Search Results

Each day, leaders are confronted with challenges; how you react to these challenges is what matters. Leading means a team is moving along to the same goals and aspirations; it means that we stretch ourselves and we stretch our team players; it means supporting each other personally and professionally.

You can easily spot Susan across the room at a meeting as she is always one of the best dressed. Her competence is more than appearance, however. She has successfully integrated marriage, family, and her career. While at the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP), she and her team developed and successfully grew ASHP Advantage as a division specializing in conducting cutting edge continuing education programs. Susan has always been an innovator, adopting new technologies and educational models for healthcare professionals.

Susan is currently Chief Executive Officer of the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy (AMCP), where she leads the organization in fulfilling its mission of ensuring patients have access to the medicines they need at a cost they can afford. Before joining AMCP in 2016, she was Senior Vice President and Managing Director, Americas for DIA (Drug Information Association).

Susan received her bachelor of science in pharmacy from the University of Mississippi School of Pharmacy and completed a residency at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. She received her master’s in healthcare leadership at Western Governors University and a certificate in public health from the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Public Health. Susan’s letter offers the following advice: The best you can do is make sure you give equal consideration to career and personal factors when making career choices and deal with the guilt about missing the dance recital, soccer game, or important budget meeting.

Deb Devereaux approached her career with a well thought-out plan. She selected pharmacy as her career path because it would allow her the opportunity to build on her keen interest in science and the flexibility to raise a family while also pursuing a career. She spent summers working as an intern in various practice settings to determine which would be the best fit for her interests and methodically chose to pursue a business degree to help achieve her goals. Despite the meticulous planning, she readily admits that some other factors converged to influence her career path: personal relationships, her pharmacy colleagues and mentors, and serendipity. In the world of pharmacy, Deb’s career has turned out to be somewhat unusual. Leveraging the skills she developed in hospital pharmacy management and through her MBA training, she has become one of the nation’s experts on pharmacy reimbursement issues and the Medicare Part D benefit.

Deb is currently Principal and Chief Clinical Officer at the Rebellis Group. She received her bachelor of science degree in pharmacy from the University of Colorado and a master’s degree in business administration from Regis University. She has been a board-certified ambulatory care pharmacist.

Deb’s advice to young pharmacists is: approach life with a plan and a strong dose of open-mindedness and flexibility, seek out mentors, and help and support others.

During any discussion with Billy about his profession, you will almost certainly hear him say that it is about the people we serve and our genuine love, respect, and concern for them; that you must have a “fire in the belly” to fulfill your professional dreams; and that an enduring passion for the patients and the profession will sustain you in your career. His passion for his work and his profession is about a vision far greater than himself: It is about purpose and a better and safer care of patients.

He is currently President of Renaissance Innovative Pharmacy Services, Ltd., in Temple, Texas, and is also a Clinical Associate Professor at the University of Texas. For 25 years he was Corporate Director of Pharmacy for the Scott & White Health System in Temple, Texas, and also served as Director of Pharmacy and Central Services at Methodist Hospital in Lubbock, Texas.

Billy actively supports the pharmacy profession through his work in professional organizations. He has served in leadership positions in the Texas Society of Health-System Pharmacists, the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP), the ASHP Foundation, and the International Pharmaceutical Federation. He has received numerous awards including the ASHP Distinguished Leadership Award and the Harvey A.K. Whitney Lecture Award—ASHP’s highest award for health-system pharmacy. Billy received his bachelor of science degree from the University of Texas at Austin.

Billy provides a great insight: Passion and purpose will provide direction for you during those difficult and challenging times in your career.

Guru is a Sanskrit term used to describe a mentor, guide, or expert in a field or movement. If health-system pharmacy had a master guru, it would surely be William A. (Bill) Zellmer. Bill spent four decades of his career as an executive at the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP). While he retired from his role as ASHP’s Deputy Executive Vice President in 2009, his impact on the pharmacy profession is still felt through his activities as a speaker, writer, and consultant. Bill is perhaps best known for his powerful, visionary writing that continues to inspire generations of pharmacists. As editor-in-chief of AJHP, Bill penned more than 200 editorials addressing contemporary—and sometimes controversial—issues affecting the profession. So powerful were his editorials that a compilation of many of them was published as the popular book, The Conscience of a Pharmacist—Essays on Vision and Leadership for a Profession, in 2002.

Bill received his bachelor of science in pharmacy at the University of Wisconsin and a masters in public health at Johns Hopkins University. He is currently president of Pharmacy Foresight Consulting, which supports clients in the areas of strategic and professional issues in pharmacy practice and education. As founding editor of the annual Pharmacy Forecast report published by the ASHP Foundation, Bill lectures frequently on trends and issues that impact pharmacy, health policy, and our healthcare system. He is passionate about preserving, sharing, and learning from the history of pharmacy and is a past president and engaged member of the American Institute of the History of Pharmacy. In his letter, Bill reminds us that pharmacy history can foster pride in being part of an endeavor that has a grand purpose in society, thereby creating a deeper bond with the profession.