Panther Profiles are Q&A interviews that highlight Panthers of all stripes -- students, faculty, staff, alumni, board members and anyone else in the campus community.
Dr. Leigh Briscoe-Dwyer ’87 is system director of pharmacy at United Health Services in Binghamton, a member of the ACPHS Board of Trustees and president-elect of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, the largest professional pharmacy group in the country. She has called her election at ASHP “the honor of a lifetime.” She shared her thoughts on lessons she has learned on the route to becoming a great pharmacist.
Did you always want to be a pharmacist?
I originally thought I would go to medical school. I thought that rather than going pre-med, it would make more sense to study pharmacy, because I would be able to support myself while I was going to medical school and the pharmacy degree would contribute to my success.
Once I got embedded in, as I say, the tapestry of everything that is ACPHS, I realized I was meant to be a pharmacist. I always think I would have been a good physician. But I know that I’m a great pharmacist.
What makes a great pharmacist?
You have to have a commitment to service. I was raised by people who had that in their DNA as well. My father was the postmaster. But both my parents became paramedics because they saw a need. The first volunteer ambulance squad in Laurens, New York, was started at my kitchen table.
When I first started doing my experiential rotations, I worked in a community pharmacy in Cooperstown, New York. Everybody knew everybody. What an impact that group of people made — whether it was opening on a Sunday afternoon because somebody needed something or making a delivery to the woman who couldn’t get out of her home. That was the first time I realized this is an important job.
You have worked in a variety of positions as a pharmacist. What has that taught you?
A pharmacy degree is a springboard to almost anyplace. There’s the traditional places — hospital or health system. And now, there’s so many places to find a job — whether it’s oncology or ambulatory surgery or specialty pharmacy or even marketing and advertising. Nobody can turn on the TV right now without seeing an ad for a specialty drug, right? Pharmacists are involved in all those ads too.
What advice do you have for a young pharmacist starting out on their rotations or making an initial career choice?
One of the best things you can do, and one of the things that made me really good at whatever job I had, is that my first five years as a pharmacist, I worked at a community hospital on the bench. I did everything. I made chemo. I managed narcotics. I worked every shift. You learn that nurses are your best friends. You learn how to navigate the ER, you learn all the political stuff. You learn how to make decisions. I worked the evening shift. Well, guess what? After 7 o’clock, it’s just you, and you have to make decisions. You have to learn how to triage and stand up for yourself and communicate really well. So that was the best training I ever got.
On your rotations, do something that scares you a little bit. I did a rotation in pediatrics, and it scared me because it was so foreign. But I'm glad that I did that, and I tell students that if you have an opportunity to do a rotation at, say, the Indian Health Service in Arizona, go do that because the opportunity may never happen again. Use your rotations to get a little taste of everything that's out there.
When did you get involved in professional organizations?
It was when I was a fifth-year pharmacy student on rotations in a hospital in Cooperstown, New York. Tom O’Brien, the director of pharmacy, said, don’t make plans for tomorrow evening because I’m taking you to a meeting. He told us the most important thing you’re going to do is to get involved, because it’s the only way that you have a voice.
I took that lesson with me. I did a very traditional step-by-step process. I got involved in the Long Island Society of Health System Pharmacists. And then I got involved at the state level, and then I became the president of the New York State Council, where I went to the ASHP conference and represented New York, and then I progressed in my involvement at ASHP. When I won my election as president, I called Tom O’Brien. His genuine happiness and excitement was the best thing ever.
The networking is incredible. I literally have access to so many people in the profession. And you get a connection there. It amplifies your voice.
You were the first in your family to go to college. What does it mean to you now to be leading a national organization?
I think it means that your dreams are as big as you let them be. There's absolutely nothing that is not possible.
But you can think about something, you can have a have a wish list and a bucket list, but those things don’t happen by chance, right? Nobody's going to knock on your door and say, hey Leigh, I think you would be a great president. It's about putting yourself out there saying, I want this, and I'm willing to do the work for it.