For more than 50 years, Avita Pharmacy and its legacy companies have made a promise to communities nationwide: to offer compassionate, comprehensive, and inclusive pharmacy care to the vastly underserved patients who are struggling to access the healthcare they deserve. You’ll find its team members carrying out this commitment in countless ways every day — welcoming patients into the pharmacy with a personalized greeting and warm smile, calling to check in on individuals who have questions about their medication or are facing other challenges, and even ensuring medication gets into patients’ hands during natural disasters.
What you might not notice is that, behind the scenes, the Avita Pharmacy team is also empowering the next generation of pharmacists to carry out its internal rallying cry of “Be the Care.” Through its Externship Program, Avita partners with more than 40 pharmacy schools nationwide to offer students an inside look at caring for patients disproportionately affected by complex health conditions, as well as unique insights into HIV, PrEP, STI, Hepatitis C, and LGBTQ+ care.
“We leverage a highly collaborative, hands-on mentoring process that allows our students to have real input into what they’re learning,” says Shane Goulas, pharmacist-in-charge at Avita’s Houston location onsite with St. Hope Healthcare and a preceptor for more than 15 years. “Our approach is very down-to-earth. We find that this makes students more open to learning and is in keeping with Avita’s core values of compassion and resourcefulness.”
We leverage a highly collaborative, hands-on mentoring process that allows our students to have real input into what they’re learning.
Guiding the next generation of pharmacy professionals
At Avita Pharmacy locations across the country, team members consider externship students part of the “Avita family” and are excited to help guide the next generation of professionals. “Our first extern trained at this location about seven years ago, and I remember exactly what they look like,” Shane says, pointing to the pharmacy wall. “We hang up pictures of all our students.”
With affiliation agreements with the University of Houston, Texas Southern University, and the University of Findlay (which offers an online Doctorate of Pharmacy program), Avita’s onsite pharmacy at St. Hope receives a new crop of externs about every six weeks.
During their first week with “Shane and company,” externs are given a syllabus and a brief quiz to assess their baseline clinical knowledge. “They don’t receive a lot of training on HIV in school, and it’s often mixed in with pharmacology training on other conditions,” Shane says. “Our quizzes start with the history of HIV, going back to the ‘80s, so we can discover where students are in the knowledge process.”
When prescriptions come in, preceptors review the medications’ clinical aspects — including indications and side effects — with externs. But as a community-focused pharmacy setting serving marginalized patients, they also teach externs to focus on how patients will pay for their prescriptions. The goal is to help patients incur the lowest possible out-of-pocket expenses by leveraging insurance, co-pay cards, and other patient assistance programs. Externs quickly learn why it’s crucial for the pharmacy team to stay in close communication with case managers from Avita’s community health center partners to maximize patient benefits and improve their wellness journeys.
And of course, students practice speaking with patients about the importance of adherence and answer questions about medication regimens. “Patient education is a huge part of what we do, and the students help out with that,” Shane says. “When they first join us as externs, they usually just listen as we counsel individuals. But as they become more comfortable, they are very enthusiastic about talking to patients. They’re thirsty for knowledge and eager to help others.”
Externs’ response to Avita’s training program has been positive. Avita Pharmacy was chosen by the University of Houston College of Pharmacy as the recipient of its 2022 Outpatient Pharmacy of the Year Award. Bestowed upon an outpatient pharmacy that showcases excellence in mentoring students, the award recognized the teaching efforts of Avita’s Houston pharmacy team.
Patient education is a huge part of what we do, and the students help out with that.
A lesson in compassionate pharmacy care
When it was time for Kelsey Fisk, a fourth-year pharmacy student at the University of Houston, to choose where she wanted to complete her elective rotation, she chose Avita Pharmacy for its dedication to patients facing healthcare barriers. “What drew me to Avita was the underserved patient population they serve,” Kelsey says. “Coming to Avita and caring for such a diverse population has really helped me hone in on topics that we weren’t exposed to a lot in school, like HIV pharmacy. It’s allowed me to go beyond mainstream pharmacy standards and study something unique, which is very rewarding.”
Right away, Kelsey noticed a difference in patient interactions at Avita Pharmacy versus retail pharmacies. “It’s not that it’s just a different workflow,” Kelsey says. “Every single person on the Avita team knows all their patients by name, which I don’t think you would experience anywhere else. They know what meds their patients are on. They know if they like to pick up their prescriptions or have them delivered. They simply have more access to patients. And that’s important, given that there’s been so many changes in government funding of healthcare initiatives lately.”
Shane, the pharmacist-in-charge at Kelsey’s externship location, agrees that training at Avita can be quite different than the retail pharmacy experience many externs are used to. “Patients bring us cookies,” he says. “We end up developing strong personal relationships with them. Each one is a human being and deserves to be treated compassionately and empathetically. We strive to take a burden off them and let them know we’re along for the whole ride.”
It’s working, Kelsey says. “The Avita team helps patients by meeting them wherever they are,” she says. “Patients are in different stages of their lives. They’re in different financial situations. I’ve witnessed the team go above and beyond for just about every patient, no matter what their situation. They’re pivotal in each patient’s care.”
Coming to Avita and caring for such a diverse population has really helped me hone in on topics that we weren’t exposed to a lot in school, like HIV pharmacy. It’s allowed me to go beyond mainstream pharmacy standards and study something unique, which is very rewarding.
