Embracing the Future of Community Pharmacy: Insights from Discount Drug Mart's Emerging Pharmacists

In an interview with Pharmacy Times, a group of newly graduated and soon-to-be pharmacists at Discount Drug Mart share their reasons for choosing community pharmacy. They highlight the opportunities to build strong patient relationships, provide personalized care, and make a direct impact on public health. The recent graduates discuss Discount Drug Mart's commitment to patient-centric services and community involvement, which drew them to the company. Looking to the future, they envision the pharmacy profession evolving to offer more comprehensive health care services and leveraging technology to enhance accessibility and care coordination.

My name is Chris Peshek. I'm the director of pharmacy operations with Discount Drug Mart.

Hello. My name is Sabrina Fekieh. I am from Cleveland, Ohio. I am currently a grad intern, soon to be pharmacist at Discount Drug Mart pharmacy.

My name is Noor. I'm currently a grad intern at Discount Drug Mart and soon to be pharmacist. My internship has provided me with hands on experience in patient care, and the experience has allowed me to develop a greater passion in pharmacy.

My name is Sydney Bergman. I'm a recent pharmacist. I just graduated from Ohio State.

I am Brooke Bradford. I am a graduate intern with discount Drug Mart pharmacy in Ohio. I graduated from Marshall University, School of Pharmacy located in Huntington, West Virginia, and I graduated 2022.

Every year, we hire a class of new grads to be pharmacists for us. I really enjoy interacting with them, because they bring fresh energy and intellect to the team and to our company. They give me an increased sense of enthusiasm and optimism for the future of the community pharmacy profession and continue to push me to be my best and help our profession be its best.

I chose community pharmacy because I prefer to have a direct patient care interaction compared to some of the other types of pharmacy fields that I interacted with on rotations. I really like the daily interaction of the patients coming up to the counter, and I feel like I have better opportunities to counsel patients in person and make sure that I'm helping them to the best of my ability. I also chose community pharmacy just because I've been working at Drug Marts pharmacy for the last 6 years, and I really enjoyed all my time in my job there.

Community pharmacists have tons of opportunities like building strong relationship with patients, providing personalized care. We offer valuable health advice, we educate patients about their prescriptions, help manage chronic diseases, chronic conditions and contribute to overall public health. The profession combines scientific knowledge with a personal touch. It positions pharmacists as trusted health care providers in an everyday setting, which is something I really inspired and liked, and we offer a unique chance to make a tangible difference in people's daily lives.

I chose the community pharmacy profession because it offers a unique blend of clinical expertise and personal interaction. As a community pharmacist, I have the opportunity to make a direct impact on patients’ lives by providing accessible health care advice, managing medication therapies and promoting health and wellness in the community. I am able to build a strong relationship with my patients, understanding their individual needs, and support them in managing their health conditions.

I like being one of the easiest, accessible forms of health care. I like being able to talk to patients very closely and follow along their care process. I like being able to help patients when they may not have health care — if they have questions about their health care and they can't get their doctor or can't get in to see a doctor. It's nice to be a readily available form of health care for patients.

What drew you to Discount Drug Mart specifically to begin your pharmacist career?

Discount Drug Mart's strong commitment to patient care and community involvement drew me to the company. The company's emphasis on providing personalized, accessible health care lines perfectly with my own values. Then also we save our customers the runaround. So that's what specifically drew me to Drug Mart.

What drew me to Discount Drug Mart specifically to begin my pharmacist care is the company's strong commitment to the community service and patient care. Discount Drug Mart is known for its patient centric approach, offering wide range of services that go beyond just filling prescriptions. Their emphasis on personalized care and building relationship with customers aligned perfectly with my professional values. I believe that Discount Drug Mart provides the ideal setting for me to develop my skills, make a positive impact on the community and advance my career as a pharmacist.

I have a little bit of a different story. I ended up not passing my exams the first go around, and I'm still studying, right now. Drug Mart was very gracious and kind on working with students who didn't pass and giving them support and time. I've worked for very big companies — I'm not going to name them, but very large companies who don't really give you the opportunity and the support that you need during studying for board exams. I also liked how Drug Mart was, or is a local company, and it's doing very well as a company right now. In pharmacy, there's a lot of closures of pharmacies and transitions of business structure for pharmacy. So, I wanted something that was very reliable, that was doing well, that had great support system. I liked how I can have access to talk to my boss anytime and they're very supportive. A lot of other companies that I worked for didn't have that. Drug Mart really cares for their employees, they really care about their well-being and they care about giving them support that they need while working in a pharmacy. It's hard to find good staff that will stick around and when you're going through rehiring and transitions and stuff like that, Drug Mart really has their district leaders working very closely with those stores, which sometimes doesn't occur with the bigger companies.

As I begin my professional career as a pharmacist, my goal is to enhance patient care overall. I want to build strong relationships with the community I'm working in to establish trust and communication with the patients, ensuring the patients feel comfortable and they can come to me with their health concerns. I would also like to promote more medication adherence — I think this is a problem right now in medicine overall. I want to offer more counseling and support to the patients so that they can understand their treatment plans and medications better, and then help utilize Discount Drug Marts program to coordinate medication refills. We have a med sync program, which allows patients to pick up all their monthly monthly medicine, whether it's a 90-day supply or 30 day supply, all on 1 day, which is convenient for them.

For me, I hope to continue to grow and add to the knowledge that I just learned. I came out with a lot of knowledge, but things change every day. So, I hope that knowledge just continues to grow, because then it allows me to help patients more. I also hope to teach one day and have interns that I can help mentor into future pharmacists. I would like to explain things and help others out in that way.

Key Takeaways

The recent graduates are passionate about the community pharmacy model, valuing the ability to build trusted relationships with patients and have a direct, positive impact on their health and wellbeing.
Discount Drug Mart's strong commitment to personalized patient care, community involvement, and employee support were key factors that attracted the new pharmacists to the company.
The pharmacists foresee the profession evolving to include expanded clinical services, preventative care, and the integration of technology - all aimed at enhancing accessibility and quality of care for patients.

As I begin my professional career as a pharmacist, I hope to accomplish several key goals. First and foremost, I aim to provide exceptional patient care by ensuring that individuals receive accurate and effective medication therapy management. I want to build strong trusting relationships with my patient becoming a reliable source of information and support for their health care needs. I also aspire to contribute to public health initiatives promoting wellness and preventative care within the community, educating patients on the importance of medication adherence, healthy lifestyle choices and disease prevention.

I simply just hope to make a difference. I hope to make a difference in patients’ lives, and that's why I went into pharmacy. I don't foresee myself doing anything else. I love my job. I love working alongside patients and techs and other pharmacists. So simply, just to make a difference, even if it's in 1 patient's life. Education wise, I would like to gain more certifications — so tobacco cessation management, there's also diabetes management. So, getting more training on those things that can put you into a niche and to aid your patients even more.

So, the role of pharmacist in a community ambulatory setting has already evolved so much. We do preventative care, immunization services, preventative health screenings. But overall, I think pharmacists in the community setting are going to start providing more comprehensive health services. Then also, I see a rise in tele pharmacy in the near future, which will allow pharmacists to provide remote services, which will be really beneficial in rural and underserved areas. There's a lot of areas like that in Ohio, as somebody who grew up in Ohio, that that would really be beneficial to us. Then the telepharmacy will facilitate medication counseling, adherence monitoring services and patient consultations without the need of patients having to come in do in person visits.

As you begin your career in community pharmacy, how can you see the profession evolving throughout the future?

I think that the pharmacy field is going to evolve into including more ways to have more patient care. Throughout my time in school and rotations with all the different pharmacy fields that I was shadowing, each one was creating more patient care tasks that pharmacists could complete to help patients and their different stages of their health care journey. I just think it'll evolve more patient care over time, which is a good thing.

As I begin my career in community pharmacy, I can see the profession evolving significantly in several key areas. One major trend is the expanding role of pharmacists as integral members of the health care team. I can see pharmacists taking on more responsibilities in direct patient care, such as managing more chronic diseases, providing immunizations, offering personalized medication counseling. I also anticipate a greater emphasis on preventative care and wellness services within the community pharmacy. Pharmacists will likely become more involved in health screenings, lifestyle coaching and public health initiatives — helping to reduce the burden of chronic diseases and improving community health overall. I believe that community pharmacy will continue to evolve into a more patient centric, technology driven and collaborative field, ultimately enhancing the quality of care and accessibility for patients. As a new pharmacist, I am excited to be part of this dynamic and evolving profession and contribute to its growth and development.

I have seen a lot of change, even when I first started in pharmacy school to now. Even looking at provider status, a lot of states are fighting for pharmacists to have provider status. Now, with education, we have doctorates, and we are built with a lot of expertise in certain disease states. So being able to use that, I foresee being able to do point of care testing, right in the pharmacy. That does occur somewhat, but more of even helping patients manage their INR if they're on warfarin or Coumadin. Then a lot of rapid and bacterial infection testing, so like strep test, flu test. Then working under a protocol under a doctor, it would alleviate their patient load as well. I do foresee that happening, that goes along with a provider status and having doctors that are fond of pharmacists managing things like that. So, I feel like that would be a big change. Some states, pharmacists are able to prescribe birth control, and I believe Ohio is on that route of being able to do that under a collaborative and protocol. So, I do see that happening in the future. I do see a lot of acute management happening within the pharmacy and putting maintenance medications at a central fill and milling those — it can help alleviate the burden of the pharmacy. Drug Mart is already doing that, so that's probably one of the biggest changes that I've seen from when I started pharmacy school to now, so more of care management and using our expertise that we have learned in school.

What is one piece of advice for someone starting their career in the pharmacy profession?

As far as advice goes, I would just say to really enjoy and try to focus on the positives and the benefits of being that accessible community health care provider, because there can be drawbacks. Sometimes being that accessible opens you up to being accessible and sometimes there are downsides there. But to really try to focus on those positives and that relationship building that occurs because of the dynamics of this profession.