Building Healthcare Software as a Pharmacist
I watched a TED Conferences in 2013 when I was a PGY-1 Pharmacy Resident at Sarasota Memorial Health Care System about how innovation typically happens at the intersection of very different things. Some may refer to this idea as "hashtag#orthogonal thinking". Nevertheless, it's always been on the back of my mind over the years as I've continually found benefit in learning about things outside of my general sphere of hashtag#pharmacy.
Given that I've been diving deeper into the hashtag#technical weeds of hashtag#software development, I wanted to share a bit of my experience thus far on how it has been going. In case you didn't want to read the article, the tl;dr is simply: I absolutely love applying my domain expertise in building hashtag#healthcare software.
#healthcareonlinkedin #clinicianengineer
Why All Clinicians Should Learn to Code
I’m an informatics pharmacist that graduated in 2013 but did my PGY-1 in Pharmacy Practice in 2013 and PGY-2 in Pharmacy Informatics in 2014. Thus, I officially started my full-time career as an informatics pharmacist in 2015. I wanted to write about my thoughts on coding and likely share some of my insights along the way as I develop my coding skills because one of the most common questions I get from students interested in informatics is: “Do I need to learn to code to be an informatics pharmacist?”
DIGITAL DISRUPTION IN HEALTHCARE: INSIGHTS FROM A CLINICIAN IN A TECHNOLOGY COMPANY
An insightful article in NEJM Catalyst was published on March 1, 2023, by Karen DeSalvo, Chief Health Officer at Google, and Michael Howell, Chief Clinical Officer at Google. Having spent the last 10+ years as an pharmacist and clinician at multiple health systems (e.g. Mayo Clinic, University of Utah Health, Sarasota Memorial Health Care System), the article made me spend some time today to reflect on my own foray into a technology company just 10 months ago. In short, I am grateful for the path that Karen and Michael undoubtedly paved for other clinicians to venture into this industry.
In this article, I'd like to share my own experience as a health data architect/clinician at Verily, an Alphabet Inc. company and how it relates to the 6 lessons laid out by Karen and Michael. You can read the full #NEJM article here.
WHAT I WANT TO BE WHEN I GROW UP…STILL
I spent the last 2 months engaged in conversation with an assortment of individuals about what I want to be when I grow up. Yes, I'm still trying to figure that out. In fact, I don't think I ever really settled into a career as of yet that made me go, "Wow, I want to do this for the rest of my life".
The thing that fascinates me the most though is that I'm not alone. There are so many individuals out there wondering the same thing. Aside from exploring my own interests, I spent a great deal of time conversing with others, often strangers, on what paths they should take as well. It seemed as though the article I wrote about Data Science resonated with many of you who are in careers at the intersection of healthcare and technology.
In this month's article, I wanted to reflect on some of the conversations I've had over the last 2 months, but also share with you some of my next steps.