April 2, 2020
Amy Guisinger, a dual degree Pharm.D.,MPH student at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy and Gillings School of Global Public Health, is deeply passionate about the intersections between healthcare administration, pharmaceutical research and leadership on the population health scale.
Because of her pursuit of leadership and her ability to apply classrooms lessons in both her professional and personal endeavors, Guisinger is the recipient of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) 2019-20 Student Leadership Award.
Guisinger was one of nine students who earned this honor, which recognizes pharmacy students who are active members of ASHP and have demonstrated superior leadership ability during the course of their professional education. As part of the award, Guisinger will also receive a plaque, a $2,000 prize, and access to a drug information reference library.
Guisinger’s passion for leadership and public service can be attributed to her work in a variety of extracurricular initiatives at UNC. During her second year of pharmacy school, Guisinger served as President of her Pharm.D. class and sat on the School’s Wellness and Resiliency Task Force to assess burnout among Pharm.D. students. Since then, she has been selected to serve on the ASHP Pharmacy Student Forum Community and eCommunications Advisory Group, through which she collaborates with student pharmacist leaders across the country to develop instructional tools and social media promotional resources for a number of ASHP chapters. She also serves as the Director of Professional Development for the Graduate and Professional Student Federation (GPSF), a student government organization that serves over 11,000 UNC graduate and professional students.
At UNC Health Care, Guisinger works as the Chief Pharmacy Intern, and is responsible for coordinating a rigorous application process for a variety of student internship programs. She also has extensive research experiences at GlaxoSmithKline and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Effective Healthcare Program.
At Gillings, she specializes in public health leadership and enrolled in a number of elective courses to sharpen her “soft skills.” She said, “I thought adding public health to my professional degree would give me a more holistic approach to serving patients.”
When asked for one piece of advice for aspiring student leaders, Guisinger said she encouraged students to persevere even after experiencing rejection. She applied for the ASHP Award last year as well, but was encouraged to reapply the following year after gaining more leadership experience. She also emphasized that leadership shows up in different ways and isn’t always about who is the most “visible” on campus, but can be shown by those taking on smaller, less visible roles.
When asked her personal leadership style, Guisinger responded “I like to stay true to my values and to always bloom where I am planted…I remember feeling initially discouraged when I did not receive the award last year, but from that experience I learned to make the most of every opportunity and to take leaps of faith. While not every project or event will turn out the way that you initially intend, part of being a leader means being adaptable and really focusing on those that you’re leading or the program itself and not yourself.”
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