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I'm Ryan Marable, and I'm a Kroger pharmacist. I'm in charge of the full dispensing process of all medications within my pharmacy. Many people think about pharmacy today, they think about pills in a bottle, dispensing it to the patient, takes five minutes. But there's more to my job. There's a clinical aspect to it, one-on-one patient care. There's a lot of behind-the-scenes work working with doctors, nurses, physician assistants in order to get the main goal accomplished, which is providing topnotch, high-quality pharmaceutical care for our patients. I work for Kroger Pharmacy. We have over 2,000 stores nationwide. We really do focus on our service for our patients. I believe in our store's values. Our values align in how I feel about how I want to practice as a pharmacist. Our store's values are honesty, integrity, respect, diversity, inclusion, and safety. I start my day, come in to the pharmacy, I'll open the pharmacy, work with my staff, delegate various tasks throughout the day. I'll typically check my email because we often get alerts for any product recalls. It's very important that you stay on top of anything regarding patient safety. We're also counseling patients. That's one of the biggest things that we do. We're consistently at the front counter. We're working with our patients. We're seeing why they're taking the medications, coaching them on when to take their medications and how and explaining exactly why they're using those medications because that leads to positive outcomes. If a patient understands why they're taking the medication, they're more likely to take the medication. My pharmacy story began in high school. I connected with a pharmacist through my father. I worked on a project in high school, and the career that aligned with my personality was pharmacy. I knew that was something I wanted to pursue and set out for after graduation from high school. I eventually went to the University of Cincinnati. I participated in our pre-pharmacy program, then matriculated to the pharmacy graduate program at the University of Cincinnati. We gained our clinical knowledge in the classroom. We have some very highly competitive professors that participate in that program. We're learning the clinical knowledge directly from the source. If you're graduating from high school or currently in college, follow your passion. What are you passionate about? What are you willing to do every day? Find out what you're good at and what you're passionate about, then just follow that. Once you make that decision that you're gonna follow that path, then develop a plan of action. What I really like about my job with Kroger Pharmacy is connecting with people. That's something we do every day, connecting with our technicians, with our entire-- any associate within the store, we're able to work with them. Most importantly, we're able to connect with our customers, with patients who frequent our stores. Our customers are loyal to us, and it's very important that not only am I helping them with their pharmaceutical needs, but any need that they may need, whether it's a financial aspect or a question about their medication and why they're taking their medication. I'm able to make those personal connections. That's something that I look forward to every day. We have a lot of demands. Customers need certain things. Our technicians need certain things. And us pharmacists have certain demands to meet-- so being able to multitask and then keeping the patient as our first priority. We keep our customers first within our company. My main goal, in pharmacy right now, is to inspire the next generation of pharmacists. If I could give a student some hope or give them some type of inspiration to become a strong pharmacist and to get through their pharmacy program, I'll do it. Whether it's working diligently, working late hours, showing up to extracurricular events in the community that help in the overall health of our communities, I'll do those types of things because pharmacy is changing. There's certain services we weren't giving five years ago that are normal operations now. So with those expanded services, it's expanded responsibility for us pharmacists. I want to give the next wave of pharmacists that are coming into the profession an idea of the work it takes to be that leader within the community of pharmacy.

Funding to purchase and make this educational production accessible was provided by the U.S. Department of Education:

PH: 1-800-USA-LEARN (V) or WEB: www.ed.gov.

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