Gi Eun (Jemma) Han is currently a P1 (3rd year) student pharmacist at MCPHS University, Boston. Jemma is the 3rd place winner of the 2021 APhA-ASP Student Pharmacist Writing Contest at MCPHS University Boston chapter.
What was your inspiration for applying to pharmacy school? How has your vision changed since you first started pharmacy school?
I have always been interested in the human body, but I didn't like the way the knowledge in this field was applied to the doctor and nursing professions. I later learned that pharmacy has various professional pathways other than community pharmacy, and I became interested in further exploring them. My father's type 1 diabetes also made me naturally interested in medication management for diabetes as well as other health conditions. The PharmD program and everything else that came along with it have been fascinating these past 2-3 years at MCPHS, and I can see myself changing every year. I was excited to see pharmacy impacting healthcare in community, industry, hospital/clinical, regulatory, and various other settings. I also realized that a lot of my skills that my coworkers and peers recognize me for (such as organizational skills) pair well with the pharmacy profession. Ultimately, I became more open and eager to learn the vast career opportunities pharmacy could offer me, and I have gained further certainty that pharmacy is right career path for me.
What was something you learned during pharmacy school that has altered your perspective about the pharmacy field? How would you utilize this knowledge and help the public better understand the role of pharmacists in healthcare?
It was very eye-opening to explore various professional pharmacy pathways beyond community, clinical/hospital, and industry pharmacy, such as ambulatory care and regulatory affairs. I was able to talk with faculty members and hear of their experience working as an ambulatory care pharmacist, transplant pharmacist, and expert witness in court. For regulatory affairs, I recently bought a book on Fundamentals of Pharmaceutical and Biologics Regulations; I am keen on reading it after my finals! Most of all, it was great to know that I could gain a variety of pharmacy experience by working for various part time positions. That way, I could be up to date with many areas of pharmacy and enjoy the diversity of my work!
My end goal, wherever I may be in the pharmacy pathway, is to be a pharmacist cognizant of medical and drug-related policies. After watching the Netflix documentary "The Bleeding Edge" and reading the book "Kill Shot" by Jason Dearen, I realized that FDA does not have equal regulating authority over each aspect of the healthcare industry and certain businesses exploit this at the expense of the patients' health and even their life. As much as I may know many things about drugs as a pharmacist, I would not be automatically equipped with knowledge regarding how healthcare plays out in the field of policies and regulations. I believe it would be responsible and conscientious of myself as a pharmacist to know the regulations surrounding drugs and advocate patient rights.
If you were a freshman again, what advice would you give to yourself and why?
If I had to turn back time and revert to my freshman year, I would tell myself to look more into research. I still don't have benchwork lab experience as of now besides lab classes I've taken, and I wish I could've gathered up some of that experience so I could have greater opportunities to land a research program (preferably in immunology). For now, I have to make do with what I have; I am going to apply for SURF 2022 as well as other research programs. Also, I would continue to actively explore the pharmacy profession as I did back then. I would attend various club meetings, search career (and also volunteer) opportunities, and continually update my resume. Although I still don't know what exact pharmacy career route I would like to take, the information I gathered during my freshman years helped me gain more knowledge in my sophomore year, which helped me gain an ever better understanding of the various pharmacy professions this year so far.
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