Posts Tagged ‘Matt Byrdy’

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.

Just in time for Halloween, I picked out my favorite Halloween themed pictures from this past month.

The first picture is of Joe at the “Founding Fathers Pharmacy” booth at the NCPA (National Community Pharmacists Association) conference in Philadelphia, PA. Usually, Joe is the one who is dressed up, but he was in normal clothing this day. The kind pharmacists offered to use leeches on Joe for a bit of “blood letting,” but he refused their services. And what is it he always counsels his patients about–medicine compliance?

The second photo is of Joe and our fourth year pharmacy student, Matt Byrdy, following a meeting of The OSU College of Pharmacy Alumni Governing Board. Joe is on the Board along with Jerry Marlowe, the famous OSU football game gate crasher, who we told you about in another post. Jerry likes to show up to pharmacy meetings dressed in outrageous hats. Joe and Matt borrowed the jack o’ lantern and helmet caps from Jerry.

And the final photo Joe titled, “Get your own True Blood.”

No, I am not a vampire. I was trying to hide behind Joe so I would not get my picture taken as we came down the escalator at the convention center in Philadelphia. But Joe is so quick on the draw with his handy, dandy iPhone that he snapped the picture anyway and it looks like I am trying to bite his neck. I was not, but it makes for a funny (almost) blood sucking photo (where are those leeches from the “Founding Fathers Pharmacy” when you need them?).

Many of you will remember Matt Byrdy, our fourth year pharmacy student from The Ohio State University, who did a month long rotation with us in July. Matt is back for another month and we are very happy to have him with us again. 

There are a few other people who are also happy to have Matt at Plain City Druggist. One of those people is Mary Butler who was sorry she didn’t spend more time in the pharmacy back in July. She has been waiting patiently for October to arrive and, with it, the return of “that good looking pharmacy student.”

We joked that we would call Mary so she could stop in today to see Matt, but we didn’t even have to stage this photo. Mary showed up on her own! That leads us to believe that she had marked her calender so she wouldn’t forget to come by the drugstore on Matt’s first day.

Follow Mary Butler’s lead–make sure you come in, too, and say hello to Matt.

You will probably be seeing an unfamiliar face in the pharmacy and hearing an unfamiliar voice on the telephone. So before you wonder who this person is, we thought we’d take the time to introduce you to our newest pharmacy student, Matt Byrdy.

Matt is a fourth year pharmacy student at The Ohio State University College of Pharmacy and is completing part of his experiential rotations with us for the month of July (he will also join us for another month later in the year). Matt will graduate next year and will then take the exam to be a pharmacist. Matt is married and his wife is a photographer.

We’ll let you know more about Matt throughout July. But if you are in the store, take the time to talk to him and get to know him, as well. If you do that, Matt will no longer be a stranger or an unfamiliar face. Rather, he will become part of the smiling group of friends you see each month at Plain City Druggist.