Jessica Robinson, Pharm.D., is a Community Pharmacy Practice Research Fellow at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. She is also a 2019 graduate of UNC School of Medicine’s fourth cohort of the Interprofessional (IPE) Geriatrics Fellowship, a one-year program supported by the Carolina Geriatrics Workforce Enhancement Program (CGWEP). This month, we spoke to Robinson about her experience in the program, interest in geriatrics and future goals.
Q: Tell me more about your work as an IPE Geriatrics Fellow through the UNC School of Medicine.
A: The IPE Geriatrics Fellowship through the School of Medicine is part of the Carolina Geriatric Workforce Enhancement Program. It’s an interprofessional program with fellows from medicine, dentistry and nursing. For the 2018-2019 fellowship cohort, pharmacists were invited to apply for the first time. As a community pharmacy research fellow with a special interest in geriatrics, it was a great opportunity for me. Our cohort was a year-long program, spending about half of our time in didactic classwork. Providers who specialize in geriatrics came from across health care settings to share clinical best practices, as well as their experience about what it’s like for patients to navigate their health and the healthcare system. From an interprofessional perspective, we learned how we can work together as a team to help patients navigate the system and make sure they have the best care possible.
The program also includes a research project led by the fellows. For our project, we chose to study the older adult experience during an outpatient clinic visit. Using a qualitative approach, we conducted focus group interviews with older adults and caregivers, as well as interviews with health care providers and clinic staff. The focus group interviews were really special for me in terms of learning what it’s like to navigate a clinic visit from an older adults perspective. For the health care provider interviews, we included anyone on the clinic staff who might come into contact with a patient. By obtaining diverse perspectives, we were able to gain some really good insight on how outpatient care meets or does not meet older adult needs.
Q: How do you want to build off of the work you did for your fellowship project?
A: As a pharmacist, my interests are in both community practice and geriatrics, but I also have a strong interest in rural health. I’ll soon be moving back to my hometown in Tennessee where we have a large rural population with little access to the level of primary care that you might see around UNC and Chapel Hill, and even less access to geriatrics specialty care. Depending on the practice setting, I may come into contact with patients from rural East Tennessee, Southwest Virginia and Western North Carolina. So being able to take the skills and information I’ve learned over the past year and apply it my practice and teaching will be very helpful.
Q: Have you had any mentors while at UNC?
A: I think mentorship is one of the strong points of UNC. Everyone I’ve come into contact with has really invested in me, not only for my own benefit but recognizing that strengthening me is strengthening the next generation of researchers and healthcare providers. I owe a lot to my Community Pharmacy Practice Research Fellowship director Stefanie Ferreri and my IPE Geriatrics Fellowship pharmacy faculty advisor Kim Sanders, both from Eshelman School of Pharmacy. From the UNC School of Medicine, I have had amazing mentors in Ellen Roberts (director of the IPE Geriatrics Fellowship), Cris Henage, and Jan Busby-Whitehead. I have had the honor of working with all of these mentors on projects beyond the IPE Geriatrics Fellowship (we’re on a couple grants together) and so I get to learn from them and they have really invested in me.
Q: What was it like working with people in other healthcare fields?
A: What I really have enjoyed about it is learning how different healthcare providers approach questions or approach problems, and how they solve it.
Q: How did you realize what your career interests were?
A: When I was a student in pharmacy school, that’s really where my interest in geriatrics and community pharmacy came about. I saw older adults taking lots of medication, and I grew concerned about the number of medications folks were on and wondered what I could do to help them navigate their healthcare. I saw community pharmacists as an amazing opportunity to extend the reach of patient care because they’re right there in the community, with easy access for both patients and their health care providers. They are ideally positioned to reinforce the patient’s plan of care.
I’m pursuing a faculty position, so teaching and sharing the knowledge that I’ve been given with the next generation of pharmacists is really my passion, because I feel like that’s what we need, that’s what students need right now. Today, students are benefiting from seeing health care providers across practice settings work in collaborative relationships to enhance patient care.
This has been an incredible opportunity for me, and I feel fortunate to have been able to do both fellowships. It’s been a unique and great experience for me.