School of Pharmacy News & Media Center
The University of Mississippi

Pharmacy Faculty Create Podcast to Inspire Pharmacists

Posted on: January 26th, 2018 by herman

January 26, 2018

By Whitney Tarpy

OXFORD, Miss. – In the first few weeks of 2018, a small group of faculty from the University of Mississippi School of Pharmacy launched PharmacyForward, a new podcast that features interviews with pharmacy experts and leaders about pharmacy practice, patient care and health care delivery in every setting.

The podcast, which has a tagline of “Transforming Knowledge into Action,” is dedicated to engaging and motivating pharmacists. The school’s Division of Pharmacy Professional Development produces the episodes, which are geared toward veterans and newcomers in the field.

PharmacyForward logoStuart T. Haines, professor of pharmacy practice and the division’s director, said the idea emerged from a focus group of pharmacists from around the state who were looking for new ways to address professional development needs and unique educational programming.

“What emerged was a need to cover topics on practice management, how to advance our practices and how to interact with people,” Haines said. “Pharmacists have a lot of knowledge about diseases, but they don’t always know how to put that knowledge into practice. We want to tap into the insights from the movers and shakers in pharmacy today. With a podcast, we can reach any pharmacist in the world who wants to listen.”

In its debut series, three PharmacyForward episodes focus on relationship-building in different settings. Featured guests have created advanced practices in different regions of the country and have held leadership positions in organizations like American Society of Health-System Pharmacists and American Pharmacists Association.

With the variety of guests, clinical assistant professor of pharmacy practice Josh Fleming sees one of the podcast’s main goals as building a community of pharmacists that can work together and share their successes and struggles. 

“Listeners can expect to gain knowledge about many crucial pharmacy topics that will help them move ideas from thoughts into practice,” Fleming said. “Our hope is that listeners will pick up on tools, tips and suggestions from other pharmacists on how to advance their practice no matter what stage of their career they’re in.”

Faculty won’t be the only ones working on the podcast. Second-year ambulatory care pharmacy residents and student pharmacists are also part of PharmacyForward.

“I hope that students and residents alike will benefit from hearing about real-world experiences from a variety of pharmacists with different specializations,” said Laurie Fleming, clinical associate professor of pharmacy practice. “I believe that many of the topics will be helpful to them as they enter new practice settings, and I hope they’ll take the opportunity to discuss the podcasts with their preceptors.”

PharmacyForward sets its sights on giving listeners what they need to build advanced pharmacy practice areas, and Meagan Brown, clinical associate professor of pharmacy practice, sees the main goal in the podcast’s name.

“Our mission is to spread knowledge and ideas about people and places that are doing great work,” Brown said. “I hope listeners will be motivated to make improvements that continue to move the profession forward.”  

Podcast episodes will be published once a month and are available at pharmacyfoward.podbean.com.