P-4 student honored for bringing public health principles to pharmacy

By Luanne Williams

Wingate School of Pharmacy student Maggie Nobles has been awarded the Excellence in Public Health Pharmacy Award by the United States Public Health Service. The full list of this year's winners has not yet been released, but it's a pretty exclusive club: Only 10 people received the honor in 2023.

Entering her fourth year in the School of Pharmacy, the 23-year-old Nobles will also pick up a master of public health degree as she crosses the commencement stage in May. The Aynor, S.C., native could hardly have prescribed herself a more rewarding and opportunity-filled college experience.

Having taken a part-time job in a drug store at age 15 and been certified as a pharmacy tech at 18, Nobles was drawn to Wingate because of its fast track to pharmacy (qualified students can bypass their bachelor's degree by completing a two-year pre-pharmacy course of study, going straight into pharmacy school). Nobles says the program prepared her well for pharmacy school, and she especially lauds the teaching of Dr. Tracey Davis in an anatomy and physiology course.

"It was the first class where I learned about how drugs work in the body," Nobles says. "I remember we were learning about thyroid disease, and it was so hard, but I loved it. I was so excited to go to that class. It really solidified that this is what I want to do. Tracey Davis was my favorite professor at Wingate."

Nobles entered the School of Pharmacy just as a new curriculum was introduced. She says that it was a little daunting working under the "blue curriculum," which was designed to ensure that modules covering disease states aligned with those introducing related medications, since there was no other cohort of students to lean on. But it also made her classmates closer to each other and to the faculty.

By the time she landed at a Harris Teeter for her first 100-hour retail-pharmacy rotation, Nobles was more than sold on her career path. By her second year, she was noticing the close ties between pharmacy and public health. As if on cue, Wingate added a dual-degree Pharm.D./MPH program and invited Nobles to apply. She had considered pursuing a master's at some point because of her interest in pharmacy administration and was thrilled to find out that she could pursue both degrees at once without having to backtrack for a bachelor's.

"The curriculums line up enough to forgo some of the pre-requisites, and Wingate adjusts the schedules and takes into account our pharmacy curriculum and that we are in a doctoral program already," she says.

The online and asynchronous public health modules, which Nobles typically works on at the end of each week, have become a growing fascination.

"I found myself looking forward to them each week, thinking, What am I going to learn about public health? What am I going to learn to take into my pharmacy work?" she says. "Pharmacy and public health are intersecting at the moment. Every day someone tells me about a way that pharmacy and public health go hand in hand."

Roles within several professional organizations - Christian Pharmacists Fellowship International (CFPI), American Pharmacists Association Academy of Student Pharmacists, and Phi Lambda Sigma Leadership Fraternity - give Nobles a chance to explore that intersection via service opportunities at local farmers markets, health and wellness fairs, and Monroe's H.E.L.P. Pregnancy Center.

It was her work with new and expecting mothers that helped garner her the national award. On the second Tuesday of every month, members of CFPI teach parents and other family members about common newborn disease states, how to treat them at home and when to seek intervention. In addition to explaining colic, acid reflux and other common infant issues, the volunteers go over simple treatments and provide handouts regarding dosing guidelines for over-the-counter medications. They also offer a Bible study and pray with clients, who earn points by taking the class and redeem them for bottles, diapers or other supplies.

"Monroe and Wingate are medically underserved," Nobles says. "Charlotte is adequately medically served, but not all patients from Wingate, Marshville and Monroe can make it to Charlotte."

Her work with assistant professor of pharmacy Adriane Marino at Union Family Practice during her ambulatory-care clinical rotation opened her eyes to the need to constantly tailor her pharmacy practice to her patients.

"A lot of patients at the clinic are on public assistance programs," Nobles says. "We had diabetes patients who were restricted by their income, so we had to do a lot of thinking about pharmacy in a nonconventional way. We also did a lot of looking at ways to educate patients at their education level, adjusting medication and disease-state education to their needs."

It was the first time Nobles saw her public health courses being put to use. "It was a very full-circle moment for me," she says. "It's where I fell in love with public health and got superexcited about how to use both of my degrees simultaneously."

That passion for using her public health knowledge to up her pharmacy game got the attention of the award judges. "Your achievements that clearly support public health illustrate the importance of incorporating core public health principles into today's pharmacy practice," wrote Rear Admiral Kelly Battese, chief pharmacist officer for the USPHS, in Nobles' award letter.

How Nobles will ultimately put her degrees to work remains an open question.

"I love patient care, I love public health, and I also love administration," she says. "If I can find a career where the three intersect, I'm there."

With 10 monthlong rotations, her P-4 year is giving Nobles plenty of opportunities to explore various pharmacy settings and roles. She's currently on a rotation at Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem and works at CVS as a pharmacy intern. She plans to seek a pharmacy residency focused on administration or public health.

"Right now I am loving population-health-management pharmacy," Nobles says. "That includes a lot of data analytics. It focuses on what the population is, what public health factors are affecting the population, and how we can adjust our pharmacy practice to meet the population's needs. That is kind of where patient care and public health are meeting."

Learn more about the School of Pharmacy and the Master of Public Health program at Wingate.

June 27, 2024

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