Introduction and Outpatient Experience

Walter Wong, PharmD, owner of Green Valley Pharmacy in Rancho Cucamongo, CA speaks to Pharmacy Times about his motivations for owning an independent pharmacy.

Walter Wong, PharmD: There were 2 interactions and 2 experiences that really led me to want to do independent. One of them is my internship with the med center. Like I said, sometimes I’d cover the outpatient pharmacy, and I felt like there was a much higher energy on the outpatient side and more interactions with the staff and the patients. And I felt right at home, so I knew that I’m more suitable for that kind of environment. The second one is with Waterman Pharmacy. At the time, the pharmacist, my supervisor, was Dennis, and that’s the first time I’d seen a pharmacist properly interact with his patients and pharmaceutical care provided effectively in a community setting. And I was actually blown away by it, and I see the tremendous value of a good community pharmacist to his patients and the community. It’s literally life-changing for the patients and so I thought hey, you know what, that’s a career I can get behind and do it for the rest of my life. So that’s how I’m here.