Wonder what it is like to be an academia pharmacist? I’m a board-certified critical care pharmacist and unlike many believe, I do not dispense medications all day. I also do not teach all day every day at the University. Later on, I’ll talk about my actual schedule and day-in-the-life.
Hi, I’m Dr. Jessica Louie and I’m an Associate Professor, Board-Certified Critical Care Pharmacist and entrepreneur. I help people find meaning beyond a job title and let go of burnout.
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This video is my personal opinion and not associated or sponsored.
Core components of academia:
- Teaching
- Scholarship
- Service
Each institution and department will have varying emphasis on each of these core components.
Teaching can include:
- Traditional lectures to a large classroom
- Small group facilitation and discussions
- Leading and facilitating laboratory work
- Precepting pharmacy students or residents/fellows
Scholarship:
- Research scholarship – what you traditionally think of research – could be bench research or clinical research using patient data – peer-reviewed manuscript publications, grant writing, textbook writing, presenter at conferences, serving as a peer reviewer of a journal
- Learning and teaching scholarship (SOTL) – studying the problems of teaching and learning and providing best practices or application of a new method
- Creative scholarship – podcasts, videos, digital platforms, new projects or literary projects
- Other forms of scholarship – serving as mentor to student’s thesis, dissertation or original research, keynote speaking
Service can include:
- Service to the university
- Committees, leadership councils, taskforces
- Faculty advising to students
- Faculty advising to student organizations
- Service to the profession
- Local, state, national or international boards, organizations or committees
- Represent the university in an official capacity
Personally, I work in an environment that emphasizes teaching as my largest component – 50% of my time, 25% research, 25% service.
What a “typical” day looks like for an academia pharmacist…
- Depends on if this is during the teaching semester or not – even if you attend an all-year round school, there usually are breaks for students. I teach in a semester system and we have a summer break and winter break. Of course faculty are still working during these times. Faculty usually work traditional 40-hour weeks year-round despite any breaks students are on.
- If during semester, day consists of heavy teaching loads for 2, 4, or 6 hours a day.
- If during a break, day consists of larger focus on service with committee meetings, task force meetings or research meetings or prep work.
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Jessica Louie, PharmD, APh, BCCCP is the CEO of Clarify, Simplify, Align and Host of The Burnout Doctor Podcast. Dr. Louie uses her signature Burnout Doctor Method to coach burned out pharmacists & professionals to simplify because work-life balance is a LIE. Align work into your life & break free from people pleasing, perfectionism and thrive in life on YOUR TERMS.