Congratulations to Dan Myslakowski, PharmD candidate class of 2013 at Belmont University School of Pharmacy in Nashville, TN, for being the recipient of the 2011 PHARMACY PHASHION SCHOLARSHIP.  The scholarship is given to one most deserving pharmacy student in the amount of five hundred dollars ($500) and is designed to help subsidize a pharmacy student's college education.  Along with the scholarship, Dan will receive a different PHARMACY PHASHION tshirt each month for 12 months.  Dan's winning essay on the subject of creativity in pharmacy is as follows:

Getting Creative in Pharmacy:  The Transition of our Profession

Most pharmacists differ on their exact definition on the profession of pharmacy.  Some pharmacists are completely content being "pill pushers" while others are actively exploring and promoting "specialized" areas of pharmacy.  I am of the second type of these pharmacists in that I believe in the exploration and promotion of a specialized field of pharmacy known as "informatics."  This field is new.  This field is exciting.  However, it is poorly defined.  One definition that I believe it lacks is something along the lines of "using creative ways of incorporating or displaying information in such ways that it helps pharmacists, patients, and other health care professionals to disseminate, use, and understand important health care information or other information related to health care."  This essay will explore how pharmacy, in general, lacks creativity and how it could benefit from the inclusion of more creative pharmacists into the field.  This essay will also describe some of the creative projects I have worked on personally, and explain how they have benefited the field of pharmacy at large.

It has been shown that patients benefit when presented new health care information in more than one form.  For instance, it is beneficial when a pharmacist both verbally explains a medication and then offers a printed supplement.  However, many of these supplements are long, dry, boring, above the reading level of the patient, and don't even provide interesting and interactive graphics.  These types of supplements lack creativity, and because of this, cannot accomplish their intended goal: to help patients obtain healthier and longer lives.  What is therefore needed is a specialized group of pharmacists who potentially could work in conjunction with a team of graphic designers in charge of creative documents for print at the deferent reading levels that patients of all ages may or may not exhibit.  Instead of having a generic document for all patients, interesting documents specifically tailored to different sub-populations could increase things like education, medication therapy management, and compliance .  However, even more dangerous than failing to teach patients in creative ways is when pharmacists themselves are not taught in creative ways!

When is the last time, as a pharmacist, you honestly felt like falling asleep during your last C.E. class?  If you are like me, this is a common reoccurrence in many classes and presentations by pharmacists outside of school.  Like me, you have also discovered that most pharmacists have not learned to present information to other health care professionals in creative ways.  Because of this, it is possible that you could have missed an important point, or may not be able to recall a life-saving statistic three years after your course.  But why is this? It is because most pharmacists are not taught to be creative in school.  In fact, it is as if we are taught not to be creative in most of our classes and presentations.  By adding a little bit of creativity to a presentation or a lession, you can change views in ways not possible without the induction of some creativity.  For instance, in a dynamics class that I had, I was charged with the creation of a new, novel drug that was similar to a drug already on the market.  For this project, I decided to add a lipophillic group to a Prozac molelule in order to change the dosing from once daily to once weekly (the lipophillic group would hypothetically allow the drug to be used as a depot form).  For the presentation, I used a variety of software programs to turn this molecule into a rotating 3-D graphic that I was able to point to during my presentation.  Not only did this grab the audience's attention, but it helped me to explain the differences of my molecule from Prozac and why the addition was beneficial.

Another way creativity in pharmacy is needed is in pharmacy schools themselves.  That is, the profession is in a state of quick transition, and the definition of pharmacy is changing every day.   Students need to be prepared to make changes in the future to keep up with the profession, and in my mind, the best way to do this is to promote student creativity.  I am blessed to have such opportunities and support at Belmont University, where my professors have helped me, along with a select group of my classmates, to create one of the only pharmacy school run medicinal gardens in the nation. Although the garden is just in its inception, we have already made progress towards the creation of a garden that will one day be used for research purposes at our school. At the same time, this school has allowed me to create a school wide publication, "The Belmont Slate," and given me the opportunities to promote creativity in general as the founder and host of the "Belmont Gong Show," which allows pharmacy students to showcase their creative interests once every year on stage. 

In conclusion, I will reiterate the fact that the profession of pharmacy is changing quickly, and that creative individuals and programs are needed in order for it to be able to achieve better patient outcomes.  I will say that I truly believe that the profession needs creative ways of distributing and conveying information, both to patients and other medical professionals, if we can ever hope to stay up to date with all of the medication information that will be expected to know in the future.

Thanks to Dan for allowing us to share his winning essay here, and thanks to all who applied.  In 2012, there will be two scholarships awarded...one for a pharmacy student and the other for a pharmacy technician.  Stay tuned for details.