Pharmacists in today\u2019s health care environment need to be do more than provide pills, patches, or creams for customers in the pharmacy. They need to be full-service healthcare providers, examining a patient from a whole perspective, and helping them understand not just their medications but their overall health.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is more than just giving them a pill to fix X, Y or Z,\u201d said Ginger Lemay, clinical professor in the URI College of Pharmacy. \u201cI wondered what can I do to make them feel better in their body, mind and spirit? Thinking of the whole person. Our health care system is missing this, so I believe our pharmacy students should learn more than just which drugs to prescribe. What else can I do to support this patient?\u201d<\/p>\n
It’s a perspective Lemay has held since her early career as a community pharmacist, one she continues in her community practice at Walgreens and the Visiting Nurses Association, and has brought into the classrooms in Avedisian Hall. She integrates standard, Western health care with more holistic wellness methods, including yoga, meditation, massage therapy, acupuncture, and more. Such whole health methods are the focus of a new course she created in Integrative Health, which teaches pharmacy students to think about different ways to care for patients.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis unique class teaches students how to take care of a patient other than just giving them a patch or a pill,\u201d Lemay said. \u201cA patient may be prescribed medicine for their blood sugar, for example, but they may not like the way it makes them feel, which may lead to feelings of depression and anxiety. We think of our patients receiving chemotherapy. The medication may be curing their cancer, but we need to think of all the other things they\u2019re dealing with in their body that we don\u2019t always properly address. I started thinking what else do I have to offer them? We\u2019re teaching students how to take care of other people, but it\u2019s also a reminder to take care of themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lemay is helping faculty, staff, and students do just that with weekly wellness programs in and around Avedisian Hall. In addition to organizing immunization clinics in the college and around the Kingston Campus, she leads yoga classes in the Youngken Medicinal Garden. She also works with the students to organize meditation sessions, therapeutic painting classes, and pet therapy sessions, among other programs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe everyone in this college knows wellness is part of our culture,\u201d Lemay said. \u201cWe understand it is a very demanding curriculum and profession. Many of our faculty members have clinical practice sites, so we know their responsibilities and stress levels are high. And we also know that if faculty are in a good place, that can translate into students being in a good place.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lemay\u2019s efforts have drawn substantial recognition in the College and the community. The former president of the Rhode Island Pharmacist\u2019s Association and \u201ctrue advocate for health\u201d was named a Healthcare Hero by the Providence Business News, which noted \u201cher research on stress reduction to her holistic approach to patient care.\u201d And last year, graduating students voted for Lemay as the College of Pharmacy Faculty Member of the Year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was surprised by the faculty of the year; I never thought I would achieve that,\u201d said Lemay, who serves as an advisor to students as well as a preceptor to 6th year PharmD students on clinical rotations and Residency Program Director for her postgraduate year 1 (PGY1) residency program. \u201cIt really meant a lot the students saw me that way. I started my career as a pharmacist and wanted to share the joy I have of pharmacy and caring for people with the students, and wanted to inspire them to be that way, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lemay teaches on a variety of topics including integrative health, cardiovascular health, and self-care, in addition to guest lecturing throughout the college on wellness, mindfulness and holistic care. She continues to organize immunization clinics, recently vaccinating students, faculty and staff against the flu, COVID, RSV, Pneumococcal, Shingles, Tdap, Mpox, Meningitis B and HPV.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am an advocate for vaccination. I see it as preventative healthcare, like the wellness initiatives,\u201d Lemay said. \u201cWe need to invest in taking care of patients before things are broken, really have a more proactive approach instead of fixing things when people already feel sick, sad or defeated. I\u2019m trying to prevent that by educating people and showing them additional ways of doing things for themselves and their patients.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pharmacy Clinical Professor Virginia Lemay focuses on prevention, wellness, holistic health Pharmacists in today\u2019s health care environment need to be do more than provide pills, patches, or creams for customers in the pharmacy. They need to be full-service healthcare providers, examining a patient from a whole perspective, and helping them understand not just their medications […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1710,"featured_media":53691,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1710"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53690"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53690\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53692,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53690\/revisions\/53692"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}