Helping Students on Their Journey
Written By: Lydia Levis Bloch
As one of his many duties at Mt. Vernon Pharmacy at Fallsway in Baltimore, Shivas V Patel, PharmD ’15, serves as a preceptor to students at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy (UMSOP).
His objective is to offer students an experience where they are heard, respected, and trained.
He encourages them to build confidence and their professional knowledge and become effective leaders in a pharmacy team. The students should have a chance to make mistakes and learn from them, to have full access to preceptors and develop that relationship, thus becoming more competent, says Patel.
“I have the satisfaction of seeing myself as a teacher because I do teach students, that’s what a preceptor does. Another benefit of being a preceptor is the chance to meet students of diverse backgrounds from around the world,” he says.
A perfect example is Laith Alrufaye. As a first-year UMSOP student in May 2022, Alrufaye already had worked as a pharmacist in his native Iraq and in the United Arab Emirates, as well as a pharmacy technician at a community pharmacy in Alabama.
Yet he still had much to learn in his Introductory Pharmacy Practice Experience rotation under Patel.
Alrufaye, now a third-year student, was impressed by the pharmacy team’s frequent communication with and commitment to its underserved patient population. Patel taught him the importance of medication management, and Alrufaye observed the pharmacy’s staff monitoring the progress of their patients and maintaining contact with them.
“This was a short, one-week rotation, but it made an impact,” Alrufaye says. “I learned how to communicate with various populations and was inspired to consider working in community pharmacy.”
Since 2018, Patel has precepted 35 UMSOP students, both Introductory (one-week) and Advanced (five-week) Pharmacy Practice Experience rotations in the community setting. Providing more than 30 percent of the School of Pharmacy curriculum, preceptors are crucial to the students’ professional development.
“Because a majority of graduates will practice in a community pharmacy setting, an initial experience that is hands-on and collaborative, like Dr. Patel’s, is critical in building knowledge, skills, and confidence for future practice,” explains Agnes Ann Feemster, PharmD, BCPS, associate dean for academic affairs at the School and associate professor in the Department of Practice, Sciences, and Health Outcomes Research.
“Dr. Patel provides students with the opportunity to experience community pharmacy practice through the eyes of an independent practitioner. Our students comment that his knowledge of community practice is second to none and that they benefit immensely from his mentorship,” she says.
Now the manager at the Mt. Vernon Pharmacy at Fallsway, Patel is grateful to his employer, Stephen Wienner, BSP ’91, who has reinforced his desire to be a preceptor.
And while he is proud to have received a 2020 UMSOP Preceptor of the Year Award, Patel feels privileged to have been asked “to hood” five School of Pharmacy students at their May 2023 graduation.
“It’s very meaningful to me to see them cross that stage and become a pharmacist, a colleague actually,” he says.
This article originally appeared in the Spring 2024 issue of Capsule Magazine.