questions, and that all adds up to the experience that you have in pharmacy school. With all that opportunity, where are your primary interests within pharmacy?
Kalyn: [00:08:38] So like a career goal? Or what I think I want to do with it?
Matt: [00:08:42] Yeah. Where do you think you see is an interesting opportunity in the field of pharmacy? It could be a general area in the profession, it could be something you found interesting, either in your own research or what you’ve heard about in school. Where are you gravitating towards in this big world of pharmacy?
Kalyn: [00:09:03] I think what I like the most is just the connection you can make with people and then through those connections, the difference you can really make in their lives and in their health. I don’t know when I said it but it’s like you have to build trust with someone in order for them listen to you. I think that’s what pharmacists do day in and day out. And so that’s part of what got me excited about the role that we can play as students and as pharmacists. So many people come in even now, they come to my work and ask “my doctor said this but you know I want your opinion too” because they’ve been there for so long with that same pharmacist. So I really enjoy the aspect of seeing the patients grow and learn more about themselves and their health and so I think I talked with you that I’m really interested in the ambulatory care setting because I you get to embody that in that setting. I’m still learning what all that entails and how to go about all that. I do think that that is where I see myself practicing or trying to anyway.
Matt: [00:10:24] No that is all part of the the whole pharmacy journey, its figuring out what area you like to work in or at least what type of work you like to do. Sometimes it may be more business related or more on a population health type level. Sometimes it’s more in a direct patient care role and anywhere in between. That’s what’s so cool about it. What would you say are some of the things that might be missing from traditional pharmacy education and training that you may have learned on your own or had to find outside resources to learn more about?
Kalyn: [00:11:01] I think schools do excellent job teaching you all of the therapeutics you need to know, all the drugs, interactions and things like that. And they do touch a lot on how to go about like we have an ethics course and a human resources course, but you miss a lot of just the everyday life situations that you don’t think you’re going to have to deal with, and then they just show up. I think insurance is a lot of that. How do you go about billing for this?. How do you go about changing that? Those are things you know you know they don’t teach you that in the classroom and they don’t you know I did say the profession has a lot of opportunity but we’re not always exposed to that in school. And that’s one of the reasons I love what you all do so much is because you’re working or exposing that. And I don’t think it’s because they don’t try to, I just think it’s hard for schools. You can’t pack all of that in when you have so much to learn. But I do think it limits sometimes what students think they can achieve because they’re just not aware of the opportunities that are out there. I know that was and still you know I learned of a new opportunity I think each and every day of what a person is doing and then realize they have the same degree that I’ll have. I think that’s something that’s lacking from schools. I don’t know the best way to go about changing that, but it’s something that I’ve had to learn on my own.
Matt: [00:12:52] It’s not that pharmacy schools are doing a bad job with training or on the education curriculum or anything like that, it’s just you can only teach so much material in a short period of time. So it’s picking and choosing what is the program going to focus on to train students to be properly equipped for the workforce once they finally graduate and go into the real world. So with that what are your plans as you plan to graduate? How are you approaching your planning to graduate?
Kalyn: [00:13:30] I should probably be doing more of that. Now that I’m closer, which is crazy to say out loud, but I’ve just been trying to do. I told myself from day one, I’m not the student that knew I want to do X Y Z residency at this program because I want to be a very specific, narrow field pharmacist. I’m extremely open minded and I told myself from day one that I thought it was important to just really seize every opportunity to line myself up for whatever job I may want so that when I get to that point I’m not asking myself, man I wish I would’ve joined a club or like man, I wish I would’ve had a mentor or something along those lines. So really I’ve just trying to pursue something if it’s interesting or if it’s out of my comfort zone I’ve been trying to pursue that or just shadowing opportunities, talking to mentors. Also trying to go through and consider what aspect of the profession or what field within pharmacy is going to fit what I want in a post-graduation life best. A lot of things I’ve had to rule out because you know they’re not going to fit what I want. I do realize that nothing in life is perfect, but you do have a choice you know to decide which is going to be the most important to you. And like I kind of said earlier, work-life balance was important to me from the get go and that’s still important to me. So I’ve been trying to seek out opportunities that would put me in a good place to have a job that would allow for that.
Matt: [00:15:25] It’s so important to think of now, rather than later. I’ve seen too many people take the residency path, and I don’t want to single out the residency path because it’s a great path to pursue in pharmacy, can lead to a lot of really great career opportunities, and it’s perfect for some people. F,or other people it’s not so perfect. What are some of the key things, you mentioned work-life balance, specifically either hours, family time, weekends, etc. What are some real life specific things that you are thinking about to fit in with your pharmacy career?
Kalyn: [00:16:02] Yeah I think all of those things and that would be the perfect combination. I just know throughout this process of school you know, I’ve missed a lot of just self. Like you know you don’t have any time for yourself most of the time, or you don’t have a lot of time for your family, or you have to miss certain things. I mean everybody wants good hours, but decent hours at least most of the time or weekends at least most of the time off. Those kinds of things, it’s hard to say that because you kind of have to pay your dues. But at least looking at that being a possibility down the line within what I’m trying to go for. I think it’s extremely important because if you’re if you’re unhappy outside of work, you know I feel that you’re going to be unhappy inside of work. So I’m trying to think of that ahead of time, but it can be difficult to make that realistic.
Matt: [00:17:05] It can be difficult. And some of the things that you mentioned, some of these things would be great in an ideal world. They exist. They are out there. There are roles out there that you don’t work any weekends. Crazy to say in the pharmacy world, but there are jobs out there you work no weekends, you work no nights. It’s just what truly is important to you. If working hours is the most important and time on the weekends and nights for your family, then that’s great. And there are jobs out there that align with that. So to your point, it’s all of the things that you’re doing to network and explore and evaluate the different options out there is really the best thing you can do. And what we’re trying to do is help even supplement that with some of the key things that you need to be thinking about, maybe people don’t even think about this ahead of time. Maybe opening eyes to, “hey wow, I never thought of X Y and Z that I should be thinking of as I enter the pharmacy workforce,” so you’re on the right track. What advice would you give to other pharmacy students, either current pharmacy students or people that are considering pharmacy school?
Kalyn: [00:18:20] Many things. I would say just to have an open mind. I tell a lot of my peers that ask why do you spend time doing this or why did you pursue that club or that position or why do you do those things? Kind of like I said earlier, I try to just tell anybody that wants to set themselves up for the job they want. Don’t let an opportunity pass you when you have the time. So I would tell a student, like a P1 student, grades are extremely important and I take them very seriously, but the more I’ve been throughout the process the more I realized that if you don’t see some of the opportunities in the networking and shadowing and even just figuring out what you’d like to do for fun when you’re not studying. You know kind of just being a well-rounded person is more important than just making perfect grades I guess. So just encouraging them to do those things because it took me a while to realize that it was going to be okay if my grades weren’t perfect.
Matt: [00:19:35] I love that perspective. That’s all of the things that I think, in my humble opinion, you should be thinking about in pharmacy school and beyond. So the last question that we like to ask all of our guests, pharmacy student or pharmacist, is where do you think the profession of pharmacy is going in the future?
Kalyn: [00:19:56] Whew.
Matt: [00:19:57] That’s a big question Kalyn, that can go in any different direction that you want.
Kalyn: [00:20:05] Where I see it going is, and I think it’s already started to go this way, is off of a dispense-based model and more towards an actual patient care based model. That sounds really formal, but what I mean by that is I think a professor told us the first day something like, if you think you’re going to get paid just to dispense a bottle the same they got paid ten years ago, then you’re thinking wrong. You’re going to have to learn to do more. It kind of took me back because I was like what do you mean? They’ve really just harped on you have to find a way to keep advancing the profession. I think we’re starting to do that through maybe more of a team based approach, a more hands on approach, a more patient-centered approach rather than a product-centered approach. So I’m hoping that it goes in that direction. And really continues to expand in some of the ways that you’ve highlighted in some of your shows also. Just finding ways to use pharmacy in a different light than it’s ever been used before.
Matt: [00:21:27] Kalyn Davis thank you so much for your time today on The Nontraditional Pharmacist. Be sure to share your interview with your network and if there’s anyone out there in other pharmacy programs or pharmacy students that may be a good fit for The Nontraditional Pharmacists’s Students Series, we’d be very interested in talking with them. Kalyn, thanks so much again. The best thing I heard you say today was figure out what you like to do to have fun, make sure your professional career fits that with your personal life so you can have a happy successful professional career. Kayla thank you again. Thanks to everyone for tuning in. We will see everyone next time.
Kalyn: [00:22:07] Thank you so much.