Examples of Advocacy in the Community for Public Policy Issues

Christine Lee-Wilson, Owner of Professional Pharmacy MD, and Nimesh Jhaveri, President, Community Pharmacy and Health, spoke to Pharmacy Times about public policy and advocacy in pharmacy.

Christine Lee-Wilson: A little bit about my journey to independent pharmacy—I purchased my first pharmacy at the end of 2016. At that point, things got really difficult in 2018. I mean, I was considering, how am I going to make payroll? How am I going to pay my wholesaler bills? Things got really real, really quickly. Then, after my pity party of one, I said, either I can close my doors or fight to stay open, and I chose to fight to stay open. I started with my letters, and I started having my customers call the people who can make a difference and started going down to Annapolis. I will say that with my letters, and I tell this story a lot, that I wrote a letter to a delegate who was on the committee that we were testifying in front of, and she never wrote me back. So, I didn't realize that she had received the letter. But then during that session, she read the letter to everybody before I even got to my oral testimony, and I just sat there and started crying. I was like, “she read the letter, she actually read it.” I felt so empowered that she was able to be my voice through my words. Then, when I was able to get up there and add to that testimony, it was so much stronger, and there was people crying, and it was just like—it was so impactful. And I say that to people: you don't need to be great at public speaking. You don't need to have a career in that. You just need to tell your story and be genuine and be real, and it makes such a difference.