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- Hello everyone, and welcome to "The Wrap",
brought to you by Michigan Medicine Headlines.
I'm Dan Ellman with the Department of Communication.
- And I'm executive vice co-host Hunter Mitchell.
Today, we're going to take an inside look
at pharmacy services at Michigan Medicine,
and a new program they're launching that will help
fill some vital positions.
- But before we learn about that,
there's plenty more you could learn about
just by listening to past episodes of "The Wrap".
You can find the shows on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play,
or any other podcast hosting platform.
New episode is debut weekly
and can always be found
as part of the Headlines weekend review.
And on the "Michigan Medicine" YouTube channel.
- Now let's bring in Dr. Mike Kraft,
the assistant director of Pharmacy Education
and Professional Development at Michigan Medicine.
Mike, thanks so much for being here today.
- Thank you, Hunter and thank you, Dan.
Appreciate being here.
- All right, so Hunter just gave your official title,
but can you explain a little bit more about your role
in the department of pharmacy services?
- Sure, I'd be happy to.
As the assistant director
of Pharmacy for Education and Professional Development,
my oversight includes recruiting,
onboarding, and training for new employees,
education and professional development for our department,
and then broadly oversight of our learner education,
which includes pharmacy students and pharmacy residents,
and some other learning opportunities as well.
- Nice, now your department will soon be launching
a training program for pharmacy technicians.
Can you give a quick rundown of what type of work
pharmacy techs do everyday?
- Absolutely, and as you mentioned,
these really are essential team members at the health system
and as part of our team for what we do
related to medication therapy,
as well as for patient care.
And pharmacy technicians really have a key role
in all steps in the medication use process,
and have additional advanced roles
that have developed over the most recent,
a few years as well.
In terms of their core responsibilities in medication use,
they're involved in really every step,
including procurement and inventory management,
medication preparation,
and medication compounding, sterile compounding,
which of course is an additional skill,
very technical skill.
Medication labeling and then medication delivery
as well for patient use.
We also have a number of advanced roles
that have been developed for pharmacy technicians
within our team in areas such as research pharmacy,
where they help to prepare and manage medications
involved in research studies,
and transitions of care,
where they assist with patients who are transitioning
into the hospital and going home,
and help with facilitating their access
to medications during that transition.
So a lot of opportunities that we have
and have continue to develop for pharmacy technicians.
- Absolutely, so this training program,
obviously will give some people these opportunities
to join the team.
How will that program work and who's eligible to join?
- Yeah, absolutely, we're very excited
about this opportunity, really, in order to provide
these opportunities for individuals,
we've embarked on this training program.
And it's really meant for anyone
who may have an interest in a career
as a pharmacy technician.
You don't need to have any medical or pharmacy background,
really, no other formal training that's required.
The intent of this is that we will bring folks on board,
they'll be hired as employees,
and they will be placed into our training program.
And the program will be approximately five to six months.
It will consist of about three to four months
of online training with didactic modules
and some in-person learning.
And then one to two months of clinical rotations
or experiential rotations within various areas
within our pharmacy team.
The goal then, as long as they successfully complete
the program and meet all of the requirements
is that we would then hire them
into an open pharmacy technician position with our team,
and ask them to commit to working for our team
for a two-year period.
During the training program, though,
they're hired as employees,
they're paid full-time with benefits
and we cover the costs of the training program for them.
So really a great opportunity to develop their skills
and really establish a career
as a pharmacy technician with our team.
- So, Mike, you talked on the specifics,
but why is the program so important?
- We really view this as one of our top priorities
because we've been experiencing really a nationwide shortage
of pharmacy technicians.
And this really existed before the pandemic started,
but certainly, has been exacerbated with the pandemic
and the current job market.
And so it's not unique to University of Michigan,
or Michigan Medicine, or Southeast Michigan,
or the State of Michigan, it's really nationwide.
And, you know, we recognize that the traditional approach,
I think, of looking to individuals who want to come,
start a career and we train them,
or they wanna pursue training programs,
you know, the interest there
really seems to have diminished.
And so we tried to look at,
what are other ways that we can provide opportunities.
In addition, for some individuals who wanna pursue
those types of programs,
they may have their own barriers to that
because it's a financial investment
to pay for a training program.
It requires, of course, investment of their own time.
And they may have other other barriers
to being able to pursue those opportunities.
So we wanted to try and remove
as many barriers as we could
and provide a really great opportunity,
not only to invest in them for their future career
and then have them invest in us,
to work with our team and develop their career.
- Yeah, I think one of the coolest things
that that you mentioned
is that you don't have to have a background
in pharmacy, in medicine, or anything like that.
I know I talked to a pharmacy tech a few weeks ago
who had had a background in catering before coming here.
You know, and it was just,
had just no experience whatsoever,
came here, got trained, on-the-job,
and absolutely loved it.
So if a listener is interested in joining the program
or they know someone who is interested
in joining the program,
how should they reach out?
- Absolutely, and you bring up some great points.
Anyone who may be interested,
they can feel free to contact me directly.
My name is Mike Kraft,
my email is mdkraft@umich.edu.
And they can feel free to contact me directly,
and I'd be happy to give them some more information.
We're working on getting a website up as well.
So we will have more information posted,
so individuals will be able to go there
for additional information once that is up and ready to go.
And I'm glad you pointed out.
We have folks who have no experience whatsoever
who have joined our team,
and had great careers as pharmacy technicians.
And I think that's really key to emphasize as well,
is that if you have experience, great,
but if you don't, that's great too.
There are many other skills
that individuals may have developed
that certainly would translate
and help them be successful.
You know, communication, time management,
prioritization, customer service.
Those are all things that are really essential
to be successful.
So it doesn't require any experience in medicine or pharmacy
or healthcare to really pursue this career
and be successful.
- That's great.
Are there any other changes or initiatives
coming out of pharmacy services in the months
or even years ahead?
- We're definitely working on several different things.
As you mentioned, we talked about the nationwide shortage.
We realized that this is certainly one very important
initiative we're excited about,
but you know there are other things we wanna do
because not only do we wanna invest
in those who wanna establish a future career
as a pharmacy technician,
but we also wanna make sure that we continue
to recognize all of the great work
that our current team members do
and have been doing throughout the pandemic
and for many years before that.
And so working on ways that we can better recognize
all of the great work that our pharmacy technicians do now,
but of course, into the months and years ahead.
'Cause I think that's really important,
and I don't know if any department or business
that over recognizes the employees
and all the great work that they do.
So that's another big focus for us
is how can we better recognize our team members
and make sure that they stay with us,
that they wanna stay with us for their career.
- Absolutely, while we're excited to find out
what some of those things will be,
and I'm sure we might be able
to cover them here on "The Wrap, " or in Headlines,
or things like that.
So thank you so much, Mike,
for giving us some insight into what's happening
at pharmacy services,
including the new pharmacy tech training program.
If you'd like to learn more about that program,
go to mmheadlines.org,
that's mmheadlines.org.
- Alrighty, Mike, so we grilled you
with a few questions that you saw beforehand,
but now it's time to answer a few more
that you haven't seen.
Are you ready for the lightning round?
- All right, let's do it.
- All right, so you talked about how people can train
to become pharmacy techs on the job.
If you only needed a few months of on-the-job training,
what new job would you want to take?
- I would probably want to take a job in,
in healthcare, would be in informatics,
'cause I think that it's really essential to what we do.
And I think it's just fascinating
with the role of technology and informatics in healthcare.
And really, it seems like the sky is the limit
on the opportunities to enhance what we do using technology.
- Nice, so you've been at Michigan Medicine
for more than 20 years.
What has kept you hanging around for two decades?
- There are, I would put it into three
kinda general categories.
Probably the biggest reason is the people,
like the people I work with and our team,
and across the institution are just among the best
in the country if not the world.
I'm biased, but fantastic people that we work with,
they're all very supportive.
Number two would probably be the opportunities.
I mean, there is no shortage of opportunities.
If you have ideas or something you wanna do,
if you wanna put in the time,
generally, you're gonna be able to find ways
to fulfill those ideas.
This pharmacy technician training program,
a great example of how we can bring forth new ideas
and really innovate.
And the third would be the resources,
that we're very fortunate
with the resources we have across Michigan.
So I'm really fortunate to have been here
for the bulk of my career.
- All right, so let's totally change subjects.
Who's your favorite band and why?
- Probably my favorite band of all times, The Beatles.
Just because, I mean, their music is just,
you know, iconic.
And you think about the influences that they took
and what they did with those influences,
and all the musicians they've influenced since then.
And the amount of music that they put out
in just the period of time they were together.
You know, I think about bands today,
like the Rolling Stones that are still out there touring,
Imagine The Beatles were still together.
Like, what would they have done and contributed to music?
I mean, it's, you know,
so people have asked if you could go to a concert,
what would it be?
It would be the last rooftop show they put on,
you know, their last performance together
in the rooftop in London.
I would give a lot to have seen that.
That would have been awesome.
- Wow, yeah, great answer.
All right, so last question for ya.
You're obviously very involved in professional development.
If you could give one piece of advice to your younger self,
what would it be?
- Oh, that's a great question.
Oh, I had a lot to learn in my younger days
so I there's a lot of advice I would probably give,
but I think the one thing is that,
absolutely, remain open to opportunities
and don't be afraid to take a chance
because that's really how you grow as a person,
and as a professional.
And you take some of those risks.
And it seems sometime intimidating or scary,
but that really is how you realize some of your goals.
And sometime things that you never realized were possible,
you can achieve.
So that would be the thing I would say
is that don't, don't shy away from those.
Make sure you take advantage of those
and take those risks and those opportunities.
- Well, that's tremendous advice.
Thank you so much, Mike for participating on "The Wrap,"
for sharing your insight
into the pharmacy tech training program.
Once again, if you wanna learn more about the program,
go to mmheadlines.org,
that's mmheadlines.org.
- And while you're there,
check out other featured stories from this week.
For instance, employees shared
their favorite fall activities
now that autumn is officially here.
Headline sat down for a Q and A with John Carethers
chair of internal medicine.
And there was the latest installment
of the Wellness Wednesday series.
Find all that more at mmheadlines.org.
- All right, Hunter.
Now between today's interview with Mike
and the Q and A with Dr. Carethers
we've heard from some time Michigan medicine team members,
so that got me thinking,
where do you picture yourself in 20 years?
- Well, in 20 years,
I'll be two thirds in the way through my house payment.
Have some of that paid off there,
but no, you got me thinking like,
you know, my job in 20 years,
what the heck is that gonna look like?
You know, it's changed so much in 20 years already.
So yeah, I think just, stay educated,
stay learning, and in 20 years
when I'm like editing holograms in my spaceship,
that'd be pretty cool.
What about you?
Yeah, no, that's funny because,
especially working in communication,
you really do have to go with the flow, right?
Things change all the time.
You know, probably 15, 20 years ago,
Headlines had a print version, right?
That they were handing out at the hospital
for people to read.
Now, obviously we're only online
and I can't even imagine what it's gonna look like
20 years from now,
but I do still picture myself at Michigan Medicine.
I feel like I've sort of found a landing spot here
where I feel like my work makes a difference.
And I think a lot of people get into healthcare
for that reason, right?
No matter what role you play here,
your work makes an impact on people.
And I think that's really important.
So I do picture myself hanging around at Michigan Medicine.
You know, Michigan's a place that I love to live,
and Michigan Medicine has been a great place to work.
So whatever that looks like,
I'm gonna just be as flexible as possible,
take some learning opportunities like you mentioned,
and just roll with the punches a little bit,
and just see where I land.
And I feel like that's sort of the key to success.
- Yeah, absolutely.
I mean the tools change, but the stories and the people,
they'll always be here.
- That's true, and you know, in both of our roles,
if you can tell a story,
if I can tell a story by writing it,
or you can tell a story through video,
there's always gonna be some sort of platform for that.
So, you know, we just, maybe don't even,
it might not exist yet on what that platform is,
but it'll be interesting to see where things go.
- Absolutely, all right.
It's time for the weekly trivia contest.
Last week we asked listeners,
how many people acquire sepsis in the US each year?
The answer is 1.7 million.
Congratulations to Jeremy Fallis
who sent the correct answer.
Now for this week's question, here's Dan.
- All right, this week's question is,
Dr. John Carethers made history in 2009
at the U of M Medical School.
What milestone did he achieve?
Once again, what milestone did Dr. John Carethers achieved
back in 2009?
You can find the answer in this week's Headline story.
And once you know it, send it to headlines.med.umich.edu
for the chance to win a prize.
- Well, that's all the time we have for this week.
Mike, thanks again for joining us,
and thanks as always to all our listeners and viewers
for everything you do for patients,
families, and each other.
- We'll see you next week.
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