Eric Michael Poladian
Chapman University School of Pharmacy
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My name is Eric Michael Poladian, and I am an aspiring pharmacist currently enrolled in Chapman University School of Pharmacy. I was born and raised in Fresno, California; I lived there until moving to Irvine to attend UC Ircine in 2015. I graduated from UCI with a B.S. in biological sciences and began attending CUSP the following fall trimester. I enrolled in Chapman in order to seek a quality, team-based education and participate in research and courses that fit my specific interests (precision medicine). So far, I have been able to participate in an ongoing research project about cannabis education in pharmarct and an X-ray crystallography course to supplement my knowledge of presicion medicine. Within five years of graduating, I plan to seek a post-graduate opportunity to learn more about pharmacogenomics and hopefully receive further certifications depending on where the field is at that point in time.
Upon graduating, I plan to pursue a career in retail pharmacy in order to provide care for the community and beocme financially stable while I plan out my future educational endeavors. I see myself staying in retail pharmacy as my long-term career and will be proud in doing so.
As for my personal life, my interests consist of martial arts, classical music, video games, and fitness. I am a high ranking brown belt in Shotokan karate with hopes of eventually returning to obtain my black belt. I played clarinet in high school and my community in Fresno, but I unfortunately do not have the time to play as much as I used to. Despite having a busy schedule with school, I do my best to stay fit with weight training and hikes to ensure my mind and body are fit to operate at their maximum capacities.
Hospital Systems APPE Final Presentation (.pptx) 1.66mb 200807054234_Community_Outreach_Exp_Assig.docx (.docx) 0.01mb 200807054210_Interprofessional_Reflection_Exp_Assig.docx (.docx) 0.01mb 200807054115_Career_Prep_Exp_Assig.docx (.docx) 0.01mb For approxamately 10 years I practiced Shotokan karate to become a high ranking brown belt. This is one rank below black belt, but I was still able to lead classes in stretches and form practices on my own. Practicing martial arts taught me the virtues of patience and dilligence
200807062634_Brown_Belt_Certification_.jpg (.jpg) 1.39mb While attending Clovis North Educational Center, I played clarinet and rose up through placement ranks to become a section leader. My responsibilities consisted of playing more difficult parts of the music, organizing sectional practices, and working with conductors privately in order to decide how solo's would be played.
In 2021 I took a travel medicine course in order to fufill elective requirements and become certified in travel pharmacy, which will be useful when everyone starts traveling again after COVID is more under controll. The course covered how to council and prepare patients for travel to varous areas of the world and how to protect them from hepatitis, malaria, yellow fever, zika virus, etc. This was a short elective course, but was beneficial in establishing a base knowledge of travel medicine for myself.
During my final year at UCI, I took an introduction to precision medicine course as an elective and to prepare myself further for my long-term interests in pharmacy. The course primarily discussed the innovations in sequencing technology, how it can be applied, and how current law protects people from segregation based on genomic findings. This course supplemented my initial knowledge of the subject obtained from an Genomics & Developmental class taken the year prior
For my first elective choice at Chapman, I took a 6 week course detailing the use of X-Ray crystallography as a specific means of contributing to precision medicine. The class would allow for a tour of the exclusive X-Ray lab and equipment at Chapman and supplementary teachings on the applications of it. The class also spent some time to demonstrate how to understand these 3-D structures through modeling with PyMOL software.
I completed my high school education at CNEC in Fresno, CA. Here I graduated with a 4.24 GPA and participated in marching and concert band in addition to taking advanced placement classes
I attended UCI to obtain my B.S. in Biological Sciences. I graduated in 2019 while operating as a research team leader of a drosophila lab and preparing for pharmacy school.
Through the UC education abroad program, I completed an excellerated physics course at UCD in order to satisfy my physics series requirement for my B.S.
As of August 2020, I have completed my first year of pharmacy school at CUSP. I will still have five trimesters to complete after this. So far I have maintained my scholarship of 15% off of total tuition by keeping my GPA above 3.0. I have also staretd to participate in research through CAPSTONE to become a part of the Cannabis Education Project.
As of July 2021, I am in the process of completing the last trimester of my second year, and I have managed to maintain my scholarship and start bringing my GPA up further than it was. In addition, I have nearly completed my reasearch project with my team, and I have obtained more practical experience through my rotations, vaccine clinics, and my paid intern position at Rite Aid. I will be starting my APPE rotations in a matter of weeks where I will solidify everything I have learned from my didactic trimesters
In March of 2021, I was able to land a paid pharmacy intern position at a Rite Aid Pharmacy in San Clemente. Even though I have only started working there this year, coming in more than once a week (like with IPPE rotations) has already made a massive difference in how I work in the community setting. I had experience with the typical intern responsibilities from my rotations, but working proper really helped me strengthen my customer service, which is critical for community pharmacy. I plan to work community pharmacy after graduating, so any and all extra work I can get a is valuable to me so I can practice establishing long-term relationships with patients.
My current retail experience helped me prepare for the workflow of other pharmacies throughout my APPE rotations, and I am fortunate I was able to balance working while doing my rotations. I plan to continue working as I study for board exams and begin to apply for retail jobs in the neae future.
Reference:
PIC: Peter Nguyen: (949-254-7309)
Staff Rph: Oanh Nguyen (714-742-2247)
While I was in high school, I worked a basic office job at my father's chiropractic practice in Fresno, CA. My responsibilities consisted of answering phones, setting up appointments with patients, inputting patient data, etc.
For my first and only time taking the PCAT exam for entry into pharmacy schoool, I scored 93rd percentile. This score was rewarded with a scholarship from Chapman University School of Pharmacy (see honros and awards tab).
In 2022, I will be graduating from CUSP and will have earned my PharmD. I plan to maintain my scholarship and graduate with a goal GPA of 3.4 or better.
Pharmacogenomics and precision medicine as a whole was the very reason I became interested in pharmacy in the first place. After working for a few years to become financially stable, I would like to pursue educational experiences or possible certification to become more involved with the practice of precision medicine.
Upon graduating from Clovis North Educational Center, I was awarded with National Honor Society status
When I graduated from Clovis North Educational Center in 2015, I was awarded as a scholar of distinction for taking multiple AP courses and maintaining a GPA above 4.2.
By earning a score of 93rd percentile on the PCAT, I qualified for two tiers of a PCAT score scholarship from CUSP. The tiers were for 50th and 80th percentile; both totaled to covering 15% of my total tuition. I have maintained this scholarship status by keeping a GPA above 3.0
My final IPPE rotation was at Rancho Los Amigos Rehabilatiaiton Facility in Downey, and it was a very different experience from my other rotations. This site is unique in that they have a structure of doing SOAP notes and rounds in the first half of the day, followed by administration in the second half. There was also a noteable amount of take-home work in the form of SOAP notes, topic discussion questions, journal club presentations, and a disease state presentation. This site helped me experience the interprofessional communication of rounds, and opened my eyes to the relevancy and the amount of clinical knowledge needed for hospital sites. This site helped me refresh on some of the older guidelines, labs, and common hospital conditions such that I could contribute to case discussion
My fifth rotation site was intended to be a community site that specialized in MTM. I was able to practice and observe some MTM for diabetic and hyertensive patients, but most of my time was spend drawing and administering COVID vaccines since that store was one of the earlier immunizing sites. When I was not immunizing, I was able to tend to standard intern tasks and had proven myself enough to be offered a posiiton at another store after my rotation was over.
My fourth IPPE rotation was one of my favorite rotations because of the workflow at costco, the opportunities it offered me, and my fantastic preceptor. My preceptor took time out of her busy schedule to work with me personally, teach me important lessons, and even let me help her in a 100-shot flu clinic at the Costco Business Center. It was a big step for me at the time, since I had not given that amount of vaccines before, and it prepared me for the large volume of shots I had shown I could be responsible for. I ended up immunizing for most of my time there since it was durring flu season, but I also practiced making calls, taking prescriptions, and some consultations.
My third IPPE rotation was at an independent pharmacy that had just shifted to primarily delivery during the onset of COVID. At this site, I learned about how an independent pharmacy is run, and I learned that there is a lot more responsibility for the site itself (as opposed to a chain where corporate or store managers help in several logistics). I did more paperwork and record keeping than actually filling prescriptions, but it is important to experience that side of pharmacy if I am to open an independent pharmacy like my Aunt and Uncle did many years ago.
For my first proper rotation to gain intern pharmacist experience, I spent 50 hours at, "The busiest Walgreens in all of Sothern California," (Store 7286). At this site, I was thrown into the fire a bit; I had had almost no experience behind the counter and had to learn quickly. At this site, I got the feel for rushed workflow and spend most of the time filling non-stop. I definitely improved and learned how to navigate a pharmacy better, but it was a bit much for my skill level at the time. The pharmacist however managed to make time for me to learn some of the pharmacist responsibilities such as taking phone prescriptions, calling physician offices, and reviewing medications. This pharmacist in particular taught me a lesson that stuck with me about, "treating the patient, not the number," This concept essentially means that a pharmacist needs to use their best judgement based on clinical practice in order to make the best decisions for a patient, and not always do whatever the computer says to do. As pharmacists we have a repsonsibility to provide the best care possible.
For my second 50-hour rotation, I went to an independent pharmacy that specialized in a lot of specialty medications for rare and serious skin conditions. This was the polar opposite of my previous site since it was independent and had almost nobody enter the phamacy, as they primarily did deliveries during COVID-19. This site reminded me of working at my father's chiropractic practice where I was mostly doing office-style work such as data review, inventory and record keeping. It was a good experience for me to get a feel for the independent side of pharmacy. The site itself could have been a better learning opportunity for me to practice proper intern responsibilities, as there was a lot of down-time for me, but not so much for the staff pharmacist.
For interprofessional experience, I observed the annual CUSP boot camp. As an observer, I learned how an interprofessional team functions, as well as basic stroke assessment etiquette. This was done via telehealth and provided ample experience providing care via technology
For this ongoing project, I developed the core project idea and created a presentation detailing it in order to gain approval from the professors overseeing the project. My idea was accepted and me and my team, who I could not have completed this process without, could continue on with our project
For my leadership requirement, I continued to be a leader in my part of the Cannabis Education Project being overseen by Dr. Lam and Dr. Gutierrez at CUSP. In the initial stages of the project, we had a difficult time getting the project off of the ground after COVID had suddenly created several barriers to any project ideas we had. Eventually, I developed an idea for our project: a synthesis project combining all efficacious and FDA-approved data regarding a common cannabinoid medication, Epidiolex, and general knowledge of these medications to address the stigma among providers and patients. With the help of my team, we ended up creating two physical products: the Epidiolex treatment algorithm and the patient pamphlet with information, facts vs fiction, expectations, etc. To further act as a leader, I went the extra mile to reach out to providers that I had connections to through family, friends, and rotation in order to gain constructive feedback to improve the project from where it was. As of now, the project is practically ready to be presented, we just need to physically give the presentation. I have been practicing leading the discussion around the project in general and my parts, while creating opportunity for the rest of my teammates to handle their respective parts as well. I feel I have done my part as a leader in facilitating discussion, keeping contact with preceptors, and doing what I can to obtain outside critiques of the project. I am looking forward to presenting everything my team and I have been working on for the last 5 trimesters. The attached files contain the two physical products of our efforts.
Through CAPSTONE at Chapman University School of Pharmacy, I have become a part of the Cannabis Education Project. For this project, the 8 or so students were divided into two teams and directed to develop an idea and specialty for their component of the project. Our group decided to specialize in pediatrics and cannabinoid treatment, and I developed the idea of synthesizing a treatment algorithm using available literature. I created a small presentation and presented on behalf of my group in order to gain the professors' input and eventual approval. The project is ongoing and will be completed at the end of the 2021 school year. We plan to create the algorithm and put it on a posterboard for presentation and supplement it with a pamphlet of, "facts VS. fiction," relating to cannabinoids.
This is the results of my time and effort spent with my team on the CUSP Cannabis Education Project. (see research for more details)
210713054516_Provider_Algorithm_Cannabis.pdf (.pdf) 0.63mb (see exemplify)
(See Interprofessonal tab)
In the beginning of my academic career at CUSP, I attended a workshop led by two professors who walked us through how to write a CV and behave at an interview. The workshop helped me create my first CV, and enabled it to be stronger than it would have otherwise been.
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