ETSU pharmacy student Emily Perez became interested in infectious diseases after learning about germs in an undergraduate microbiology course, and when she began pharmacy school, she realized she could impact patients by choosing antibiotics that save lives.
“I love infectious diseases,” Perez said. “That’s my future career goal – to be an infectious diseases pharmacist.”
While completing her March rotation at Johnson City Medical Center, Perez saw the impact of an infectious disease first-hand – working with pharmacists amidst the novel coronavirus outbreak.
“Getting to see how the hospital responds to a pandemic over time – even just in the last month when everything has been really changing – I think that’s been extremely rewarding,” Perez said. “And seeing, again, all of the people that are coming together to not only protect the patients but also the staff that are working at the hospital within the pharmacy department.”
Perez is one of several fourth-year pharmacy students able to continue her rotations after ETSU moved all classes online for the rest of the semester. The curriculum for fourth-year students is experiential. Similar to an internship, students spend a calendar month, called a “rotation,” at various pharmacies and hospitals in the region. Perez completed the required 160 hours of her institutional pharmacy rotation on Friday.
Her work varied from reviewing and verifying medications for hospital patients and working with different pharmacists throughout the hospital. She helped IV pharmacists checking all IV bags made and sent throughout the hospital and helped decentralized pharmacists, verifying patient medications and administering different dosages.
For students like Perez helping health care professionals in a time of need, Adam Welch, Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy associate dean for assessment and academic affairs, believes their work is not only a completion of required experience but a contribution to society.
“I think what our students can contribute – I mean pharmacists are essential employees, essential workers in society right now,” Welch said. “People need their medication, and if they’re not, if pharmacies aren’t open, that opens up other problems. So, our students being able to contribute to this essential work for our society. It’s so important.”
Welch is proud of students’ contributions, but he said they also need to be careful not to compromise their own health while on the front line.
“We want to make sure that the health and safety of our students is preserved,” Welch said. “That’s very important to us, so we don’t want to endanger our students, but we also want to make sure that we’re supporting our community as much as we can.”
Although Perez and other students can continue or complete their rotations, not all students can.
“We are monitoring that closely because it’s evolving so much – where some sites are restricting access to their facilities,” Welch said. “Fortunately, for most of our sites, students are still allowed to be in the process and be able to contribute to patient care, and kind of help the health care system in that manner.”
Welch said this hands-on experience is essential to make sure students are confident and competent to enter the workforce.
“We want to make sure that all of our pharmacy students – when they graduate – are practice ready, just with our mission,” Welch said. “In order to do that we’ve got to make sure they have enough of the experiences to do that.”
Welch said they are following guidance from the Accreditation Counsel for Pharmacy Education on what to do if practice sites stop allowing students or non-essential employees from coming into their facility. He said they are looking at how many students this will affect. For student who cannot continue, the ACPE says programs can provide alternative supervised practice experiences if the program meets the expectations and objectives of the required experience.
Perez believes this experiential learning is important for students, whether they can continue at their site or complete an alternative experience.
“I think it’s really important because to be a good pharmacist you have to have hands on experience,” Perez said. “So, I’m really glad that they’re – you know even for the students that aren’t able to actually be at hospitals next month – they’re trying to figure out ways to make it effective and not just like you’re sitting at home doing nothing. So, they’re still going to be prepared when they leave and when they graduate.”
