Manager, Pharmacy
Santa Clara Family Health Plan
San Jose
California Pharmacist Association (CPhA) has played a fundamental role in my pharmacy experience. I had the opportunity as a pharmacy student to be apart of our local CPhA student chapter leadership board and experience an eye-opening rotation as a professional association IPPE student at CPhA’s headquarter.
Following my ASHP-AMCP PGY-1 Residency at Blue Shield of California, I was given the opportunity to be a Pharmacy Manager of a Medi-Cal Health Plan. Given the lack of management experience, I knew I had to invest time to learn how to manage projects and lead people. I was delighted to discuss the details of the CPhA Leadership Development Institute (LDI) program with my mentor, Johanna Liu, PharmD, MBA. The LDI program contains a variety of learning experiences that I sought in a leadership program.
I always imagine healthcare that was simple and easy to navigate. One of my aspiration is to have a major contribution to the staggering healthcare landscape and help those most in need in the community. My LDI project titled “Innovate for Tomorrow” is to examine lean six sigma philosophies to implement a project management platform alongside adopting cloud based technology in my current organization. The goal is not to launch these initiatives just within my department, but to have an organizational launch with cross functional business units utilizing the technology in order to have real-time document collaboration, seamless communication, and transparency. I believe I have the obligation not as a Pharmacy Manager, but as a healthcare provider to make recommendations to my leadership such as this one. This recommendation is an innovative and has a clear potential to be a transformative solution for my organization’s ability to leap forward and align with our core values and goals.
Understanding my own values, interests, strengths, and needs (VISN) has been pivotal in my LDI experience. It’s one thing to take a quiz to find your VISN, but it’s another to be apart of a pod and evaluate what they are and how they align with where you were yesterday, where you are today, and how it can help you navigate to your path tomorrow. I challenged myself to be committed to the LDI experience and held myself to a high standard of expectation that really allowed me to grow without knowing it.
Since joining CPhA’s LDI, I gained the necessary building blocks to create a solid foundation to make leader-driven decisions in my professional and personal life. The LDI sessions has validated and provided confirmation that you should do what you love. There’s only 24 hours in a day, and we shouldn’t spend the majority of it on the things that don’t align with our VISN unless it provides a stepping stone to something greater. The commitments I made to myself and commitments to others have never been more strong with a better understanding of my own grit and VISN. The experiences along side my colleagues and liked mind individuals has enable me to have the confidence need in executing my long-term career goals. Being more than a pharmacist, but a healthcare director or executive is just a stepping stone away.
I value the LDI experience and challenge.