We are delighted to have two student pharmacists, Rich Downs and Asim (pronounced “awesome”) Hussain, with us from Ohio State for July. Both will be graduating in May 2016. We’d like to introduce you to Rich in this posting and we’ll have Asim tell you about himself in a few days. Please make these “rich” and “awesome” students feel welcome while they are here with us in Plain City.

Here is what Rich has to say about himself:

My name is Rich Downs and I am a PharmD candidate for the class of 2016 at THE Ohio State University’s College of Pharmacy.

I did not always know what I wanted to be. My ideas on my career path changed all throughout my life. I started at Walsh University in North Canton as a nursing student. Not long after that journey began, I realized that nursing just did not seem like the area of the medical field that I felt the most comfortable in. A friend of mine was a chemistry/pre-pharmacy major and had me look into pharmacy as a career. It felt like something that I wanted to do and, I was already good at chemistry, so I gave it a go. I took a pharmacology course and fell in love with it, never to change my mind about where I should be again.

I have always wanted to be in the medical profession and be in a position to help people–pharmacy gives me that opportunity.

I usually try to be a very active person. School and other obligations can get in the way of that sometimes, but I enjoy fishing, golfing, bowling, kickball, and softball.

In high school, I was the catcher on my baseball team and won 1^st team all-county 2 years in a row my junior and senior years. I also received the team MVP award from my teammates as a captain.

I feel that leadership is very important in life and I try to be a leader whenever I can. Playing sports my whole life has made me a very competitive person and it drives me to do the best I can at everything that I do. I feel these qualities help in the pharmacy profession and I try every day to improve on these skills.