Business Training After Pharmacy School | Shannon Pukl, PharmD, MBA

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Business Training After Pharmacy School | Shannon Pukl, PharmD, MBA, Health Care Leadership Certificate

Mike Koelzer, Host: [00:00:00] Shannon, for those that haven't come across you online, introduce yourself and tell our listeners what we're talking about today.

Shannon Pukl, PharmD, MBA: Sure. So my name is Shannon Pule and I'm a Pharm d MBA and the co-creator of the Healthcare Leadership Certificate, which is an accredited self-paced on demand continuing education program for pharmacists. And so today we're gonna be talking about the need for business and leadership development amongst pharmacists.

October: Shannon, there is so much theory in management, but Let's jump right into some meat and potatoes.

Mike Koelzer, Host: What's your take on the yearly review? Let me give you mine first. I think they're terrible. I don't do them. I manage more incrementally, through the day, through the year. By the moment. I hate the reviews because the employees don't want to hear it and the managers don't want to give it.

I think it can be done in a lot better ways. What's the current thinking on that? What's the thinking from your side?

Shannon Pukl, PharmD, MBA: So that's, that's really interesting, Mike. It's actually something that we talk about in the course that we developed, and from my experience, a lot of pharmacists save that yearly review as king of the catch all for everything as far as performance goes throughout the conversations. And they save it rather than talking about it throughout the year.

So like you're saying, having those ongoing conversations is really what's more important than waiting till that end of the year. At the end of the year is kind of a recap. So there shouldn't be anything that's a surprise for the employee or the individual. It's something you should have been talking about and just kind of, Hey, this is where we were last year, but this is where we're, we need to continue to go into next year and move forward.

October: Regarding your health care leadership training, I'm guessing it has as much and even more to do with relationships than numbers.

Shannon Pukl, PharmD, MBA: Yeah, absolutely. So, The numbers are ultimately important because the business needs to be profitable to continue to operate, right? But when we look at pharmacists, all of their knowledge is around clinical knowledge. And we know that boards of pharmacy require the pharmacist in charge to kind of have them comply with laws.

But with that, for firms, most of the time it becomes a pharmacy manager position. So we put them in charge of these $10 million businesses, but they don't have any p and l knowledge, they don't have any people leadership skills. They're unsure about workflow practices. And all of those are really essential tools for running a business.

And so our course is very much meant to be practical and applicable to what you're doing every day within the pharmacy. And there are. Practical steps as far as some of the workflow practices, but then also a lot of theories that talk about what makes people tick. How do you inspire, how do you motivate to really get them all on board so that you're moving toward that goal together and kind of deemed it evidence-based management principles.

Cause we love our evidence-based medicine, and so trying to make it applicable for pharmacists.

Mike Koelzer, Host: Do pharmacy schools do any of that? And then down the next path, once somebody gets a job, let's say in uh, community pharmacy or hospital pharmacy, is it really any of that training? Is it all on the job? Sometimes the best you do is you're getting your first manager who maybe is not a good example, that kind of stuff.

Shannon Pukl, PharmD, MBA: Yeah, that's, that's very true. A lot of times we get to work for both good and bad bosses. So what works, what doesn't? Um, personally, you know, I have three credit hours of management and it wasn't enough.

Mike Koelzer, Host: Was that something you were required to take

Shannon Pukl, PharmD, MBA: Yeah, so there was one class that we were required to take. Uh, and I think that pharmacy schools are seeing more of a need, you know, it's, it's definitely a balance for them cuz they wanna teach all that clinical knowledge that makes us the medication expert, which is important cuz safety needs to come first, but starting to get some more innovative solutions.

So I've started to see some different rotations at schools around leadership. Um, we've actually had the opportunity to teach ours as a class to students. So in this spring, it is very similar to what you get to do like a PHA immunization training or diabetes training. It was a specialized course around leadership and management.

But what we see with students is, Their focus is also on becoming a pharmacist first. And so they don't necessarily have any of those real word experiences yet where they've had to give feedback or some of the challenges that come with that. And so their mindset is very much from the intern or technician perspective, not from the, I'm gonna be the person in charge in supporting those roles.

And so it's very good dialogue, really well received. But it seems that the benefit comes more from pharmacists who have some of that practice experience under their belt and can see how to apply some of the principles

Mike Koelzer, Host: Was your biggest hurdle in what you're doing? Was it finally accredited or is there continuing education there or is there some college stamp of approval or something?

What was like a cool thing for you to get for this company?

Shannon Pukl, PharmD, MBA: Yeah, so it, it's an interesting question cuz it seems like everybody has a course these days, and so ours is accredited, so ACP accredited for continuing education. So just like you take your [00:05:00] clinical ones, your immunization ones, you can take this one at 17 hours, you get to live with it as well cuz we have an interactive component built into it.

And so, uh, we wrote all of that content and then we got accredited through Duque University, who's approved through a C P E.

Mike Koelzer, Host: And the way I understand it with the accreditation, is that there's not like really solid rules, but every seven years or something, the establishment that gave that stamp of approval has to kind of go back in front of the board to show that they weren't, you know, uh, God forbid someone put this show or something into an accreditation thing or something like that, but they have to go back and make sure it's on the up and up.

Shannon Pukl, PharmD, MBA: Yeah, and so I am, I am definitely not the accreditation expert here. I worked with Amy Woods through D King University, who was fantastic from that. Also, I listened to your podcast and you had Jen Moulton on with CE Impact, and she had gone through a great job explaining the accreditation process.

Mike Koelzer, Host: You really have to do the seven objectives and all of that stuff in there.

Shannon Pukl, PharmD, MBA: Yeah. And so af we wrote the content and then have to go through and make sure that it's meeting those requirements and those standards. And so there's that peer review process that is very labor intensive in making those changes to make sure that it is gonna be relevant and applicable. And outside of the leadership, there's not a ton of opportunities for leadership CE programs for pharmacists.

And a lot of them are restricted to like in-person attendance or there's a high cost barrier. And so with ours, it's really priced competitively cuz we really want it for that support for the pharmacist who is there. We really want better days for our pharmacist because it can be stressful within the pharmacy.

Mike Koelzer, Host: Initials are there behind pharmacist names when it comes to business stuff. Like I know there's an MBA and someone could be a CPA probably. There's also different board certified things like yours isn't a board certified thing, so the people who go through this wouldn't have something at the end of their name probably.

Shannon Pukl, PharmD, MBA: It's more like a certificate program. So like when you think about being a PHA for your immunization certificate, or there are some around like MTMs, so it's a certificate. It's not actually the board certification that requires a certain practice hours and then you have the exam for that as well.

Mike Koelzer, Host: I ain't no genius, Shannon, but you don't like Good Housekeeping. Have you ever heard of that old magazine? You know, the good housekeeping, they used to have like a good housekeeping seal of approval and you'd put that on certain products and so then people wouldn't know.

They trust good housekeeping and then they have that approval. It seems like ultimately it'd be cool to have some kind of something so that everybody would be looking for it. You know, like every business is looking for Shannon and Josh's, you know, stamp of accreditation, you know, approval or something.

And I've seen it before some people will put down like they've gone to Harvard Business, something which is like a three month on campus. I've had some guests that have done that, or at least one, you know, like a three month on campus thing, something like that. But there's not a ton out there that I usually see.

Sometimes it's, you know, business is kind of the school of hard knocks.

Shannon Pukl, PharmD, MBA: Especially when you look at something within healthcare, cuz often it's more siloed within to, you know, nursing, pharmacy doctors, and it's not necessarily going out into that business realm or some of those leadership skills.

Mike Koelzer, Host: What kind of people would bother you if you were stuck in an office with three or four people?

What personality type?

Shannon Pukl, PharmD, MBA: I think that I'm pretty easy to get along with and agreeable from that perspective. But I think one of the hardest people to work with or those that aren't coachable aren't open to learning new things or to hearing different perspectives. You know, I, I'm a firm believer and we all have things that we're working on, and so being open to hear what that is, you know, both from an employee as well as a boss or manager, a leader perspective is critical to being able to continue to advance and to learn and to grow

Mike Koelzer, Host: But what if you're not open to it? Would you like them to, fake it a little bit, to seem open?

Shannon Pukl, PharmD, MBA: We all want someone who's gonna be open, but you can't force someone to be open to your ideas. And that's where I think, uh, kind of a point of contention can come into a pharmacy, whether it's, you know, within the pharmacy, within the business realm, and maybe that working relationship isn't the right fit.

So whether it's that your goals don't align, that your mission and vision aren't the same, and that's where they maybe needs to be like a division and go to a separate direction and find something that better connects

Mike Koelzer, Host: Walk me down some of the 17 hours, the divisions of the course. There's a little bit of numbers, a little bit of psychology, a little bit of this and that. [00:10:00]

Shannon Pukl, PharmD, MBA: Yeah, so we have it broken out into kind of three big buckets. So one is talent recruitment, and then there's people management and then workflow management. And there's, uh, four subsections within each of those. And you go through and do some readings. And then we also have videos with that as well. Um, and then the live, um, the two live credits are a discussion board that you read through some case studies and then actually have to formulate your answers and respond to other participants.

Mike Koelzer, Host: Probably a lot of pharmacists coming in don't even want to think about talent and recruitment. They think that's probably further away. I would think you don't just throw people into a job and say, Now hire somebody else. I imagine a lot of pharmacists, we probably specialize in a workflow.

We probably like that.

Shannon Pukl, PharmD, MBA: Yeah, I think, uh, talent recruitment especially is a challenging one cuz it's not something that you're necessarily trained on as a pharmacist, right? So what is that? We're often interviewed for positions, but we're not necessarily the ones interviewing. And so I've seen pharmacists that don't want anything to do with that process, but ultimately that person's gonna be the individual coming on their team.

And so you have no knowledge of what their values are, how they're gonna fit with the team, what their aspirations are, and, and so you leave a lot of that up to kind of HR cuz they think that that's what HR should do. But there should definitely be a role for the pharmacist as they're building that team.

And I think you've probably heard the expression, right? People don't leave businesses. They leave their bosses.

Mike Koelzer, Host: That's true, isn't it?

Shannon Pukl, PharmD, MBA: yes. And so I think that that definitely comes into play as well. And so when we can help pharmacists be better leaders, better bosses, then we can help make their days better as well.

Mike Koelzer, Host: What level of pharmacists are involved in the hiring process? A typical chain store is involved with hiring anybody? How does that work out?

Shannon Pukl, PharmD, MBA: In my experience, yeah, they are. They have a role in that and I've seen someone defer it to her, but that's super critical for the team that you're building to be active in that process. And it can be challenging, To recruit different individuals. And so that's why we spend a lot of time just around different ways that you can recruit.

For technicians. Not all states require you to have an actual.

You don't have to have your certificate before you come behind the pharmacy. Right. You can do it all as on the job training. And so leveraging that, you know, I've recruited when as pharmacy manager, technicians from cashiers who just were super engaging and really kind, Hey, have you ever thought about a career within healthcare?

What about pharmacy? And really turned out to be some excellent hires from that. But if we've never had that intentional conversation, it wouldn't have actually gone anywhere. Right? And so just starting to plant some of those seeds can be super helpful.

Mike Koelzer, Host: It seems like a pharmacist's hands would be tied in outside recruiting. if I'm a manager for one of the bigger chains, it seems like I just couldn't, as a manager, put together a, uh, indeed ad or a, LinkedIn post or something like that. It seems like those methods are already set up.

Are they? Or, or is there some freedom there?

Shannon Pukl, PharmD, MBA: I think it depends on the company, but uh, from my experience, there is definitely some freedom and some encouragement, right, to, to kind of be your own boss within that and, and give you some latitude so that you feel like you have that ownership that you can impact patients in, in that way by building the right team.

Mike Koelzer, Host: The managing level and stuff. I'll be glad when that's done. I will.

Shannon Pukl, PharmD, MBA: The people piece.

Mike Koelzer, Host: The people piece.

Shannon Pukl, PharmD, MBA: Yeah. It's definitely the hardest piece. Right? And it's not something that we're taught as pharmacists. We were very analytical. We like things to fit in the box. And then when you start to do it with people, that's not the case. There's a lot of additional components that go into that.

Mike Koelzer, Host: unless you're a stone cold boss You got a lot more identity conversations.

And you know, when they said that, what does that mean for me as a person? You know, am I a good person? Am I a fair person? You know, those questions are the things that kind of get to you deep down. You don't even know that you're dealing with that emotion, but that's often what they are. Deep down, you're like questioning your whole existence sometimes just from a, you know, a response from something that shook you a little bit.

Shannon Pukl, PharmD, MBA: Giving the feedback is one of the hardest pieces for managers to really approach. And a lot of times pharmacists just kind of wanna wait for that issue to self-resolve. And then when it doesn't, that tension builds.

And as that tension builds, it becomes harder to address. And then at times it can get to kind of that explosion point to where you say something that wasn't constructive, instead of just addressing it from the.

Mike Koelzer, Host: That was my method that I learned growing up . Hope that it goes away, but if it doesn't go away there's a chance to get in there and, and explode. That's easier because then it's like, of course I'm being an a-hole right now because look what you're doing.

It takes the pressure off your identity. You know, [00:15:00] you don't have to look at your own identity when you're upset and when someone's been doing this the whole time and it's their fault in those kinds of things. But that middle part messes with your identity. It's easier on the edges, but it doesn't make for a good life that way

Shannon Pukl, PharmD, MBA: Yeah, it's not effective. Right? When everyone starts yelling, then no one's listening. And so you're not really accomplishing anything other than letting that frustration out. And so the team member doesn't hear it. Then you feel bad afterward. Right. And it just kind of becomes that vicious cycle.

Mike Koelzer, Host: And you think that there's an answer because. You know, five minutes later they're not doing what you told them not to do. But quite often that's when the, you know, resignation might come, you know, two weeks later, you know, because it's like, I don't like how that went. And you think you made progress, but you didn't.

Shannon Pukl, PharmD, MBA: No, I think that's a great point. And then we start to talk about turnover, and it goes back into the talent recruitment piece, and you're starting all over from the beginning, rather than just addressing it in a constructive way before they get to the point where they're like, Man, my boss was such a jerk.

Now I need to look for something.

Mike Koelzer, Host: I watched a pretty good TED Talk last week, and basically The guy said that with most people in the world, you know, there's 8 billion people in the world with most of 'em. Outside of 10 people, you don't care about them.

Not in a bad way. They just mean nothing. You just don't care. And he said that our average look to people, our average demeanor is not caring because you can't interact that way with everybody. You picture walking down a busy city street, you try to walk from A to B to get to work, you know, a mile away.

And you haven't made it past 10 steps the whole morning. Cuz every person you saw, the first three people you saw, you really cared about them. You can't, the math doesn't add up. So our average response to people 99% of the time is just, Indifference. And so you can have bosses that may say, Well, I'm not the encouraging type.

I'm more internal and all that kind of stuff. And this guy was like, Everybody is everybody's way to 8 billion people in the world. You have to act sometimes you have to, turn your seat around and open up your arms. There's a lot of acting that goes on because it's not normal for anybody.

Shannon Pukl, PharmD, MBA: I would definitely agree. You know, I think about that a lot within community pharmacy cuz we have those stressful days. You know, technology isn't working in the way that it should. We're behind and you have patients who are coming up and so our response is to kind of defend and say like, Hey, I'm having this really rough day.

But at the end of the day, that patient doesn't care cuz who they care about. They care about themselves.

And so just make mental shifts for yourself because it's gonna make your day better when the patient's not complaining. And so, you know, simple things like when they're, Oh, I don't need to talk to the pharmacist.

I've been on this, Oh well hey, I just wanted to say hi and see how your day is going. And it completely disarms them. They feel important and then you can still give them the information that they need cuz they're open to that conversation.

Mike Koelzer, Host: What I found with customers at my pharmacy is I always figure that 80% of the customers are wrong. You know, like

you can prove they had the wrong date. You look up an email, they said they were doing something on Tuesday, you can see it was Monday. Or the wrong, whatever I've found as I get older, that more people are wrong. But you still kind of deal with things the

same way.

Shannon Pukl, PharmD, MBA: I think the best way is to just agree with them because it disarms the conversation, right? Because once you can get them to feel like you're actually listening to what they're saying, they're gonna be more open to actually what you have to say. The moment that you go in and defend, then all they hear is, Well, I need to defend my point more, and you're not gonna get anything accomplished.

And so it's, it's not about necessarily being right or wrong, but asking the right questions to be able to get them to open up so that we can get to the right answer, whatever it And think about the people that are your customers, in general, This isn't a flower store of guys buying for their wives. these are people that, they're depressed, they're anxious, they're in pain, mean, there's a lot of different people. Be happy if you're talking to someone, I guess, on the level, because by nature of the customers, they're not that way.

Yeah. Most people don't come to the pharmacy because they're feeling well, there's a reason that they have to visit us, and so it's important to be mindful of that as well.

Mike Koelzer, Host: Think back to your days working in the pharmacy. If you were managing, you know, a bunch of people right now, like in the past, what do you struggle with the most

Shannon Pukl, PharmD, MBA: This makes me think of the DISC profile.

There's five and it's, uh, D for, uh, dominance. It's I for influence, s for, um, social and C for conscientious. And so I fall into the sea and so it's very much a process and I like everything to be right. And [00:20:00] so that would definitely be one of the struggles. And it doesn't matter who's right,

I'm right or the other person's right. But I would often want to defend my position, kind of like we were just talking about and tell them why they're wrong, rather than starting with an open conversation to hear what the other person was saying. So that was one that would kind of fuel my emotions because I just want it to be right.

Mike Koelzer, Host: I stopped asking for opinions unless I really wanted the opinion, because I hated leading people on thinking I was listening to them when I wasn't.

And, and maybe I should have changed more to be more truly open, but better for me to be. Honest with myself to say I'm not open to this, so I'm not gonna ask anybody.

Shannon Pukl, PharmD, MBA: I think it depends on the person and, you know, going through the MBA program, I, I think it was definitely helpful personally as much as professionally, if not more. And one of my favorite classes in the program was around organizational change. And we went through a lot of different motivational theories that kind of help as far as what the employees just have with psychology and kind of how we think, why we think the way that we do.

And that was really eye opening. And some of them were familiar with, kinda like you're saying, you know, I, I don't like to do this, or I've heard of that one before. And it was helpful to kinda label them and, and know why we do certain things or act certain

ways.

It's really good to know what you're dealing with because a lot of it you don't take personally. maybe they're more defensive because of this.

Mike Koelzer, Host: And, you can say, Why are they defensive, you know, with me and all that stuff. It is nice to label them because then it just takes the pressure off of you.

Shannon Pukl, PharmD, MBA: Yeah. And I, I think that's a struggle as far as management and giving feedback and kind of like we are talking about because people derive some of their value from work. And so when we're giving negative feedback and it can feel very hurtful, we're not talking about that person. But it can be very, very easy to internalize it and make you feel like it's about me.

But at the end of the day, it's about a job. And so that job doesn't necessarily dictate who you are or all you're gonna accomplish or anything like that. And so kind of separating the two cuz we're still gonna have expectations at work and of our people, but it's not about them necessarily.

Mike Koelzer, Host: There's so many, external forces at work, there's something you feel a certain way and maybe, you know, you don't like that, but you forget that there's insurances involved, there's time commitments, there's, how busy the place is.

Do you have a private place to talk? There's just a million things going on and sometimes you, you look at yourself and you say, I'm gonna win this battle, But you don't even know the damn enemy because sometimes there's 50 enemies for a little decision because of all the external things that are happening around you.

Shannon Pukl, PharmD, MBA: Yeah, I think that's a really great point. And it can especially be a rub within community pharmacy, right? As we look at different initiatives and different things that come out. Because a lot of times those are kind of operated or tested in a vacuum with a high performer or the perfect team, and then we roll that out to the change.

But there are so many different variables. And so if you have a store that's already under staff or struggling, telling them to focus on this new initiative is where that rub comes, and that's where we have both the initiative and the team kind of suffering or failing.

Mike Koelzer, Host: A lot of times it's something as simple as timing. I remember my dad long since gone, but he did most of his thinking on the weekend. On Sunday he would do his thinking for the business and get outta the yellow notepad and write ideas down. I did the opposite.

I tried to clear Sunday as having one day where I didn't have stuff going on. So then Monday morning comes around and I'm getting going in the week and thinking I'm gonna have my best ideas and my dad would come in in the middle of a crazy Monday morning and kind of throw out these bigger, bigger ideas.

And if we were like in this Business camp together or something, or some, you know, retreat or something. Those all would've meshed, but they don't mesh on a Monday morning sometimes when one person needs this and one person really doesn't need it. All the externals.

Shannon Pukl, PharmD, MBA: Yeah, yeah. Timing can make a huge difference.

Mike Koelzer, Host: With your personal business what was the biggest, joyous moment besides starting it? Was there a level that you said, ah, we finally did this?

Shannon Pukl, PharmD, MBA: So we saw the need for it, right? As I, I shared, I wasn't, I wasn't alone in my, uh, lack of management confidence. And so in seeing that across kind of the, our scopes of responsibility and we've taken the first step of developing the content rather than kind of validating the ideas cuz we knew that there was a need.

And so one of those big moments came, uh, when we had talked to a pharmacy organization and won't share the specific organization, uh, about potentially buying the content. And they were very interested in it. [00:25:00] And so it was that affirmation of, yes, there's definitely a need. We're headed down the right path.

And so a lot of satisfaction came from that.

Mike Koelzer, Host: Where do you think the most revenue will come from? Is it gonna come from individuals? Is it gonna come from businesses that want all of their pharmacists to go through this?

Shannon Pukl, PharmD, MBA: You know, we're still in the beginning stages of kind of building it out. So we've been live for about a year and, uh, initially I wasn't putting a lot of my time into this particular program and it just kind of seemed like God kept redirecting my steps back to it. And so we have a lot of different potential paths as we're doing some of the marketing.

And so we have the actual CE course itself, and talking to a lot of schools, they have that need for students. And so they're looking for more of a course for students. And so looking at potential lesson plans and then. Consulting both business to business I think would be kind of our goal. Cause it would be, um, bigger than, you know, one at a time with individuals.

But of course we're open to that as well. And then we've actually had about 40% of our participants that aren't pharmacists. So a lot of mph. Um, we've had nurses reach out that are interested and so it's not just within pharmacy, but within healthcare overall. And so looking at getting it accredited through some other disciplines so that they would be able to take the program as well and get that continuing education credit and the ultimate benefit of being able to apply it in their practices.

Mike Koelzer, Host: Currently, if you look at your program, is it more structured to pharmacy now? And you'll have to open that up a little bit for nurses and different things.

Shannon Pukl, PharmD, MBA: So this was something that came up relatively early as we were doing some of our marketing. And so we have some pharmacy examples and some of our cases are built specific to pharmacists. But a lot of it, as we kind of talked about, whether it's talent recruitment or interviewing processes or just the psychology behind how to motivate a team and you know, the annual performances that apply across all kinds of facets.

And so we were very intentional with using as much pharmacy as necessary, but then also leaving it very open

to those other

disciplines.

Mike Koelzer, Host: Where do you picture the revenue divide in five years?

Shannon Pukl, PharmD, MBA: I think the biggest would be as far as consultation services. If you get businesses or specific organizations, then that would be the largest revenue stream. But then also, From the course itself. And if you, we can continue to add in other disciplines, that would be a big part of it as well.

Mike Koelzer, Host: Consultation as in a company comes and says, We've got 20 employees that need to polish up on their business skills or learn them for the first time. You would consult with them on how to do that more than just saying, here's our course.

Shannon Pukl, PharmD, MBA: So it would be a specific need. So we have a group of the leaders within an organization who are looking at just taking the course for their total management team and then doing some discussion within that group. And then learning how it would be most beneficial for different practices.

And so it could be that we teach the entire course. It could be that they purchase the program. It could be that we look at an isolated, um, Unit of their business and kind of consult on how to make different modifications or variations to improve, whether that's efficiency or retention or whatever it is.

Mike Koelzer, Host: What are you doing 10 years from now?

Shannon Pukl, PharmD, MBA: We still wanna bring value and so if we can help pharmacists, that's ultimately what the goal is. We wanna be able to. Bring value and, and help support and whatever that is. The goal is not to, I guess, be limited by schedules or certain times or certain shifts, like it is often in pharmacy,

but that's kind of the freedom of being able to be your own boss and take those contracts that you wanna take and just have that time where you're still in a way working, but you're doing it in a way that you enjoy and that you can give back.

Mike Koelzer, Host: The joy of life as humans is, we like to solve, we like to solve problems and create the goal is maybe having problems that there's not so much writing on it, whether you're gonna be able to feed your family or not. they're more pleasurable goals.

You win both ways, kind of thing.

Shannon Pukl, PharmD, MBA: I think that's a, a great distinction, because it, it's still work and there is purpose and meaning behind when you can help others solve, create a, see your solutions, get implemented, but then also having the, the freedom and the autonomy of when you wanna do it or how you wanna do it.

Mike Koelzer, Host: Shannon, , if you were the head of the Deans I'm not sure what initials that is. It's. College something or other, but head of the deans. Would you be doing anything more for pharmacists than the three hours, knowing that some may never, I mean, it seems like everybody's gonna get into management somehow.

It seems like everybody should take psychology as something or other. Would you mandate anything as a dean?

Shannon Pukl, PharmD, MBA: That's a challenging question cuz, The curriculum's built to be clinically relevant and make pharmacists, the [00:30:00] medication experts. I obviously believe in leadership development, but also understand that it's more around patient safety first. And so I think. Bigger impact is for continuing education or just opportunities for the alumni.

So whether that's preceptors or just alumni, making them aware as they get more experience. So I know some schools have started to do things like leadership symposiums or sending out different ces that are available just to have that educational reference cuz pharmacists never stop learning, and so in school it's, it's really around becoming a pharmacist.

But then as you get out into practice, and I'm sure you can relate to things that, you know, you didn't learn in pharmacy school. Like uh, having to, how to change printer trays and troubleshoot right? All of those things. And so the people's peace and management really comes from that perspective. So I think it would be hard to say that pharmacy schools need to do it within the curriculum cuz there's already so much.

But I think that there should be just different opportunities and then that continual learning process for us so that we can make sure that we're having the best days that we can within the pharmacy.

Mike Koelzer, Host: I thought it was kind of like, Oh, of course you should do more. But it's like, when I think of a physician MD thing, I don't picture them getting anything. I would never think that they should get a class on how to run an office or something like that.

It's so big. It's like, how can you teach that, you know, maybe something on bedside manner or something like that. But, why do you want business tied into there? Really?

Shannon Pukl, PharmD, MBA: Yeah. And I think that there's more value in kind of like the specialization track. So like you have managed care, you have geriatrics, and so looking at one just from leadership for those that know, hey, that's where I wanna head and kind of creating that avenue for

them.

Mike Koelzer, Host: Shannon, thanks for joining us today. We'll put a link to your program in the episode notes, mentioning it again. What's it?

Shannon Pukl, PharmD, MBA: it's the healthcare leadership Certificate, and you can also find it on Duque University's website.

Mike Koelzer, Host: Shannon, thanks for everything you're doing. The industry in my opinion, always can do better with business stuff and not so much even because we need better business people to each other, but we need to keep reaching out to learning the PBM stuff and all the stuff that's out there. The better business people we can be, probably the better relations there are and that kind of stuff. So, thanks for doing your part on that.

Shannon Pukl, PharmD, MBA: Thanks so much for having me, Mike, and for all of the great content and episodes that you put together.

Mike Koelzer, Host: right, Shannon will be in touch. Thanks again.