OCPhA's Podcast on Pharmacy and Healthcare · OCPhA (Orange County Pharmacists Association)

25. Student Spotlight: Stephanie (Stephy) Lee: Engineering a Path to Clinical Care

·16 min·1 clip

Stephanie Lee, a pharmacy student, reveals she worked as an aerospace engineer at Boeing before switching careers.

This episode of OCPhA's Podcast on Pharmacy and Healthcare launches a new student spotlight series. Host Tony Dao interviews pharmacy student Stephanie (Stephy) Lee from Western University of Health Sciences. Lee is a second-year student who also works as an intern at Whittier Hospital Medical Center. Her internship involves versatile tasks like IV compounding, discharge patient follow-up calls, and medication reconciliation on admission. She also performs anticoagulation monitoring and has shadowed clinical pharmacists. During her shadowing, she learned about verifying orders, vancomycin dosing, and heparin drip monitoring. Lee reveals her undergraduate background was not in biology but in engineering. She earned a dual degree in aerospace and mechanical engineering from UC Davis. After graduation, she worked as an aerospace engineer at Boeing in Philadelphia for approximately five years. Her career shift from a stable engineering role to pharmacy demonstrates a non-traditional path into the profession. The episode details the specific clinical and operational tasks a student can experience in a smaller community hospital setting. It highlights how a background in a rigorous field like engineering can provide a unique foundation for pharmacy studies. The conversation suggests that skills from engineering, such as systematic problem-solving, are applicable to clinical pharmacy tasks. The tone is informal and conversational, structured as an introductory interview. The style is educational and inspirational, aiming to showcase diverse student journeys. This episode would appeal to pharmacy students, especially those from non-science backgrounds considering a career change. Listeners seeking deep clinical debates or seasoned practitioner insights might find the content too introductory.

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