Forging the Future: One Leader’s Persistent Pursuit of Excellence

Isabella Tobin:

You are listening to Living the Pharm Life, the official podcast of Purdue University’s College of

Pharmacy. I’m your host, Isabella Tobin, a PharmD candidate with a passion for telling the stories of our college’s, phenomenal and loyal students, faculty, staff, alumni, and friends who persistently pursue excellence in all they do.

Dr. John Allen is one of the newest members of the Purdue College of Pharmacy, bringing with him a wealth of experience and a deep passion for advancing the field of pharmacy. As the newly appointed head of the Department of Pharmacy Practice, Dr. Allen is excited to embark on this new chapter of his career, one that will not only shape the future of pharmacy education, but will also leave a lasting impact on the profession. We are so excited to welcome you to the Pharmacy family.

Dr. John Allen:

Well, thank you Isabella for having me, and I’m excited to be here and excited to be part of the Purdue family, so thank you.

Isabella Tobin:

Yeah, we’re so excited to have you. To start off our discussion, could you tell us more about your pharmacy background? How did you get here at Purdue today?

Dr. John Allen:

Thank you for the question. So I’m originally from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, so cold weather doesn’t scare me, but originally from Philadelphia and then pharmacy school took me to Florida A&M University in Tallahassee, Florida. And then from there I went on to complete residency training, both PGY-I as well as a PGY-II specializing in critical care at Tampa General Hospital. And from there bounced around, but primarily my home was in pharmacy academia. So I’ve had roles at Auburn University and most recently at the University of Florida College of Pharmacy. In between that stead, I actually had a stint outside of academia where I had a chance to work in corporate pharmacy and helped to navigate clinical pharmacy services for a 16 hospital system in the Tampa Bay area. So I’ve had a wide array of different experiences and hope that I’ll be able to take that and hopefully impart some wisdom onto the Purdue students.

Isabella Tobin:

Yeah, I’m certainly sure that you will. That is a very extensive career. How did you get started in pharmacy before you even jumped into all this?

Dr. John Allen:

Yeah, so I was fortunate enough that a close family friend was a pharmacist. So like many of us were exposed to it through either in your own neighborhood, seeing a community pharmacy. In my case, it was a close family friend who was a pharmacist. He was a community pharmacist, and so he really got a chance to see how he interacted with patients and how he engaged. And I had an appreciation for learning about the different types of drugs. I was always interested in how a small tablet or a small pill could make somebody feel better. And so I was always asking questions like that. And I did well in science when I was in school, so I enjoyed that piece of it.

And then I was fortunate enough that in my high school, I went to a Magnet high school in Philadelphia, and the Magnet high school offered a class in pharmacology as an elective. It was introduction to pharmacology and so not … On a much smaller scale than what we would get here at Purdue, but it was really eye-opening just to learn about different receptors and different things like that. So from there, that was kind of, the cast was laid and I was on my way.

Isabella Tobin:

I work with pre-pharmacy students a lot, especially in the fall semesters as they’re working on their PharmCAS applications. And a lot of them have the same sort of story, like a family member was a pharmacist, really interested in how medications worked. Never heard about that high school course though. If my high school had that, oh, it would’ve been all over for me.

Dr. John Allen:

And it was interesting because it was something that you look at the list of options for electives and that was the one that immediately caught my eye. So as I say, the rest is history, but I was fortunate enough to go to a school that had that.

Isabella Tobin:

Yeah. Thank you for sharing that origin story with me. Could you talk about some of your career highlights? What have been some of your most memorable or your proudest moments?

Dr. John Allen:

Well, I would say for me, one thing that I’ve prided myself in my career is just being adaptable. I’ve been in a few different settings and I’ve been able to take whatever setting I’ve been in and just try to be the best pharmacist that I could be. So for instance, it’s hard to boil it down to one, I would say my most recent thing that I’ve been very proud of was recently attaining RL-I funding from the NIH to investigate the use of supportive care medications in patients with pancreatic cancer and to really understand differences in why patients take the medication versus why they don’t among different racial and ethnic minorities with pancreatic cancer. There’s not many pharmacists who have RL-I funding, and so that was a big career goal of mine as a faculty member, and to be able to see it come to fruition was great.

I say it is probably my most prideful moment as a pharmacist because A, not many pharmacists have it, as I mentioned, but people will read the top line that, “Okay, he got the grant,” but I submitted that grant six times, or some iteration of it, six times over the course of three years. And so there were a lot of work and a lot of resiliency went into putting that application together. And so to get to the end of the rainbow, so to speak, and get that grant was rewarding not just for me, but also rewarding for the team that we put together that I worked on that grant.

Isabella Tobin:

Yeah, congratulations. That is absolutely incredible. I can’t imagine how excited you must’ve been when you got that notification.

Dr. John Allen:

Absolutely. I kept refreshing the screen just to make sure, did I actually get this grant or is that the real score of the grant? So yeah, it was definitely a lot of hard work went into it, but now it’s the hard part of doing the work.

Isabella Tobin:

Yeah. Congratulations again.

Dr. John Allen:

Thank you.

Isabella Tobin:

And I feel like I can probably speak for the College of Pharmacy when I say we’re really glad that you’re doing this here because-

Dr. John Allen:

Absolutely, absolutely.

Isabella Tobin:

… Yeah. I mean, that’s incredible and Purdue has to be very lucky to have you here.

Dr. John Allen:

Well, I think it goes both ways. I’m excited to be here as well, and we’ll keep doing great things together.

Isabella Tobin:

Yeah. What attracted you to this position at Purdue?

Dr. John Allen:

Well, I would say there are a number of different things. If you think about Purdue, and Purdue is well known in pharmacy academia and around the pharmacy world in general in producing great clinicians, producing great scientists that are solving the next generation of issues that come up around medication use and how to use it more effectively and how to use it more safely. So that was one thing is that it has a long legacy of excellence behind it. I knew coming in that if I were fortunate enough to be selected as the department head, I’d be joining a faculty that has done great things before and certainly looking to build upon the excellence that’s already in place and maybe take it to new heights.

So first thing I would say is just the history behind Purdue. Secondly would be just the people. When you look at folks in the department, we have a lot of well-known clinicians and scientists in our department who are doing great things or are world renowned for what they do. And so to be able to lead that group certainly is humbling for me, but I’m certainly excited about what we can do together.

I would say third for me, just being able to be in an atmosphere where when we talk about health disparities, most of my work is around health disparities and trying to eliminate health disparities. And so the work that Purdue Pharmacy has done with the development of a center focused on eliminating health disparities and things that are happening at both the college and university level around health disparities, those are things that excited me. And so looking forward to being able to add my 2 cents and certainly try to move it forward.

Isabella Tobin:

What are some of your top priorities in this position?

Dr. John Allen:

I think for me, one of the things that I want to do, certainly anytime you come into a new position, want to learn more about what’s happening and all the great things that are here, you can see it on an email or you can see it from a website, but actually talking to the faculty, I’m even more impressed about what’s happening here at Purdue. I would say in terms of my priorities, one is certainly to continue to elevate the profession. I want to develop, and along with faculty and graduate students, and really the whole department, help to develop the next generation of pharmacists and scientists that are going to solve the next, going to be solving problems for their patients and for communities at large, for the next 50 years.

When we talk about pharmacists and students that are like yourself that are in place now, you’re going to be a pharmacist for the next 20, 30, 40, 50 years. We’re training pharmacists and students for that type of role. And so for me, that really excites me. And so I want to make sure that the product that comes from that, from our department in terms of how to practice pharmacy, is high quality. So I’m focused on achieving teaching excellence among our faculty.

The other thing is thinking about discoveries and making innovation. Purdue’s well known for that, and I certainly want to ensure that we’re continuing our research excellence there. There’s evolution every day around new things. Two years ago, no one knew what AI was or it certainly wasn’t in the vernacular. And so I want to find ways potentially to look at how AI could impact pharmacy practice and think about how can we be at the forefront of using AI and data science to improve medication use. So I think in terms of thematically, that’s another area.

And then third, if you talk about what are major priorities for me is just making sure we’re taking care of our people, so making sure that we’re cultivating an environment where there’s a strong sense of family and wellbeing and supporting each other, and so looking to do all of those things to try to cultivate them a together. So like I said, I’m fortunate to be here and I think there’s a lot for us to do.

Isabella Tobin:

Yeah. What are some of those … You talked about how our students here are one of the great products of Purdue. What are some of the skills or competencies you think are going to be really important in these future pharmacists?

Dr. John Allen:

I mean, to your point, there’s no single factor that I think will elevate a particular student pharmacist. I think when we talk about developing the next generation, it’s a whole bunch of factors that may influence the quality of the student pharmacist, but if I had to boil it down to one, I would say just keeping the patient at the center of what we do. Everything that we do comes back to having an impact on a patient or on a community if you’re looking at it from a population health standpoint. So no matter where you go in pharmacy, I would like to impart on students to continue to take a patient-centered approach and utilize that when you’re making decision making of what’s the best thing to do? And I would present to you, if you’re doing that and you’re keeping the patient at the center of what you do, then you can’t go wrong.

Isabella Tobin:

Yeah, I think that’s something that they’ve already started really reinforcing in the college is that keeping the patient focus as your center. I know that has a lot to do with interprofessional collaboration. How do you plan on supporting faculty with this interdisciplinary approach?

Dr. John Allen:

Well, to your point, we live in a world where folks are interconnected, and so just to say you’re going to work on a team of pharmacists, that’s not the reality. Every day when we go into practice sites or if we go into our different, even if you think about science and doing research, it’s a team approach. And so variety’s the spice of life. And so being able to work with colleagues from different facets of whether it’s in a different discipline or even a different specialty is important. I would say in terms of how do I intend to cultivate that, I would encourage in terms of our research, making sure that we’re connecting with various facets of thought. So for one example, one area I’m particularly interested in trying to strengthen is looking at health policy and how health policy may influence the way we use medications. And so I think identifying as a department and as otherwise identifying other departments or other places in the university and outside that are looking at that same thing, certainly can be a way for us to collaborate.

Isabella Tobin:

Yeah, thank you so much for sharing that. I know we’ve kind of touched on this a little bit already when you talked about AI, but healthcare is going to change so much in the next five to 10 years. What kinds of changes are you expecting and how do you want to prepare the college for those changes?

Dr. John Allen:

That’s a good question. If I was a genie and could figure out what are the next changes in the five years, I think I’d be a rich man. But I would say to you that I think in terms of where pharmacy’s going, I certainly think automation is going to be, it’s already here in many respects, but to see it in practice and seeing where it goes to hopefully enable more pharmacists to maybe focus on clinical related activities, I think is something that could be impactful to the profession. I think when we talk about AI and data science, using big data to help identify how we can identify the best drug and the right drug for the right patient at the right time is certainly something that I think is a potential. And I think we need to be training our students how to utilize those tools and not be afraid of them.

Because a lot of times there can be fear of the unknown or fear of the new, and so I don’t know if you know, but as pharmacists, we tend to be risk averse folks. And so I can certainly say that for me, I’ll fall on the sword there, but I think embracing the newness and embracing innovation is important for us as we move forward. And so anything I can do to try to cultivate that type of mindset amongst the student is something that I’m going to try to impart and encourage the rest of the faculty to impart upon students.

I would also say, thinking about, I mentioned earlier we’re training pharmacists for the next 50 years, so continuously developing this idea of continuous growth. We know that as students, you’re in school, you’re learning for the four years or the six years that you’re here, but kind of fostering where that’s an expectation beyond just CE. I think folks know about CE, but how can you continuously try to grow as a clinician, as a scientist, or whatever area of pharmacy you’re in? That’s something I want to try to cultivate amongst not just our faculty, but among our students as well.

Isabella Tobin:

Yeah, I think that’s extremely important, and I love that sense of community that you’re trying to build, and I think that having that despite any changes that we’re going to experience, as long as we have that strong foundation that’s going to see us far.

Dr. John Allen:

Absolutely.

Isabella Tobin:

So as a student, obviously, I’m always open to advice, especially as I’m about to head out on rotations, trying to figure out what I’m going to be doing with the rest of my life. What advice do you have for students?

Dr. John Allen:

I’ll say in addition to thinking about being patient centered and keeping the patient in the center of what you do, I think one thing I would encourage you to do is to develop and develop a sense of curiosity. And I’ve gotten farther chasing failure than I ever did chasing success, and I heard that at a conference. There was a speaker that was mentioned that, but it is reality of where I’ve tried to be bold in terms of career choices and just not being afraid of failure. Failure is going to come from time-to-time. That’s just the nature of life. But I would encourage you to not be afraid of taking risk and betting on yourself.

Everyone finds their path to pharmacy in different ways. I’d love to hear about how you got to your path of pharmacy.

Isabella Tobin:

Yeah, so you talked about how you knew a pharmacist. My grandmother was a nurse, and so she used to talk about healthcare all the time. She would talk about her patient cases with me, not HIPAA safe, now that I’m in the profession, but I loved that. I loved hearing about the difference she was making in patient lives. And then in high school, I found an absolute love for chemistry, which followed me to organic chemistry. I love organic chemistry. My friends all make fun of me.

Dr. John Allen:

I going to say that’s probably in the minority.

Isabella Tobin:

Yeah. My friends all make fun of me for it. And in my infectious disease class right now, actually tomorrow, we’re going to be talking about organic chemistry of some kind of molecules. And-

Dr. John Allen:

So if I ever need a review on organic chemistry, I know who-

Isabella Tobin:

Exactly, well, that’s what my friends say sitting in the row with me in the pharmacy building. They’re like, “Do you know what that functional group is?” And I’m like, “Yeah, I’ll tell you later,” diligently taking my notes. But that’s kind of how I found my way to pharmacy was through my grandmother and then into chemistry, which took me straight to organic and kind of back around to healthcare.

Dr. John Allen:

Absolutely. So it’s kind of all of it combined together.

Isabella Tobin:

It was my perfect world all coming together

Dr. John Allen:

As a current student, and as you’re a P3 right now, so how do you see Purdue Pharmacy specifically preparing you to take on the professional pharmacy?

Isabella Tobin:

I think Purdue Pharmacy has been really good at teaching me both what I need to know and also what I will be able to figure out. I’ve had classes just specifically on understanding other people’s research and how to do my own research so that way I can report that out to patients and providers, which I think has been really good as we talk about all of the changes that we’re going to see in healthcare in the future. I mean, five years from now, the drugs that I learned today may not be what’s used anymore. They may not be first line, they may not even be third line treatments. So I think Purdue having all of this time put into teaching you that you’re not going to know everything and that’s okay, but here’s how you will know things. I think that’s been really helpful, and I think that’ll be really helpful as I go on rotations and then for my future career after.

Dr. John Allen:

Well, I mean, to your point, I think getting skills is certainly, yes, we need to know the drugs. That’s obvious as a pharmacist, but if we can develop skills that are transferable to different areas of pharmacy or even different facets of day-to-day practice as a pharmacist, that is what’s going to carry you further than just memorizing drug names and how they work.

Isabella Tobin:

Exactly. And I think that’s going to help no matter what area of pharmacy students go into. That’s something else I really like about Purdue is that we don’t really try to pigeonhole our students into a particular area. I’m interested in nuclear. I’m hoping to go into that after I graduate, but based on the skill set that Purdue gave me, even if I spend 10 years in nuclear, I could transition to something else and I would be able to build back up that knowledge that I learned here in school and whatever else happens in the next 10 years. But I think having that opportunity to see different things and to figure out how it will allow so many students to have very non-linear careers,

Dr. John Allen:

Absolutely. My career’s testament to being non-linear, so I certainly would appreciate that as well.

Isabella Tobin:

I have one last question for you. So I’m not sure if you’ve seen any of these episodes, but I like to ask kind of a fun question at the end. So my fun question for you, if you had to create a pharmacy-themed superhero, what would their powers be and what would you name them?

Dr. John Allen:

Man oh man. What would their powers be and what would their name be? That’s an interesting question. I would say I think their powers would be to … That’s interesting. That’s a tough one. I would say just on off the cuff, I would say pharmacy, we tend to be folks that we don’t care who gets the credit. That’s kind of our nature. We tend to be in the background a lot, and I think at the end of the day, to make sure patients get what they need. I would say as a superpower, just being a super healer, being able to, if a patient was in need, being able to meet their needs lickety-split. What would their name be? Oh man. Super RPH. I’m sure there are probably more creative names, but that’s what immediately comes to mind.

Isabella Tobin:

Hey, I like it. For me, in one of my classes, we’re doing infectious disease right now, so obviously I went to the [inaudible 00:25:03] and she would help with antimicrobial resistance, and that would be my superhero.

Dr. John Allen:

Awesome.

Isabella Tobin:

Yeah, I did have a lot of time thinking about that though.

Dr. John Allen:

And it is interesting too. Another one now that pops in my mind is, pharmacists, we a lot of times have to be super sleuths and figure things out. We get a lot of information from different patients or from patients and provider and put it all together. Oftentimes we got to go the extra step. So maybe Super Sleuth. I don’t know.

Isabella Tobin:

I like that one too. Thank you again so much for being here. I had a great time talking with you today.

Dr. John Allen:

All right, same here. Thank you so much.