Alumni Spotlight: Mackenzie Bevry, PharmD
Mackenzie Bevry, PharmD
Hospital Pharmacist, Froedtert South – Pleasant Prairie Hospital
MCW School of Pharmacy Class of 2021
What’s your “why” for pursuing a pharmacy career?
Science has always been a passion of mine since I was in High School. In college I discovered my interest in enzyme function and how we can influence signaling pathways with small molecules. I wanted to take this passion to help people. Pharmacy seemed to be the natural progression to take my interest areas and work directly with patients.
What was interesting or exciting to you about your specific pharmacy career path?
I am still very open to different areas of pharmacy and am trying to still figure out where I want to go in my pharmacy career. This is the wonderful part of pharmacy: there are many different directions you can take your career. Right now, I am building experience in the hospital setting, but in the future, I can consider pursuing some of my other interests such as pharmacogenomics or transitions of care.
What are your pharmacy career aspirations?
For now, I am continuing to work on improving myself and am looking to get a more formal certification for pharmacogenomics and becoming a Board Certified Pharmacotherapy Specialist. I completed a more informal program when I was a resident at Mayo Clinic – Eau Claire, WI, but as this is an area I am interested in pursuing potentially in the future I want to complete a more formal certification course in this area.
How would you describe your experience at the MCW School of Pharmacy?
MCW School of Pharmacy was definitely a rigorous program with a lot of information to be learned in a short amount of time, as would be expected with a 3-year accelerated program. That being said, the staff and faculty at MCW were there to support my classmates and me through the course work. My class had a unique experience being in the second graduating class, so there was a lot of communication between faculty and the students to help refine their teaching techniques and content presentation. They were looking to continuously improve the program to help prepare the pharmacy students for their career and passing their boards exams.
What’s one of the top reasons someone should choose the MCW School of Pharmacy for their PharmD education?
MCW holds their students to a high standard while offering a program that allows you to graduate on an accelerated timeline. This is something unique none of the other pharmacy schools in Wisconsin offer. I also cannot praise the staff and faculty enough for the support they provide their students with many of them having drop-in office hours and their interest in you personally in your own mental well-being in a rigorous program.
Describe a research opportunity or clinical rotation experience you had as an MCW pharmacy student and what you gained from it.
I had the opportunity to work in Dr. Abourashed’s lab while I was at MCW working mostly with the HPLC for stability studies in collaboration with Children’s Wisconsin and with potency studies on expired medications in collaboration with Bread of Healing Clinic. I was able to get my name on two publications through my work in his lab and am thankful for helping keep my interest in bench-top research alive while at MCW.
What made you decide to pursue residency? What did you gain from it?
I was highly encouraged to pursue residency from my mentors and advisors when I was in pharmacy school as it would put me on a fast track to further my career quickly. I decided to pursue a PGY1 in the acute care hospital setting at Mayo Clinic – Eau Claire, WI. I chose this path due to the diversity of options for rotations they could provide me both at the local hospital and through their main campus in Rochester, MN. They gave me the opportunity to be a first author on a publishable project that is currently in final peer editing before being published in the journal. I also was glad to have the opportunity to participate in a teaching and learning certificate program, which required me to do public speaking during pharmacy grand rounds and help teach at the physician assistant school at Mayo in Rochester, MN. Over the yearlong residency, I made strides in growth and practical experience even though I wasn’t certain where I wanted to go in my career at that point.
Do you have any advice for someone who is considering a pharmacy career but isn’t quite sure?
The profession of pharmacy has many opportunities within it. As long as you have a passion for helping others and utilizing medications to improve their lives you can find a home in pharmacy.