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Supplementary form questionnaire

 

 

 Why are you pursuing graduate education?

 

I have always had a passion for pharmacy because of the impact it makes in improving and prolonging life and providing a lifelong opportunity for the pharmacist to serve society. My decision to apply to the PHD Program in SAPh is informed by both my career dreams and great passion for community service. Within five years, I hope to be recognized as a professional research scientist and also engaged in the teaching of pharmaceutical care to students. Within ten years, I hope to have become a highly-experienced, pharmaceutical care practitioner with an established track record in pharmaceutical research.

 

In my native Egypt, in particular, I have pursued many activities that have helped me gain knowledge in the pharmaceutical field. After graduating from the Alexandria School of Pharmacy, I practiced as an intern in Pharmacy at a local hospital in Egypt. I went on to manage one of the biggest pharmacies in my city. I have also served as an Assistant Medical Advisor and Clinical Market Specialist for the Pharmacy giant AstraZeneca and as a Clinical Pharmacist at a local hospital for both ambulatory and cardiology departments. I passed the foreign pharmacy graduate equivalence test (FPGE) and completed an internship at Mayo Clinic in Rochester. I earned my MN pharmacist license in 2011, and I also became licensed as an IA and WI. I earned the PharmD from the University of Shenandoah in 2014 and entered a Master’s Program in Medication Therapy Management (MTM), graduating in December of 2017. I also have a board certificate from the Board of Pharmacy Specialties (BPS) in Ambulatory Care and Geriatric Pharmacy. I now hope to most fully complete my education by earning the PHD in Social and Administrative Pharmacy, focusing on solving pharmaceutical problems and developing streamlined pharmacy systems through the application of behavior-oriented, interdisciplinary research. I see your program as the optimal springboard for launching my fullest professional contribution to my field, becoming a leader in the area of pharmacy systems.

 

What information or materials had the most impact on your decision to apply to graduate school?

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I keenly look forward to intensive study in several areas throughout my PHD studies into the social and administrative pharmacy program, especially the structure of healthcare including management, economic, social, and political aspect. I seek lifelong learning into MTM-specific business planning resources and pharmaceutical patient care services in general. In my MTM Master’s, I learned a great deal about the organization and management of a variety of MTM consultation services, and I am most interested to advance my education by learning more about the social and administrative aspects of pharmacy management. Studying in your in this SAPh PHD will greatly increase what I will be able to contribute to my employer, developing business plan for MTM services.

 

As an undergraduate student, I began to better appreciate the great impact of pharmaceutical services impact on patient care, particularly through the improvement of the quality of patient care services resulting in improved HEDIS scores. I learned that improvements in clinical, humanistic, and economic outcomes can have an impact on improved drug utilization, patient satisfaction, and reduced medication costs, respectively. Now, I could not be more excited at the prospect of giving my all to PHD studies fully devoted towards the end result of enhancing patient outcomes through quality improvement of services.

 

I have learned many of the skills needed to accurately identify the characteristics and needs of pharmaceutical patients. Analysis of the practice market and patient demographics is a most useful strategy that I have learned to put to good use in the determination of market demands for health care.  I also developed the skills in conducting SWOT analysis, a very important decision-making tool to assess the potential of service enhancement initiatives or strategies. service and specifying the objective of the business. I have developed extensive ability at patient assessment, education and counseling, he development of patient-specific pharmacist care plans, treatment protocols, dosage adjustments, selection of therapeutic alternatives, and preventive therapies. Now I look forward to complimenting what I have studies so far with an in-depth analysis of pharmaceutical care in the light of ethics and political standards of different regulatory agencies.

 

 What current and/or past experiences have uniquely prepared you for this graduate program?

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I have learned many valuable skills as a result of my MTM  Masters, especially about fostering collaboration and communication among pharmacists, physicians, and others involved in health care services. I learned how to empower patients to take control of their medication and the way that the success of the process requires not only a close working relationship between pharmacists and physicians but also great communication with our patients. This means that we need to know a lot about our patients in order to help them.

 

I now look forward to an in- and the way in which they are related to the depth, interdisciplinary focuses on the use of drugs at a societal level, examining pharmaceutical systems and how they are related to patients' needs, the financial management of the service provided, and also the definitions of those services.

 

 How do you expect to have an impact on society, the healthcare system, society, and/or patients?

 

I have become adept at making clinical judgments and sound decisions in complex, problematic situations and I appreciate very much the way that Pharmacy practice is moving toward a model that places a top priority on patient-focused care (Patient-centered care). My capstone project for my MTM Degree dealt with the role of integrating the pharmacist into the health care team as a Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) model. The research also focused on promoting new pharmacy services in collaboration with physicians for providing optimal pharmaceutical care.  I came to understand how a successful pharmacist must understand and speak the language of complex health care systems. Types of health care delivery and complexities of relationships among various health care professionals working within the health care system sometimes result in confusion. Pharmaceutical care requires an expert knowledge of therapeutics. Through the pharmacy practice, I had opportunities to engage in direct patient care. Learning through my undergrad, grad and board certification preparation programs helped me to understand therapeutics in a holistic fashion.

 

I could not be more devoted to the cause of enhancing patient literacy about MTM and pharmaceutical care services. In fact, my primary motivation has always been to serve the public. I look forward to serving as a member of a health care team who is recognized as the “drug expert, helping my team to develop, implement, and monitor therapeutic regimens and providing drug information and education services for both patient and team. Throughout my various work experiences, trainings, and intensive education, I have always been motivated by doing what is right for the patient and committed to providing them sufficient information so that they can make better decisions about their own well-being. I have consistently sought to empower my patients and advocate for them; the kind of advocacy that values the patient’s right to self-determination above all other human rights. I hope I can hold the pharmacy profession to high standards and attempt to raise the standards of the profession. I want the profession to thrive. The PhD in SAPh will provide me with the opportunity to seek expertise in my passion of promoting a higher standard of care by constant, creative reflection about what patients want and how to provide it.

 

I am excited by the increasing size of drug resources along with an increased recognition of the need to tailor drug regimens based on various physiological, genetic, and cultural parameters. This serves to highlight the demand for experts in MTM, especially given the way that drug-related morbidity is often preceded by a drug-related problem (DRP). DRPs may arise not only due to inappropriate prescribing or dispensing and administration of the drug, but also due to inappropriate behavior by the patient. I could not be more devoted to the recognition of problems that tend to result in suboptimal medication use , always seeking to avoid the waste of resources.

 

If you had to choose one issue that you want to solve successfully with the knowledge you acquire in this graduate program, what would that be?

 

For me, quality improvement interventions and the promotion of patient-centered and outcomes-oriented pharmacy practice is itself an ethical issue. Researchers have estimated that for every dollar spent on pharmaceuticals, we spend another dollar on treating the problems that stem from suboptimal medication use; as a result, billions of dollars in health care resources are wasted every year. Thus, I find great satisfaction in devoting my professional lifetime to the optimization of the use of medications and facilitating the coordination of care across health care systems and health professions. I have learned a great deal about medical sociology so far as a graduate student, especially the psychological aspects of medication use which will serve me well in my ongoing focus on cost-effectiveness within a value-driven heath care system.

 

I live to contribute to providing high quality, cost-effective, patient-centered health care through the coordination of groups and organizations that contribute to the decisions that have an immediate impact on health and safety, especially the optimization of therapeutic and clinical outcomes and the implementation of standardized quality performance mesures.