Empowering Future Pharmacists: Helping Students Find their Passions

Alex Mcquade:

Welcome to Living the Pharm Life, the official podcast of Purdue University’s College of Pharmacy. I’m Alex McQuade, your host and PharmD candidate. Here to highlight the inspiring stories of our outstanding students, faculty, staff, alumni, and friends who continually work towards excellence in all their pursuits.

Dr. Stephanie Arnett is the director of student career development and engagement at the Purdue College of Pharmacy. In this episode, Dr. Arnett shares how her career in pharmacy evolved from patient care to a deep passion for guiding pharmacy students as they begin their journeys. She talks about building strong relationships with students, employers, stakeholders, all while navigating the fast-paced ever-changing landscape of the pharmacy profession. Her work is all about empowering students to succeed and helping them to discover their path in a field that’s constantly evolving. Dr. Arnett, thank you so much for being here today.

Stephanie Arnett:

Thank you for having me. This is exciting.

Alex Mcquade:

Of course, and I can’t wait to get right into these questions because we have so many that I think will help students, alums, and everyone in the field currently. So my first question for you is, pharmacy is such a diverse field and your journey definitely reflects that. How did you initially get started in pharmacy and how did it lead to this current role that you’re in at Purdue?

Stephanie Arnett:

Great question. I’m going to hopefully keep it not too long and short and sweet for you. Believe it or not, my journey in pharmacy started at Butler University, so I am a bulldog through and through, but my relationship with Purdue started after school. I did a residency with Purdue when I was after I graduated, and I was really interested in the community pharmacy space and what more I could do in community pharmacy practice. And at the time, community pharmacy residencies were very new and not all of them were accredited at that time either. And so there was opportunity, but not necessarily in Indianapolis and I was looking elsewhere to see where to go.

My heart landed me in southern Indiana with Purdue at Mathes Pharmacy, smaller, independent in New Albany, Indiana. Small but mighty. They have a lot of different services and one of the biggest services that I was really connected to was diabetes care. They had a clinic that they saw patients in the pharmacy, worked with local physicians, especially those family practice doctors that didn’t necessarily have access for their patients or their patients didn’t have access to potentially bigger hospitals in the bigger cities. We were a little bit more rural, had a lot of rural patients, and it really solidified my love for patient education. I did diabetes education classes. We helped optimize therapy for patients living with their diabetes and adjusting medications and even sometimes starting insulin when that need was there. So worked with type two patients, type one patients, and it was really fulfilling.

I then actually went back to work for Walgreens in the Louisville, Kentucky area, so I stayed down in the area of southern Indiana in Louisville. My husband at the time was, that was his first job out of school. He also went to Butler, and so we settled down in Louisville for about five years. Walgreens was a little bit of a family to me. I had worked through Walgreens, worked at Walgreens all through school and was very familiar with the company and there was a lot of opportunity to expand the role of community practice at that time. I was graduated at a time for my residency where H1N1 was happening. It was a little bit of a precursor to COVID, and so lots of opportunities for us to partner with local health departments, local employers. We were double dosing that year with the regular flu shot and also the H1N1 vaccine. So lots of awesome opportunities down there.

I was able to grow a position within the organization and basically was a clinical coordinator. We not only found the need of a variety of different services including medication therapy management in addition to the vaccines and also point of care testing and we were doing more cholesterol tests or A1C tests and even some simple blood glucose in addition to blood pressure screenings in our stores. And so it wasn’t just the doing, it was also how do we teach and upskill our pharmacists to do that work? So it quickly became not just doing as many MTM claims and helping those patients more generically, but actually helping our pharmacists in those individual stores be successful working with their own patients and providing those services.

Very rewarding. I had a great team down there and a lot of leaders that were very forward-thinking and liked my crazy ideas and trying my crazy ideas and being able to see what we could do for our local communities. We had partnerships with our local Medicaid program, and like I said, also with our local and state health departments. So it was a very rewarding time to really see, and what I was really striving to do was to see what we could do to push the envelope in community pharmacy practice.

Fast forward about five years from there, I came back to Indiana in about 2013. The opportunity existed for us to get closer to home. Both my husband and I grew up in Illinois, didn’t know each other until college, but being able to come back closer to home was something that we had looked at. We loved our time in Kentucky and still like to visit and still have friends there, but coming back to Indiana was also kind of like coming back home because we did go to school and spent most of our adult life in Indianapolis. There was an opportunity to be a residency program director with Walgreens and Purdue, and I was definitely interested in the opportunity to give back to what was given to me when I was a resident and also part of the Purdue family in that space. I had started a residency with Sullivan University and Walgreens before I left town, and so you probably will see a theme here as far as me mentoring and coaching students. That’s really, it began very early for me and my interest in helping support students.

So my role with Walgreens, did a lot of different things. I was a residency program director for nine years, and in that time we had a lot of growth in pharmacy, the profession as a whole. So the opportunities, the things we were doing in our pharmacies, the expansion of our collaborative practice agreements, I mean you name it, like things were growing and building and ways that we could help patients be healthy in our communities. The opportunities were and still are endless.

I got to jump into specialty pharmacy services. I opened up the pharmacy at Community Health Network east, on the east side. Walgreens had outpatient pharmacies in those spaces and they still exist today. And I managed that pharmacy for about two and a half years, really working with the providers at the site, providing bedside delivery services, providing traditional community pharmacy services and then also specialty pharmacy services for the specialty specialists there, whether there was oncology, cardiology, infectious disease, inflammation, all the different things that we see really expensive drugs for. So that gave me a whole different outlook. And then also to be able to expand our residency program even more in really quick and fast-growing spaces.

Dean Barker actually got on board with the fast-growing specialty space and I heard word that he was looking for an adjunct member of his team in specialty pharmacy practice, and he was talking to a variety of different specialty pharmacies. At the end of the day, I think Walgreens was a good partner because of the localness to that and being able to easily have students that were able to be on rotations in Indianapolis and see a lot of different aspects of the specialty pharmacy space that was quickly, quickly growing. So I do give Dean Barker some kudos to that and really thinking ahead and thinking that we need someone adjunct.

So I actually told my boss at Walgreens, I said, “Hey, I would like that job. I am going to step down for management so I can be adjunct at Purdue, be able to refocus a little bit on the residency program.” It’s tricky when you’re in management and find a little bit different balance there. And so at the time I was also on the experiential learning advisory council with Dr. Shepler. He wouldn’t take no for an answer, wanted me to serve as the community representative, especially for central Indiana on that council. And so I was very fortunate to have a network with Purdue and also kind of knowing what was going on and that these opportunities were being looked at and partnerships were being looked at.

Fast forward a little bit more, as I was still in the specialty pharmacy space, I got word that Purdue was looking to build a new position and they wanted to build a position specific to career development and they really wanted that person to be a pharmacist. So I asked a lot of questions and said, “What’s going on with this position and how are we expanding and what is your vision for that?” And I think my initial thought in really leaning in was understanding my love of developing students and residents and being able to be curious about what that role would entail when you think about career development. I don’t think I truly understood at the time, that’s where my curiosity started, but I’m thankful that I leaned in to think about what could be and what those opportunities and what Purdue was looking for. And then fast forward again, here I am almost four years later and I’d be happy to share some more about my journey in this space.

Alex Mcquade:

Wow, so your career journey is so inspiring too because even if somebody’s not 100% interested in the community pharmacy pathway, just seeing how much you’re able to move around with your experience, leveraging the skills that you had with patient care into working with student residents. It actually kind of brought another question to my mind, which was that when you were working as a pharmacist, what kind of gave you that passion to go beyond the patient care and to help the students find their passion? I mean, you said you kind of want to give back and help the future pharmacists to find their thing, but I kind of want to learn more about what your process is for that and what kind of inspired you to go down that path.

Stephanie Arnett:

Oh, that’s such a loaded question. I think first and foremost, I think I’m speaking for all of us in my peer group that we all want to give back to something that was given to us. And so I did have some really awesome mentors over time and every time I had a mentor come in and out of my life, and still to this day, I have mentors come in and out of my life, I want to be able to give back a piece of what was given to me. And so I think that really is the root of it in me wanting to help someone just as I was helped, whether it’s that first, next step, what makes sense, how you guide yourself to that next step after graduation to also those continued steps. There’s certain people I think that we call and that we trust in some of those life-changing moments and some of those career changing moments can also be life-changing if you’re moving, if you’re getting a different salary, if you impacts your personal life in any way.

And so I think first and foremost, it’s really giving back to what has been given to me over time, and I’m super thankful for all those individuals that have played a part in that. And I think it’s also the knowledge that there never can be too many mentors in your life or too many people helping guide you. And at the end of the day, I think I’m also found that it’s one of my superpowers. I am one of the more outgoing, colorful, favorite color of orange pharmacists that you’ll meet. And so I think for me to be able to literally talk to anyone including a brick wall is a special superpower that I have. And so over time, I think I’ve been able to find that confidence and lean in to where I can help support any person really with that conversation on who are you? What is your best self and how do you bring your best self to your decisions too?

Alex Mcquade:

That’s so awesome. And you’re right, people love to have that one person they can rely on to bring that energy and help them move in the right direction. And so your social skills and like you said, being able to communicate with anyone effectively, that just really helps people find trust in you from the jump. So that’s awesome and I think it really shows how perfect you are for the role that you’re in now. And so to talk a little bit more about that, how did your passion for helping others lead you into this specific role? I know you mentioned your journey with hearing about the role from Dean Barker, but I’m also kind of curious the mental process that went behind selecting the role and determining that it was the right step for your career. And obviously this career is so awesome because it helps you navigate students with their careers, but it also lets you continue to stay up to date with your pharmacy knowledge and everything. So yeah.

Stephanie Arnett:

Yeah. And I think anytime you have a career change, there’s always questions. And I think it’s healthy just to even ask questions even if you’re not planning to change, doing a personal scan for yourself and being able to recognize what you’re really thankful for in your roles and your jobs and what could be better, what do you have control over, what do you not have control over? Those are all really healthy things to ask yourself on a semi-regular basis.

I think for me, there was a lot of some serious introspective discussions that were happening. I over time spent a total of 19 years with the Walgreens company and they did give me a lot of opportunities. I talked about where I came in and out of management, in and out of leadership and opportunities to lead in a variety of different ways. And so I think my biggest fear, believe it or not, was what will happen to patients. I had really built my career to that point on always helping the patient and always being in a role where I was connected to the patient, even when I was in leadership I was very, I felt very strongly of being connected to what my role is as a community pharmacist and patients first. I think that made me a better community pharmacist, made me a better leader, but also that’s just also what filled my cup from day in and day out and being able to make that impact.

What I learned over time as I took this step or big giant leap, if you want to put it in pretty terms, right? To come to the academia side full time was it was more than just patients, it was actually about relationships. And it was really like you think that even people at my age may not have that aha moment in their career, but it always surprises you. And for me it was, “Wow, it’s not just about patients, it’s actually about human relationships.” So fortunately students have filled my void of patience and I have really been able to lean into the things that I do for students is not too far different of what I had done for patients. Some of that is that advocacy. What do I need to advocate for on behalf of the students, whether it’s different programming or needs or curriculum opportunities, jobs, how do I connect them to those jobs? There’s so many transferable skill sets there that I quickly recognized that were more similar than I realized.

I think you have to think about some of those adult decisions and what is the daily life and the job going to be like and what are the commutes? It’s a known thing that I commute about an hour one way every day during school, but it’s actually a happy commute. It’s not a sad commute like it is when you’re stuck in traffic and you’re having road rage. So for the most part, it’s definitely something that catches me up on my podcast and my audiobooks and also phone calls with a variety of different individuals including mentees and mentors.

So I think that transition, even though it’s very different, I remember feeling very restless in the first several months was a kind of a turbulent time in pharmacy in 2021 when I jumped over to academia. And it was really hard trying to navigate and see what was happening to my peers on the front lines and what could I do now and what was the work that I could do to impact as we were all trying to figure out how do we vaccinate? How do we come out of this pandemic? How do we find our new normal? So I think that transition itself was a lot of learning for myself, and I’ve been very grateful to be able to experience that and to be able to have the confidence to try something new and to really lean into a strength and a superpower that I have being able to connect with others. Alex, I have a question for you. We talked a lot about passion. I’m curious how your passions have influences your choices in pharmacy. What does that journey look like for you right now?

Alex Mcquade:

Thank you for that question. For me, I think my passion for creativity, travel and working with people from all different types of disciplines, and I don’t want to just work on a pharmacist team. I want to work with people engineers and social scientists, people from all over. And that’s kind of brought me into the idea of a pharmaceutical industry job. I really want to work with, like I said, an interdisciplinary team, but especially one where I get to be on the front line of science, preparing a drug for the FDA approval, preparing all the doctors for what’s the drug going to look like in clinical practice and being that person that’s in between the pharmaceutical company and actual healthcare practice and being that, like you said, patient advocate.

I think pharmacists are uniquely set up to be a patient advocate on any team, even on teams that seem so far removed from patients like a nuclear pharmacy or an industry pharmacy team. But for me, I think something I really value and a passion that I have is teamwork. I feel like it always brings out the best in everyone. So like I said, no matter what kind of pharmacists we are, like we’re all going to get to have that drive to work on multiple teams and be kind of that leader on the team depending on what the topic is. But also something that I really love is always being up-to-date and current with the news. Some careers you kind of have the same knowledge and you bring it through and trying to find new ways to make it interesting, but with us, we are bombarded with knowledge and we’re always going to have something new to learn. And so that’s something I really love too, is it’s always going to change. There’s always going to be something new to have our eyes on and make people aware of. So yeah.

Stephanie Arnett:

I also think that’s exciting. I think we typically are lifelong learners, and I’m a big nerd when it comes to StrengthsFinders and learner is actually a top trait with a lot of pharmacy students. And it makes sense, right? We’re really curious. We like to learn things, we like to connect the dots and solve problems. I’m so excited for you and keep staying curious on this journey. There’s so many opportunities and I can hear your connection to that very clearly in your voice.

Alex Mcquade:

I absolutely will. It’s something that makes me so excited about graduating and moving on into the workforce. But speaking of different pharmacy paths, leaving retail pharmacy must have been quite a big decision, and so I was kind of curious if you had any doubts or challenges when you were making that transition that you could share with the audience.

Stephanie Arnett:

Yeah, I think with any transition or decision you make, there’s always going to be doubts. And I think it’s something that I did really enjoy community pharmacy and it was at a time where a lot of people were leaving to find some different balance. COVID in the pandemic was very, very hard and it still is challenging and healthcare got a variety of doses of reality that we’re still trying to work through and overcome today. So I think it was a confusing time and I was not wanting to leave necessarily the work that I was doing and the advocacy I was doing for my patients, but also super curious for myself and how I could grow and do different things.

And community pharmacy is always going to be a passion, still is. I actually co-coordinate an elective for advanced community pharmacy practices and that has been really fun to keep me in the middle of all the things that are happening. I also am incredibly involved in Indiana Pharmacy Association and that comes with a lot of advocacy, not just for all of pharmacy, but some of the challenges that we face directly in that community pharmacy space, especially recently with reimbursement and working through a variety of challenges to keep pharmacies open, especially here in the state of Indiana.

And so it’s something that I think no matter where I am, and I think a lot of pharmacists and my peers would say the same thing, that your passions are always your passions. You can grow new ones, you can expand into other spaces, and I forgot too, I’ve always kept that passion for my patient living with diabetes. They are dear to my heart and have been since school and since I was learning about the disease and endocrinology and all the different organs that impact that disease. And I actually also co-precept a rotation with diabetes camp. That is also another way for me to give back to that community.

I did diabetes camp as a student, very, very grateful for that opportunity. And then also when I was in Kentucky, I started relationships and built relationships in the Kentucky space in diabetes camp and took students and then also residents to camp while I was there. So had some babies when I came back to Indiana and had some kids hard to go to camp when you are pregnant and have newborns, but I got back into the camp world about three years ago. And very thankful that I’m working with the co-directors of Diabetes Youth Foundation of Indiana and Noblesville, give them a shout out, and being able to also work with them to take our students. We’d had diabetes camp rotations for a long time and I was happy to bring it back to campus and help share some of that passion that I’ve had with students as well.

I keep my certifications up. I stay licensed. I still have a diabetes education certification. Hopefully they’ll let me renew again this year, but I go to different conferences, especially when it comes specific to those interests, diabetes care specifically, but also getting ready for APhA, American Pharmacy Association. I’ve been an active member attending their conferences since I graduated, and then we just had our Indiana Pharmacy Association conference. Lots of networking and lots of opportunities to learn there too. So I think we’re forever lifelong learners. I hope I answered that question for you, but I think regardless of the transitions and where we go, and also who knows what’s next. I’m having a ton of fun with the students and building things I think that are needed for students to be able to better navigate what’s next in their careers. I think I keep trying to keep an open mind and to continue leaning into the things that interest me and giving back where I can.

Alex Mcquade:

That’s awesome. It sounds like your transition was more like bringing things that you loved in your previous jobs and bringing it not only to students, but also shedding a light on those specific things like the diabetes camp, bringing that opportunity back and also just being able to add more pharmacists to our workforce who have had that experience and seeing that hands-on. And same with community, just having a community pharmacy advocate in a position related to career development is so awesome just because there are so many options in community pharmacy and people don’t always realize that, and so that’s so amazing that you still make that a priority in your current role.

Stephanie Arnett:

Absolutely.

Alex Mcquade:

And speaking of your current role, for those who might not be familiar with what you do, can you explain what your job is, what kind of resources your office offers to both the current students and prospective pharmacy students?

Stephanie Arnett:

Yes. Thank you for that question. I also will give a shout out to my office. One of one is me. I’m the director of student career development and engagement, but I do live in the Office of Experiential. So from a career development standpoint, I’m kind of a one woman show that works with so many different individuals in the college. So it’s not just me because it takes a whole village to make it all work, but as far as those who have those efforts, we’re a very small mighty team. And I do have students as well, so shout out to my students. I have a career development advisory council that I have representatives from the P1, P2, P3, P4 class, and also junior senior BSPS classes, to really help be that connector.

The ideas that I have in programming the opportunities for students are only as good as the students think valuable that they are. So I really need that, their input, and I really need them to be engaged in that planning process and that discussion process and really thinking and brainstorming, what does each class need, what do you need? What are those resources for navigating and finding the next best thing for you?

So the primary role of mine is anything from the career development piece, which also comes with creation, right? And the creative piece. You mentioned also being a creative and that is a fun job for me to constantly be thinking of ideas and new programming ideas and new ways to help connect our students. I do one-on-one career coaching. That’s probably my biggest love is that conversations with the students and really helping figure out what do you want specifically and what your superpowers are. So I do that with all students in our college. I mostly focus on our PharmD students and our BSPS junior senior students. I do get freshmen and sophomore students that are still deciding if they’re going to apply to the PharmD program or if they’re going to continue BSPS in that four-year degree. And I think I can bring some different thoughts to the space to help complement what our advisors are doing.

I have to work really closely with OSS, our Office of Student Services, the academic advisors, they play a huge role in helping students navigate especially different electives or different opportunities across campus that would complement what degree that they’re getting and what they’re wanting to do. If they have other interests, how can they fit that in? I just happen to know a lot about pharmacy when it comes to that development piece with the students so I can really give them different perspectives and ask a lot of good questions to help them find out where to go.

Different events. I get a lot of support from our admin staff team at Purdue, so shout out to those individuals that help us make sure our career fair happens every year for the college. Our preceptor showcase that we do for those looking at rotation opportunities, especially our P3s, but also our P1s and twos getting ready for their IPPs. I connect students to jobs, making sure that they can see all the postings and find other ways to connect them to those jobs. Hosting mock interviews, hosting resume or CV reviews. I teach in the curriculum when it comes to skills lab with how to build a CV, especially for those P2s. It’s a tough lab that they don’t always love at the beginning of that P2 year, but it’s obviously essential and for them to be able to making sure that you’ve got your documents ready to go too for you to be eligible for the next best thing.

We also talk about letters of intent and interviewing in some of those labs, and then the newest project that we might talk about is the P1s. We had some slight changes in the curriculum and we are creating a new course called Professional Identity Formation and Leadership. And so that’s my current big project right now, making sure that I do that justice and finding all the things that we want to teach you as a P1. It’s tricky. You only have one credit hour for all those fundamental pieces, so that’s the hardest part is actually paring down and focusing on exactly what we want you to take away from that. I co-coordinate a career development course for BSPS students in their junior year. It’s in the fall semester, so I teach in that course and then I’ll be coordinating this new P1 course that is also going to be a core course in their future curriculum.

I think I’ve hit most of them, but I try to help out where I can in the curriculum and be that career go-to person in the college. But like I said, it’s not just me, it’s a variety of different individuals, including right now we’re in a really key go time for students who are graduating and there’s a lot of mentorship that is needed and that is given at this time of year. The residency match is coming up this week tomorrow actually. And I work with other faculty to also help mentor students that need support in that space, and that may be going through the second phase of the match and figuring out what those next steps are. So again, part of my job is just coordinating or rallying the troops to be able to provide what is needed for our students. We have big class sizes here, so I can’t just do it all by myself. I have to pull in a lot of different supporters, and we have a lot of really awesome faculty here that are really interested in our student success.

Alex Mcquade:

Yeah, it does sound like you have a lot of support, but also taking on all of these different things by yourself too is so impressive and just being able to stay on track with all of these people and in different paths. I always think about how the BSPS program is so different from the PharmD just because the career outcomes are a lot of the times different. So you really have to be on top of the opportunities for both degrees and mentoring them in both paths, especially as a pharmacist yourself. Maybe the BSPS path is not as perfectly aligned with maybe your experience, so you kind of have to go outside of the box and think about opportunities for them. So my next question for you is when you’re guiding pharmacy students who are in the professional program, how is that different from the way that you advise your BSPS program students?

Stephanie Arnett:

Oh my gosh, great question. And yeah, the BSPS students are so fun. I talk about learning. I was able to really lean in and discover more about the pharmaceutical industry. I knew a lot already. I felt like I understood our healthcare ecosystem and was able to navigate that and have friends in industry and I’m like, I kind of know how drugs are made generally speaking, but there’s a whole different world out there that also just as you mentioned, your interest in the pharmaceutical industry really overlaps with a lot of big opportunities for BSPS students. And they go a lot of different directions. What’s really cool about that degree is it is a STEM major that gives you some really awesome foundations for what could be next. Some of our students go off to med school, some of them go off to other professional programs or PharmD and go to a pharmacy school. I’ve also had students that recently that did a master’s in genetic counseling and her first stepping stone was her BSPS degree. And so it’s a really cool major that actually not a lot of colleges have.

A lot of pharmaceutical science degrees are more master’s programs or PhD programs. There’s a small group of students, there’s small group of schools in the United States that have undergraduate pharmaceutical sciences. So it’s really neat to be associated and connected and working at a place like Purdue that has both the PharmD and our pharmaceutical sciences. A lot of PharmD graduates don’t completely realize or fully understand the magnitude of research that goes on in our college. And you know how you have the molecular chemistry pharmacology piece and then also the industrial pharmacy piece that really looks at scaling and manufacturing, not on top of pharmacy practice and what we do clinically with patients. We have the whole game here at Purdue. And so it’s a really neat space to work with students, to work with faculty, and to be able to constantly learn.

Like you said, the growth of pharmaceutical manufacturing in Indiana is insane right now. Nuclear pharmacy growth is insane right now. Shout out to Dr. Kara Weatherman who’s expanding a lot of her opportunities to not only PharmD students but our BSPS students to where there’s so much need in a lot of these new drugs and new discoveries that we need so many different workers in so many different areas of a pharmacy. So the possibilities are endless.

I think back to the part about your original question, the concepts with these students are the same. I just happen to know a lot about pharmacy. I can help students find and ask the right questions and find the resources and find out where the jobs are and find out where the alumni are and find out where the champions are in some of those spaces that they’re looking for and connecting them to other people that may know more. I know a lot about a lot of things or a little about a lot of things depending on how you look at it, but I think I prefer to live my life like that, right, to know a little bit about a lot instead of a lot about a little. So my experience pulls into that and just my personal experiences, my professional experiences, my personal and professional networking groups, my connectivity with the state, with Indiana Pharmacy Association, as well as with other national organizations. And that is built just over time and through my career, I can be able to connect a lot of people, which is also one of my superpowers, connecting people.

And so I really use that for all students. It doesn’t really matter what your major is, what your degree is. The questions that are asked in those coaching sessions are very similar, and it really comes down to what your why is, right? What is why? I ask that question a lot. A lot of times my follow-up questions to students when they’re telling me stories and helping me understand why they’re seeking coaching for me is the question is why. They tell me a story and I just straight up ask them why to give me more information and help me truly understand who they are and what they really want and what really guides them. A lot of times I think you internally know what that is, but until you reflect on that and really create awareness of that is something that I try to draw out of you. So you’re answering your own questions as you’re looking for guidance.

Alex Mcquade:

Yeah, that’s perfect. Because I know a lot of people, they just go, go, go, and they’re like, “I got to do this, I got to do this.” But yeah, knowing the why of why somebody is interested in their career path or why they’re even pursuing the degree, that can be so key for figuring out what’s the next step because sometimes we can get so caught up in the stressors of everyday college life and we kind of forget our purpose, but once we remember, it makes things so much clearer. So that’s so awesome that you emphasized that.

Stephanie Arnett:

You had it, that first question I asked, what even brought you to Purdue Pharmacy to begin with? What brought you here? And that question in itself really I think kind of grounds that purpose for a lot of our students. Alex, you get another question for me too. Before I start a mentor-mentee relationship with a current student or even just serve as a resource for them, I ask what they know about pharmacy and the career options available to them. What is your perspective on career exploration opportunities as a current student?

Alex Mcquade:

That’s a great question and hopefully this will be helpful to anyone who’s interested in coming to Purdue, but just keep in mind that as a student, sometimes it can be very overwhelming thinking about career options because there are so many amazing faculty members. I often think of some of the trailblazing alumni who’ve come through Purdue who have been involved in pharmaceutical research, who have helped so many patients been on the front lines of care. And sometimes I think I could do that or I want to try that, but it can be daunting, as I said. And when people come in and out, you can just get a little bit caught up in the shuffle and you don’t think about, I need to go up and talk to that person and create that mentor-mentee relationship.

So as a student wanting to try everything, it can be amazing to go to the people who are already part of the curriculum asking them about their experience. I have never been shot down by a professor at Purdue. Everybody is so incredibly kind and always wants to shed some light on their career path, wants to help students in any way they can. So yeah, sometimes all you need is just that push from somebody to say, “I think that you’re doing the right thing,” or “I think you should go talk to this person.” And so that’s why I think it’s so awesome that we have you in the College of Pharmacy just because you can be that mediator to be like, I have isolated your interests. You’ve told me your why, and now I want to show you who can help you achieve your goals that you’ve identified.

So I think, yeah, the main challenge just is all of the different options, but having the guidance that we have at the College of Pharmacy is key for us to find the right path for us. But speaking of all of the different careers out there, pharmacy is quite a quick evolving and challenging field, especially with the trends in technology and AI. So I was kind of wondering, I know everyone has their opinions on AI and what their role is in AI, but I was wondering how you’re helping Purdue students stay ahead of these upcoming technology challenges, or not just challenges, but also amazing tools that we could use. How are you readying them for the face of this new field?

Stephanie Arnett:

Oh, that is quite a wild question. I think first and foremost, especially for where my role sits and what I know I can influence is I really want students to be curious and have a growth mindset. And that’s probably my number one goal coming out of this new P1 course is really setting that foundation of helping students think with that growth mindset, think in an open mind, be really curious. And when you find a moment of identity in yourself or curiousness or you like a topic that you’re listening to or learning, what are those additional questions you can ask and how can you lean in and find out more? Sometimes it’s self discovery, sometimes it’s internet research holes, sometimes it’s having a conversation with someone, sometimes it’s going to different events that might be a different subject, interest of yours. So staying curious is really important.

And I think as we enter into a new age of whatever this is, we don’t know what we don’t know, so how can we navigate what we do know? I think sometimes growth and change for pharmacy individuals can be scary. And I could say that for a lot of our healthcare provider individuals and we train to be a specific role in our healthcare ecosystem and be the medication experts. So sometimes as technology advances, there’s fear of what will happen to our jobs? Are our jobs stable and do we still have a plethora of opportunities for pharmacy? I would argue yes. I think the opportunities are, I mentioned this earlier, they really are endless and how we can continue to improve the health and care of our patients and our communities. I think AI and technologies could potentially help us do our job better. It could help with potentially the quality of our roles, the efficiencies of our roles.

And if we really think about it, there’s already AI kind of built into a lot of the things that we’re doing, a lot of the systems when we’re checking for drug interactions, a lot of algorithms as we are navigating so much information and we all want the latest and greatest of information. You’re the smartest you’re going to be when you graduate and take that NAPLEX exam. And that’s why so many of us want students with us on rotation and teaching us all the things and helping us stay on top of our game because you know the latest and greatest and what it is right here, right now. And so I think really being curious is going to be number one as you continue to see and learn and grow.

The other piece for it is really stay in touch with your pharmacy association. So anytime you have a licensed degree and a licensed practitioner, that also comes with a lot of laws and regulations, and pharmacy is the most regulated profession ever. Someone try to challenge me, I dare you, but it has pages and pages and pages of code and federally and on the state side. And if anybody is in their pharmacy law class, they can definitely attest to that. So it’s something that, what will that look like and how do we continue to evolve and really evolve some archaic ways and ways we’ve done things in the past that maybe not serve us in the future and clean up some things in our practice acts and being able to really look at pharmacy at a different lens, in a more modernized lens. And there’s plenty of opportunity to be involved in different organizations that are looking to advance our profession and advance our practice and also protect the services that we have and that we offer for our patients.

Alex Mcquade:

And as pharmacists, I mean we are the most adaptable healthcare providers too because our role can be, so there’s a variety of roles that we can fulfill, and we’ve also seen our role evolve so much over time, much more than a lot of other professions. So I agree with you. I think we just got to stay informed what our regulatory bodies say what do we got to do to stay up to date with the new technology, but we can handle it. It’s no big deal for us.

Stephanie Arnett:

Stay informed and ask questions. Right?

Alex Mcquade:

Exactly.

Stephanie Arnett:

It’s also okay to push back a little bit and be like, “Is this right for our profession?” And I think sometimes we have to go through the hard stuff and ask the hard questions, and I really commend the work and complement the work that the Indiana Board of Pharmacy, well, the Indiana Board of Pharmacy and the Indiana Pharmacy Association, both of them, the hard conversations that they’ve had even since the pandemic and before of how do we grow and evolve? And so if we don’t have the hard conversations, we can’t get anywhere. So I encourage the uncomfortable and if you’re having an uncomfortable conversation and hopefully there’s growth from that and you know that there’s growth that’s going to come because usually we don’t get growth from the comfortable. So that’s my encouragement to everybody is to really stay open, curious, and sometimes uncomfortable is okay.

Alex Mcquade:

Absolutely. Yeah. And especially moving into our next topic, a lot of things that you deal with in your job can be uncomfortable for students, but you’re there to show them the light at the end of the tunnel and help them get through some of these uncomfortable conversations. So I guess for the students listening out there, how important is it for them to get involved in any of the career development opportunities we have early on, but also what opportunities do we even have? I mean, tell us. You got all these opportunities.

Stephanie Arnett:

So many. Again, my answer is stay curious. Stay curious, network, get involved. And I think that goes beyond just the college of pharmacy, but also at the university. And I know a lot of people have told students this like, “This is the time of your life being in college and all the exploration and the growth that you can have in life and not just career building, but also in your life.” And so if you want to experience something, experience it. If you want to take that class, take that class. If you want to get another minor because you’re really curious about something else that has nothing to do with pharmacy, do it. And I think we underestimate the intersection of where our personal interests and our professional interests can really align and crossover. And I think there is a world where both of those things can coexist and you can really take those strengths that you have in an individual to really build what you want out of your own career.

So man, we have so many cool things coming too as the opportunities to get a dual degree and master’s of public health, that’s coming, which is super exciting. There’s opportunity for entrepreneurship certificates, there’s opportunities for pharmaceutical manufacturing certificates, there’s crossover partnerships with that one specifically with the College of Engineering. There’s opportunities for some additional elective courses, again with the College of Engineering and Pharmacy and some other science colleges here on campus where we’re trying to help connect students to the pharmaceutical industry and those opportunities in general.

We’ve got a lot of growth here in Indiana and some big companies making some big-time medicines here that we need workers and we need those who want to make a difference in those spaces. There’s opportunities for leadership, leadership electives and leadership certificates. I know there’s some other growth coming there. There’s opportunities in all of your different professional organizations. So your student organizations, sometimes they’re a locally homegrown student organization that’s very specific to Purdue and sometimes they’re connected to a bigger national organization. All are awesome and all I think deserve discovery and finding what really speaks to you.

There is sometimes a happy ratio. And I think every student has to find that on how many extracurriculars they have and how can they handle that on top of their coursework. For me personally, when I was going through school and even in my personal life, the more things that I have going on, usually the more engaged I am. I get bored easily. So the more hats that I wear, the more programs that I am helping support, usually the happier that I am. And so sometimes that can be for students too, and I can understand that sometimes being engaged and being busy is a good thing. There’s less wasting of time on my end if I’m busy. But also where do you say, “Hey, enough is enough.” I think sometimes we can all reach our limits and we’re like, “Wow, I’m involved in so many things. What is the synergy here? What is the synergy with this group and this group and this group? And they all kind of focus on different things.”

I think you can build different skill sets with a variety of different groups, and different groups also offer different alumni engagement, learning about other people’s stories, other skill building opportunities, building your CV and resumes and finding jobs and things like that. And I try to help support where I can with any of those student orgs. And so I think it’s really just a personal journey. It’s a personal journey and discovery. We like to see, employers like to see where you’ve had some leadership experience or you’ve worked with a team or you’ve led a committee and you don’t just have to have president or vice president or some major officer of an organization to get that next dream job. Just showing your engagement and even leading a committee can be a big piece of that.

And so I do encourage everyone to find something that they are passionate about and really want to give into and give back to and really dig into leadership opportunities because this is the time to also learn and grow, and it’s okay to also fail and fall. What a comfortable place to do that in school, to be able to learn your own leadership styles and your own ways of working with others and your own strengths and how your strengths complement or sometimes run into potentially headbutt with others. So I think it is a time to just be so curious and let yourself learn and grow because there’s so much growth that happens in a really short period of time. You’ll be thankful for your open minds and open eyes later.

Alex Mcquade:

Absolutely. That’s the best way to go into college and to align yourself with the things that you think you might be interested in, just try them, dip your toes in, see what you think. There’s no risk in college in trying something new. And like you said, there’s no such thing as failure when you’re looking for new opportunities and finding what’s right for you, just helping you find where to move to next. So as this pharmacy field and the accreditation standards continue to evolve, how do you think that Purdue is adapting their curriculum to ensure that students are best prepared for their careers after graduation?

Stephanie Arnett:

Yeah, this is always a tricky balance. And even in my almost four years to academic space, I’ve learned a lot of this process and I’ve always understood the standards that we have in our accreditation standards and our accreditation bodies. We’re pretty much aware of that just in pharmacy in general, but it’s a whole different level when you’re trying to mold the young minds in a standardized way for us all to be able to be successful with those licensing exams and the next steps that are needed. So I think my impact right now is really that P1 course, right? Really building those foundational skill sets and helping students understand what is professional identity formation and what is leadership.

And you kind of mentioned it too, and how your growth in leadership and how you want to work with teams and influence in different ways, and that takes some learning of yourself. And if you don’t know yourself, it’s going to be really difficult to find also what that next step is for you and what that next right step is for you. You can find the next step, but it may not be your step. And so that’s really the key to that is really how do we build our students with more growth mindset, those foundational skill sets, and it’s really the essential skills. We used to call them soft skills. I personally like to say essential skills and those skills that every employer wants to, no matter what your grades are, no matter what your score is on your NAPLEX, which doesn’t matter at the end of the day when you pass, no matter what your post-graduation plans are and what you’ve done in your post-graduation training.

At the end of the day, are you a team player? At the end of the day, can you advocate for yourself and for others? At the end of the day, do you have the confidence to take on a project or be a yes and a growth opportunity? Are you able to communicate to your leadership but also to your team members and also help be the leader? You are the pharmacist leader or the pharmacy person leader or the person who has the expertise in those spaces, regardless if you are pharmaceutical sciences or if you are PharmD. And how do you own that? How do you own that leadership?

And so I think there’s a lot of newer awareness in our accreditation standards to be able to really not discard or disregard that and to make some space for that in the curriculum so students really understand the importance of those skill sets are just as important as understanding diabetes and therapeutics. But we have to also lead by example in that, and we have to be able to help support students through that and support them through this journey. So I’m excited to be a part of that and I’m excited to hopefully make an impact with that course and see how we can help our next generation of students.

Alex Mcquade:

I’ll have to admit, after the conversation we’ve had so far, I’m so inspired by your career journey, but also by how much you care about the future of pharmacy and preparing the next generation of pharmacists to be as great of leaders as you are, even better, it sounds like you want to make people the best versions of themselves. So I guess as we’re getting ready to start closing up the podcast episode, what’s one piece of advice that you always give to students who seem unsure about their career path or feel a little bit overwhelmed by all the options that are available to them?

Stephanie Arnett:

Yeah, I think I’m going to go with three different things. Again, be curious, right? Be curious. Number two, network times infinity. You can never do too much networking and connecting with others. And three, really understanding your why. You have to understand yourself and your strengths first and foremost. And we’re really fortunate Purdue to have StrengthsFinders. I’m looking to actually personally and professionally develop more in that space and working with Gallup to see what I can do to elevate my roles in teaching and coaching and StrengthsFinders. But that is something that we are fortunate to have at Purdue to give you a piece of knowledge and a piece of data about who you are. So leaning into those strengths and really helping them, understanding them and helping them guide you with some of those decisions can be super helpful. I think I gave you three. Apologies. I can never just give one.

Alex Mcquade:

No, but they’re all great, so they’re all worth saying. So thank you so much. And a tradition on Living the Pharm Life is that we always close our episodes with a fun question. So I have a very fun question, and if you don’t have an idea, I have one for your autobiography, but what would be the title of your autobiography and why?

Stephanie Arnett:

So I love this question and thank you so much for doing this. And I have to cheat and say that I did have a heads up about this question and I have been mulling it over and really thinking about it, including even reaching out to a dear friend of mine who knows me really well, who’s not in pharmacy at all. So I have to give her a shout out. I adjusted it slightly just to be a little bit more literally colorful. But for me, I think it’s mountains, medicine and mayhem, my colorful life in motion. I mean that’s, I know, super specific and I don’t think I could have done that on my own. I’m sure I would have maybe gotten there, but it’s again, who are those people that are in your life that really know you and that really could speak to that and who you are? And she is beautiful with words. So shout out to my friend Beth on that.

I think I am constantly in motion. I’m constantly looking to learn. I’m constantly looking at the ecosystem of healthcare, but also I’m a real person. I’m a mom, I am a wife, I am a dog mom. I love to adventure and I love to explore and I love the mountains, and I have a little bit of mayhem in my life and chaos. We’re a sports family and we’re busy with lacrosse 24/7 I feel. And so it’s always a journey of a balance and an adventure of a balance and what I bring to my personal life and what I bring to my professional life that really does blend in and coexist together in so many different ways. And so I encourage all students to lean into those things. It doesn’t have to be one or the other. It doesn’t have to be separated. They really can coexist in a lot of beautiful ways and I learn something new every day on how to manage those things and life with two wild growing boys. So that’s what it could be in my autobiography.

Alex Mcquade:

Well, I think you need to start writing now because that title is perfect. I’m like, I’m ready to pick it up off the shelf. So that’s so awesome that you put so much thought into it.

Stephanie Arnett:

Too kind.

Alex Mcquade:

Well, Dr. Arnett, it’s been such a pleasure having you on the podcast today. Thank you so much for sharing your insights with us. And if any of these listeners to the podcast today are Purdue alumni, students, prospective students, and you’re looking to explore a new career, land a job, or just get some advice on where should I move next? What’s my why? Where should I go next based on my why? Don’t hesitate to reach out to the incredibly helpful Dr. Arnett.

Stephanie Arnett:

Thank you so much, Alex. I’m excited to see you grow in your journey too.

Alex Mcquade:

Thank you.

Stephanie Arnett:

You’re in an awesome space and an awesome school, and can’t wait to see what’s next for you.