Archive for the ‘PCD Staff’ Category

If you’ve ever had a medication dropped off at your home, you may have been visited by delivery driver, Larry Sparks, who spends many an afternoon hanging out in the giant white van with Joe’s picture on the side.

If Larry stops by your house this coming Wednesday, February 1, make sure to tell him to have a wonderful birthday.

If you are wondering why Larry is holding up a Zagnut candy bar in this picture, it is because Joe has an addiction to these oldies but goodies and Larry was teasing him about it.

For his birthday, Joe said he’ll let Larry have a Zagnut, too.

As sweet as a candy bar, Larry has been a blessing to us and our customers and we want to wish him the happiest of birthdays.

Last month, in July, you met fourth year pharmacy student, Gifty Kusi, who was doing a month long rotation in the drugstore. Gifty, who is originally from Ghana, will be graduating from The Ohio State University College of Pharmacy next June. Gifty told us that her unusual, but very charming name means, “Gift from God.” What a lovely name and how nice to know that her parents felt she was a wonderful gift to them.

This month, we have Ayman Saleh, another fourth year pharmacy student, working with us. Ayman came to the United States from Lebanon when he was 18 and has lived in California until moving to Ohio for pharmacy school.

Ayman is a compounding guru and has been giving me a much welcomed break in the lab the past few weeks. Ayman also clearly has the personality to be a pharmacy owner (something he hopes to become someday), as he has taken part in our craziness in the store, even wearing John Allen’s Hee Haw hat. Beyond that, though, Ayman loves to help our customers and devotes a great amount of time and attention to patient interactions.

Both Gifty and Ayman will be with us for several other weeks in the coming year as they are working together on a Partner for Promotion project in the pharmacy that focuses on compounding.

Plain City Druggist has been involved in the Partner for Promotion program over the past few years. Joe acts as a preceptor (a pharmacy mentor) for the students who work on advanced patient care service projects during their final year of pharmacy school. The students, like Gifty and Ayman, who choose to participate in this program are real go-getters, as they don’t receive any extra credit for doing this.  They do, however, learn a lot for their futures as pharmacists.  They also have to be able to manage their time well. The projects usually establish programs in pharmacies that can continue to work after the students are no longer there. These programs include diabetes clinics, OTC counseling programs, cholesterol monitoring, and other important health services that patients need. 

Our former pharmacy student, Kelly Hawk, who is now practicing in St. Louis, Missouri, did a Partner for Promotion project on smoking cessation at Schieber Family Pharmacy in Circleville. 

As I mentioned, the students who participate in the Partner for Promotion program are really motivated to be the best pharmacists they can be. Both Gifty and Ayman hope to have their own independent drugstores some day. 

For this reason, Gifty, Ayman, and third year pharmacy student, Jon McClymont, decided to attend the National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA) Pharmacy Ownership Workshop offered from August 19-21 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Jon also hopes to return to his home in Nebraska after graduation and open his own pharmacy. 

Joe and I attended the Pharmacy Ownership Workshop way back in 1997 when it was held in Memphis. Joe was still working at Wal-mart at that time and I was in pharmacy school. Joe was trying to make up his mind about opening a pharmacy and this workshop gave him the confidence to start Plain City Druggist just two years later in 1999. 

We hope the NCPA workshop teaches our students many, many things as they journey to becoming pharmacists. We also hope that their time here with us at Plain City Druggist will also make them ready to be independent pharmacy owners.

Since Kelly knew she would be leaving us to take a pharmacist job in St. Louis, she carefully helped us choose a new pharmacy student to take over for her. While no one will ever replace Kelly, her pick, Jon McClymont, has been doing a good job learning the ropes at Plain City Druggist.

Jon is a third year (P3) pharmacy student at The Ohio State University’s College of Pharmacy. Since he is a P3 student, Jon has another year of class work and then a year of rotations working in pharmacy venues to learn practical stuff they sometimes don’t teach in school. Because he is just entering his third year, we should be able to keep Jon on staff for at least two more years before he graduates, becomes a pharmacist, and heads off to Nebraska.

Jon is originally from Nebraska and hopes to some day open his own independent drugstore back in his home state. Jon and his wife, Andrea (pronounced “On”-drea), and their little girl, Chloe, are making Columbus their home temporarily so Jon can finish pharmacy school. Andrea is also finishing a Masters degree as Jon works towards becoming a registered pharmacist.

Jon also is very interested in compounding, as he has an extensive background in lab work. You’ll probably see him mixing and weighing out lots of interesting concoctions for Midwestern Compounding Pharmacy.

We hope you’ll stop by and get to know Jon while he is with us. Jon is usually sporting a big smile, which you cannot miss.

There is one other thing you cannot miss–Jon’s ride to work. If you see a behemoth pick-up truck parked out behind the pharmacy, you’ll know Jon is inside somewhere helping patients, filling prescriptions, and working to become the best pharmacist ever!

On Saturday, June 11, Joe and I attended the Doctoral Convocation Hooding and Awards Ceremony for The Ohio State University’s College of Pharmacy in Mershon Auditorium. We had four students who were graduating and receiving their pharmacy degrees, including our own Kelly, who has worked at Plain City Druggist since 2005.

Besides Kelly, we also had three students, Anna Gehres, Matt Byrdy, and Jimmy Byun, do rotations in the store this past year and they also received their PharmD degrees.

Matt and Kelly had asked Joe to place their hoods on them, officially making them Doctors of Pharmacy. This is a very big honor and Joe was a bit nervous about performing the task–especially for Matt, who is much taller than Joe. Even standing on a wooden box, Joe had a hard time getting Matt’s hood over his head and the whole audience was laughing by the time they were done. Kelly’s was a bit easier to do, since Joe didn’t have to reach so high!

Anna Gehres received the Stephen W. Birdwell Student Award, which is given to a student by the student class for their participation, interaction with class mates, professionalism, and general outgoing nature–Andy Hall, our former student, received the award last year. This award is given in honor of a former professor in the College of Pharmacy who died several years ago. Dr. Birdwell was well loved and very respected by the students and faculty in the pharmacy department. This award honors his spirit in a current graduating student–someone whose peers select them as also being well loved and respected, who will make a wonderful pharmacist, not only because of their brain power, but because of their ability to care and have compassion. That was Andy and that is definitely Anna.

Anna also received the Anne L. Burns Award (Anne Burns was the compounding instructor while Joe and I were in school and we learned all we know about compounding from her–she was a super teacher) and the College of Pharmacy Professionalism Award. Anna will be doing a year long residency at Nationwide Children’s Hospital.

Matt also will be in a residency for the next year at Mount Carmel West in Columbus, while Kelly is off to St. Louis to work for Walgreen’s as a floater pharmacist (meaning she will go to whichever store she is needed in).

Jimmy, as class president, had to give the “Response from the Class of 2011.” Not surprisingly, he did a nice job with his speech, even though he was very nervous and stalled so long at the beginning, we thought he was not going to do it.

An even greater surprise was the arrival at the very end of the ceremony by Dr. Gordon Gee. He came in flanked by security and since Joe and I were standing in the back of the room, we immediately saw his arrival. He sat down in a back row of seats out of the way and then greeted each of the pharmacy students as they left. Joe wanted to get a photo, but we weren’t allowed over by him. Joe did get a faraway photo of Anna and Dr. Gee. You can see that on our Facebook page.

Finally, we had a really nice dinner with Kelly, her parents, her brother, sister-in-law, and niece. We are really going to miss Kelly. She had a rough final year of pharmacy school, but we know the future is only going to bring her lots of happiness and opportunities.

Good luck and congratulations to Kelly, Anna, Matt, and Jimmy. We are very proud to have played a small part in your education and your journey to become Doctors of Pharmacy.

To see all the photos from the hooding ceremony, visit our Facebook page HERE.

Our pharmacy student, Kelly Hawk, will be graduating from The Ohio State University’s College of Pharmacy this Saturday, June 11, in a special hooding ceremony. While Joe and I both received a five year, Bachelor of Science degree in Pharmacy, Kelly’s program involved getting an undergraduate Bachelor degree and then going on to get another four year pharmacy professional degree. Kelly will graduate with a PharmD, which is the equivalent of a PhD. After Saturday, you can call her Dr. Kelly Hawk.

We are so proud of Kelly.

Kelly came to work for us in May 2005. She had graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in computer science and couldn’t find a job. So she decided to find out more about pharmacy, take pre-requisite classes for pharmacy school, and then go on to become a pharmacist.

When Kelly first started at the drugstore, she was our clerk and delivery driver. She rang the register, got lost trying to deliver medications, and did just about anything she had to do to learn what pharmacy was all about. From clerk and delivery driver, she progressed to pharmacy technician and took the exam to be a licensed tech. Licensing for technicians wasn’t required at that time (it now is), but Kelly went above and beyond to show she was dedicated to the profession. All the time she was working, Kelly was also taking chemistry courses and other classes she needed before applying to pharmacy school.

In 2007, Kelly’s hard work paid off and she was admitted to The Ohio State University’s College of Pharmacy. For the past four years, Kelly has been going to school full time and working for us on Saturdays and during her breaks. All that “blood, sweat, and tears” is finally coming to an end and she will be a graduate this weekend and will take her pharmacy licensing exam in the coming weeks to make her a registered pharmacist (RPh).

Please stop in the pharmacy this week (Kelly will be here Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday) and tell Kelly congratulations.

Besides Kelly, three of our other pharmacy students will also be graduating on Saturday: Matt Byrdy, Anna Gehres, and Jimmy Byun. You have met all of them during their rotations through the drugstore. We wish them all much luck as they go forward as pharmacists.

Matt and Kelly are also honoring Joe by having him place their hoods on them in the hooding ceremony on Saturday. This is a very distinguished honor to ask Joe to lead them forward into the profession of pharmacy. Joe has been a mentor to Kelly and Matt (as well as our other students) and he is so excited to be doing this for them (although he may need a step stool to place Matt’s hood on him, since he towers over Joe). Don’t worry, we’ll have plenty of photos from this celebration on Saturday!

We also want to congratulate all of the area graduates, including our own Michaela Henderson, who is leaving St. John’s Lutheran School behind as she graduates from the eighth grade. Since St. John’s only has a program for students from kindergarten to eighth grade, Michaela will be attending Fairbanks next year as she begins high school. Michaela was selected as the salutatorian of her class and made a speech this past week. We know that this is only the beginning of lots of great things academically and on the basketball court for this beautiful, young lady. Perhaps, there is another pharmacy student tagging along on Kelly’s heels?