{"id":1534,"date":"2018-08-01T14:18:07","date_gmt":"2018-08-01T14:18:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.pharmacy.umaryland.edu\/insidesop\/?p=1534"},"modified":"2022-11-08T15:29:17","modified_gmt":"2022-11-08T15:29:17","slug":"my-umsop-story-michael-william-pharmd-13-senior-pharmacovigilance-scientist-astrazeneca","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.pharmacy.umaryland.edu\/insidesop\/2018\/08\/01\/my-umsop-story-michael-william-pharmd-13-senior-pharmacovigilance-scientist-astrazeneca\/","title":{"rendered":"My UMSOP Story: Michael William, PharmD \u201913, senior pharmacovigilance scientist, AstraZeneca"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael William, PharmD \u201913<\/strong>, joined the Global Patient Safety department at AstraZeneca\u2019s Gaithersburg location in 2015. Within a year, he and a group of his colleagues recognized the potential to design and launch a precepting program for eager University of Maryland School of Pharmacy<\/strong><\/a> students.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a grad student, I didn\u2019t have much exposure to the pharmaceutical industry, and realized Patient Safety could provide this opportunity to fourth-year students. I wanted to give back to my alma mater and offer students the experience,\u201d says William, a senior pharmacovigilance (PV) scientist. In his role, William supports teams in managing the safety strategy and maintaining the safety profile for drug products, in addition to ensuring adherence to PV best practices and procedural compliance.<\/p>\n

Global Patient Safety is a function of AstraZeneca that ensures regulators, health care providers, and ultimately consumers are appropriately informed of the risks that may be associated with its products. The department works with products in all stages of drug development and in multiple therapeutic areas, including oncology, cardiovascular, renal, metabolic diseases, respiratory, and vaccines.<\/p>\n

By 2018, a cadre of preceptors representing AstraZeneca\u2019s Global Patient Safety department, in coordination with the School\u2019s Experiential Learning Program (ELP)<\/strong><\/a>, proffered rotations to 10 student pharmacists on-site in Gaithersburg. Seven students completed rotations there the previous year. \u201cWe have a strong team of preceptors, and they are the ones who deserve credit for
\ncreating the program,\u201d William says.<\/p>\n

The preceptors in Global Patient Safety were driven to implement the project, thus enhancing their leadership and supervisory skills, while the rotation opportunity revealed the world of industry to student pharmacists. \u201cEveryone wins,\u201d William says.<\/p>\n

Whitney Swears, PharmD, MS<\/strong>, a Global Patient Safety preceptor, completed a rotation at AstraZeneca during pharmacy school. \u201cBeing in the presence of someone who embodies professional skills you hope someday to acquire is one of the greatest benefits I experienced. I feel lucky to pass along those lessons to the next generation of pharmacists,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

In fact, the success of the Global Patient Safety program has inspired several of William\u2019s colleagues in other departments at AstraZeneca to organize their own precepting initiatives. ELP is a vital training component for School of Pharmacy students. Preceptors (practicing pharmacists and other professionals) oversee student pharmacists on rotations, which comprise more than 30 percent of the Doctor of Pharmacy<\/strong><\/a> curriculum.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe School of Pharmacy has more than 900 preceptors at nearly 500 sites across the world,\u201d says Agnes Ann Feemster, PharmD<\/strong><\/a>, assistant dean for experiential learning at the School of Pharmacy. \u201cThese rotations provide real-world experience in pharmacy practice, allowing students to merge the knowledge they achieved in school with practical experience, while also exposing
\nthem to different career paths.\u201d<\/p>\n

Take, for example, the case of Jason Tran, PharmD \u201918<\/strong>. He selected a rotation under William\u2019s guidance, learning about the patient safety side of new drug applications. Prior to that experience, Tran was not particularly familiar with the pharmaceutical industry. \u201cBeing at AstraZeneca has opened my eyes to a lot of opportunities and given me invaluable exposure to industry,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Recalling his own student days at the School of Pharmacy, William says that besides benefiting from a strong basis in didactic and technical training, he is especially grateful for the mentorship and opportunities he was given to help him develop.<\/p>\n

\u201cDr. William is passionate about his unique practice and incredibly enthusiastic about working with students,\u201d Feemster says. \u201cWe\u2019re fortunate to have him and the entire Global Patient Safety team as School of Pharmacy preceptors.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michael William, PharmD \u201913, is a senior pharmacovigilance scientist at AstraZeneca.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[456,4],"tags":[464,463,454,60],"class_list":["post-1534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alumni","category-research","tag-astrazeneca","tag-michael-william","tag-my-umsop-story","tag-preceptors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pharmacy.umaryland.edu\/insidesop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pharmacy.umaryland.edu\/insidesop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pharmacy.umaryland.edu\/insidesop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pharmacy.umaryland.edu\/insidesop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pharmacy.umaryland.edu\/insidesop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1534"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pharmacy.umaryland.edu\/insidesop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1534\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1538,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pharmacy.umaryland.edu\/insidesop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1534\/revisions\/1538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pharmacy.umaryland.edu\/insidesop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pharmacy.umaryland.edu\/insidesop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pharmacy.umaryland.edu\/insidesop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}