APhA Member News
A minute with …
Natalie Hohmann, PharmD
Graduate research assistant and PhD candidate
Auburn University, Auburn, AL
Member since 2009
“Being a member of APhA has helped me throughout both my student and professional career. Networking at Annual Meetings has introduced me to colleagues with shared interests and opened the door for research collaborations. Seeing how passionate APhA and its members are for advancing innovations in pharmacy practice and research has helped inspire me to always keep learning.”
How has APhA helped you establish meaningful connections?
Meeting colleagues at the APhA Annual Meeting has sparked research collaborations and mentoring relationships that have lasted for years. Serving on the APhA–APRS Postgraduate Advisory Committee has helped me to stay involved and meet new colleagues nationwide.
How does APhA help you thrive in your everyday practice?
APhA helps connect me to the people and resources that I need to stay current with for pharmacy practice and research and creates opportunities for continued learning, advancement, and innovation.
What excites you about the profession of pharmacy?
The pharmacy profession is constantly evolving and growing. I’m excited by the potential of the pharmacy field, the versatility of the PharmD degree, and the doors that open by obtaining a pharmacy education. I’m also excited to see the emerging opportunities for community pharmacy practitioners to expand their practice in a way that allows them to fully utilize their skills and provide patients with broader access to care.
A minute with …
Lindsey Hohmann, PharmD
Graduate research assistant and PhD candidate
Auburn University, Auburn, AL
Member since 2009
My experience as an APhA member has helped to prepare me for my future career in academia as a pharmacy educator and health services researcher. I started as an APhA student member in pharmacy school and continued to attend the Annual Meetings as a practitioner and now as a postgraduate after returning to school to pursue PhD studies. The educational program has helped to hone my research knowledge and reinvigorate my passion for the pharmacy profession year after year.”
How has APhA helped you establish meaningful connections?
By attending the APhA Annual Meeting each year during my postgraduate education, I was able to meet other senior researchers, faculty, and fellow PhD students. This allowed me to establish a network of collaborators and mentors to guide me in my research efforts and provide advice during the job application process.
How does APhA help you thrive in your everyday practice?
APhA provides resources and educational opportunities, like the APhA Pain Institute, that allow me to learn and apply the latest evidence-based methods in my research and to translate findings into practice.
What excites you about the profession of pharmacy?
I am excited by the advances in clinical services in the community pharmacy setting, as well as the multiple areas and diverse alternative career paths that pharmacists can now enter. After graduating from pharmacy school with my PharmD, I worked as a community pharmacist for several years before going back to school to pursue a PhD in health outcomes research, enabling me to apply what I learned as a PharmD student and pharmacist to research and teaching. I’m excited that I was able to advance my career in this way, and that APhA has programming that supported my learning through all stages of my student life and changing career.
Did you know?
Addressing the COVID-19 Crisis: An Open Forum Webinar Series for Pharmacists, weekly webinars conducted every Thursday from 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm ET. Each open forum webinar is moderated by APhA President Michael Hogue.
Register for the current webinar and access slides and recordings from previous webinars at www.pharmacist.com/coronavirus/resources-training.
Members in motion
USP election results
Two APhA members were elected to the Council of Experts and Board of Trustees for USP’s 2020–2025 cycle. Tom Menighan, former APhA CEO, was elected at-large trustee for 2020–2025; Brenda Jensen, past APhA Compounding SIG coordinator, was elected to chair the Compounding Expert Committee on the 2020–2025 Council of Experts.
Congratulations to Tom and Brenda!
APhA2020 goes virtual, thanks to teamwork
On Thursday, March 12, 2020, APhA made the heartbreaking decision to cancel the APhA2020 Annual Meeting.
“Pharmacists are frontline defenders of our public health. It made no sense to risk their safety or take them away from where they were needed the most,” said Windy K. Christner, CMP, APhA’s senior director of Meetings & Expositions since 1997.
This was only the third time in the history of the association that the Annual Meeting had been canceled: the first time was in 1861, during the Civil War; then in 1945, during World War II; and now, during the COVID-19 pandemic. The impact of the cancellation resulted in an estimated $11.5 million lost for the destination in National Harbor, MD. As the pandemic spread, more and more associations quickly followed in APhA’s footsteps, and hundreds of meetings were canceled across the country, creating a crisis of its own for the hospitality industry.
Is there a silver lining in this? Christner thinks so: “The unique challenges of a COVID world has strengthened bonds among staff, leadership, vendor partners, and members. APhA’s teamwork is proving to be stronger than ever, and we are offering each other strength and unique, out-of-the-box solutions in dealing with this historic cancellation.”
APhA launched APhA2020 Virtual to provide much of the educational content that would have been available at the live meeting. However, the networking, business opportunities, and face-to-face interactions, personal influences, and friendships that the traditional conference presents cannot be replaced.
APhA will provide those to everyone again at APhA2021, March 12–15, 2021, in Los Angeles—so mark your calendars!