You can't be successful by giving up or by being intimidated. It's better to be "a lion for a day than a sheep all your life." You have to make your own destiny if it's something you really want.
Midori Kondo
PNOW: Why did you choose pharmacy as your profession?
MK: I started working at a pharmacy when I was 18 years old. I was actually a delivery driver for a long-term care facility. I really wasn't impressed with being a pharmacist because I just saw one little side of it, the place I was dropping off the medications. I think I had the view of pharmacy that most people do in the community - a pharmacist just stands behind the counter and fills the medications - and I just happened to be delivering them instead of somebody picking them up. But after I started working there a little longer I could see more of the interactions with the pharmacists and other health care professionals. Since it was a pharmacy for long-term care facilities, the pharmacist really only talked to nursing and the physicians by phone. I was an engineering major at the time and was just trying to make a few bucks on the side. Then I noticed that I really became interested in what was going on so I actually decided to go to a hospital pharmacy and apply for a technician job.
PNOW: Tell us about that job.
MK: I started working as a technician at Children's Hospital and I stayed there for about five years. I also worked my way up as a technician at the long-term care facility. I really got a taste of clinical pharmacy at the Children's Pharmacy. It was amazing to see how specific the dosing was for these tiny little babies and the clinical pharmacists worked with everybody. They worked with the families trying to explain the medications for their children. They worked with physicians. They worked with nurses on different dosing strategies. It opened my eyes. It was just a totally amazing place to work. I was really taken by just how much the pharmacist actually contributed to the health care team. I decided, hey, I would like to do this!
PNOW: You were a pharmacy technician for seven years. Can you share any insights you gained during that time?
MK: Sometimes as pharmacists we forget that our technical staff is so important. We really rely on them quite a bit. I have learned that they run the show and really I am just there to make sure that things are going the right way. I think my technicians and interns love working with me because I have such an appreciation for their job.
PNOW: What specifically do you think pharmacists can do to help the technician be more successful?
MK: When I was a technician, I had a lot of pharmacists who encouraged me. I think pharmacists could show their technicians something on the clinical side that would help them to do their job a little better, make them understand the whole picture. A pharmacist could take a minute to explain things. If a technician shows a lot of interest in the field, a pharmacist could show them a little support and they just might encourage and raise a new pharmacist! It could help with the pharmacist shortage we are experiencing right now.
PNOW: What is important for your job satisfaction?
MK: Being able to do pretty much what I want to do is real exciting to me. I love that there are new things in pharmacy all the time and I love research. To me, research happens every single day. It doesn't have to be a clinical trial. Research is something we do by answering questions for physicians, it's what we do when we are working. Finding new ways to help people, finding better ways to serve our patients, all those things are little research projects that we do and that's what really gives me job satisfaction.
PNOW: You worked in an emergency room where you were not readily accepted as part of the health care team. Can you tell us about that experience?
MK: I had to show the team that pharmacists provide a service and are there to help them and the patients; that no one is trying to take over their territory. When they initially saw a pharmacist in the ER, they wondered what they were going to do with me. I tried to show that I was a support system, not the medication police. Lots of things are going on all the time. Everybody had times when they were just franticly busy. Eventually, they learned that I would help them save a step. By the end of my ER experience, when traumas came in, my title went away and I was part of the team. We had one big trauma team - everybody's title went away - we all just did what we were trained to do. That was the greatest experience I ever had - going from a place where no one knew my name and didn't know what to do with me to eventually becoming just one of the team. That was incredible.
PNOW: Can you pinpoint what you did to get over that hump?
MK: I would stay visible, being there all the time and always approaching someone who looked troubled to see if I could help. I think just showing them that I was qualified to help really started to turn the tables.
PNOW: Would you say you needed to take the initiative?
MK: You have to take the initiative. You have to be patient. It just takes a couple of people to start utilizing you and then it travels like a wild fire throughout the department.
PNOW: Did you feel defeated at times?
MK: Oh sure. Some people are very territorial. There are some physicians who still want to write their own orders and they don't really want you to give them any suggestions. I respect that. If that's something they feel passionate about, I think they should do it. I wasn't going to be able to change them or win them over in that short period of time I was there. I was only there for five weeks. I think over time, they might be willing to let some of that go. But some people take a lot more time than others.
PNOW: How did you not take it personally?
MK: It was hard. At first I did. I would come home and think: "What am I doing?" Was I crazy for being there 16 hours a day to try to establish a service for someone to just beat me down? But, I thought this is important. I had to try to take a step back and say this is not my issue, this is their issue.
PNOW: You speak nationally about Heparin-induced thrombocytopenia. How did you get involved in that?
MK: I love challenge, particularly where we really don't have good answers. HIT is a disease where we really didn't have good treatment modalities. Even with the new direct thrombin inhibitors, morbidity and mortality still remain high. I became intrigued with the disease state itself. I had a patient who was on Lepirudin, which is a direct thrombin inhibitor for the treatment and prevention of thrombosis and HIT. This patient was on dialysis and the dosing recommendations by the manufacturer were really not appropriate in this case. I started to become interested in the drug therapy for HIT. As new drugs started popping up, I began to get involved. I read a lot on the subject and started research projects. My mentor and fellowship director, Ann K Wittkowsky, was a consultant for some of these companies. She introduced me to people in the anticoagulation world and I began to network a little bit. I believe they saw that I was very interested in this topic and I was eager to participate with educational efforts on HIT. I was then given the opportunity to speak on a national level about this topic.
PNOW: Did you have any anxiety or inhibitions that you had to work through?
MK: Oh, absolutely! I had anxiety because I really wanted this but I wasn't exactly sure how to get there. Networking helped me with meeting the right people but then it was up to me to make it happen. I had anxiety over whether I was going to be able to relay this topic to other people in a manner that they would remember. I practiced my talk, went over and over my slides, read my articles probably a million times, and I worked with other pharmacists to see if it made sense to them. There was a lot of preparation time. I was fairly young in my career but my mentor was very good at encouraging me. I also started working on projects with hematologist, Terry Gernsheimer, who has paged me whenever she had a question regarding drug therapy for HIT. She has taken my recommendations and has included me as part of the team.
PNOW: Did that really help build your confidence?
MK: That gave me the feeling that I could move mountains! Anytime you get a little trust and reassurance it feeds your fire.
PNOW: Did you have any specific strategies to get through any anxiety you may have been feeling?
MK: The anxiety, I think, comes from the unknown. I asked other people what they experienced the first time they spoke. Trying to identify some of the unknown helps you overcome some of these things. Give yourself preparation time to figure out what you need to know and do. You can't be successful by giving up or by being intimidated. It's better to be "a lion for a day then a sheep all your life." You have to make your own destiny if it's something you really want.
PNOW: How important do you feel that mentoring has been for your professional success?
MK: It has been a key component. There is nothing more important for professional success than that. Whether it is from another pharmacist, a hematologist or trauma doctors, you can learn from all these people. You can see how they react and respond then take a look at yourself and make the necessary adjustments.
PNOW: What personal attribute do you posses that you think contributes the most to your success?
MK: I guess it's my desire to get to the bottom of things. Sometimes it might be annoying for people because I need to know the answer. And sometimes we don't have a good answer, but you need to recognize that as well. You have to strive to find things that really inspire you, that keep you alive. Otherwise you can become very stagnant and unhappy which is counterproductive.
Favorite down time activity:
I love to hike in the summer time. The beautiful scenery really takes my mind off things and reminds me just how small we are in this world.
Favorite Quote: "You cannot build a reputation on what you are going to do." Henry Ford
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