White Coat Radio

“White Coat Radio” provides listeners with helpful advice, stories, and insights from the faculty, staff, and student pharmacists at East Tennessee State University Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy in Johnson City, Tennessee. Hosts Dr. Michele Williams and Stephen Woodward lead this informative and entertaining podcast, with new episodes appearing regularly. This podcast r ecently landed top spots on multiple national and state charts for pharmacy and education podcasts.

White Coat Radio is a education podcast hosted by East Tennessee State University, with 35 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

East Tennessee State University hosts White Coat Radio, a education show with 35 episodes published.

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  Episode #33

  Episode 33 — Dr. Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni on research into nanomedicine for cancer treatment

  Jul 27, 202623 min

  On this episode of White Coat Radio, we welcome Dr. Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni, who joined East Tennessee State University Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy as an Assistant Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences in July 2025. Prior to joining ETSU, he earned his Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences and completed postdoctoral training at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His research focuses on developing drug delivery systems, with particular emphasis on improving the formulation and biodistribution of nanomedicines for cancer treatment. Full transcription: 00;00;09;20 - 00;00;39;10 Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni The very first thing that impressed me with, about ETSU what people and the culture we have here. And I got to join ETSU. And here I am. 00;00;39;13 - 00;01;02;20 Michele Williams Welcome to White Coat Radio, a podcast from East Tennessee State University. Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy in Johnson City, Tennessee. Each episode we cover a wide range of topics about the pharmacy school experience, from study tips to deep dives with faculty and student pharmacists. I'm one of your host Dr. Michelle Williams, assistant professor and director of academic success. 00;01;02;22 - 00;01;29;04 Stephen Woodward And I'm Stephen Woodward, marketing and communications manager. Today we welcome Dr. Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni, who joined Gatton as an assistant professor in pharmaceutical sciences in July of 2025. Prior to ETSU, he earned his PhD in pharmaceutical sciences and completed post-doctoral training at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research focuses on the development of drug delivery systems, with particular emphasis on improving formulation and bio distribution of nanomedicine for cancer treatment. 00;01;29;06 - 00;01;35;05 Stephen Woodward Dr. Rasoulian welcome to White Coat Radio. We're so glad you're here. And would you mind just introduce yourself? 00;01;35;08 - 00;01;55;00 Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni Oh, thank you so much. I'm very excited and very happy to be here. Thanks for inviting me. My name is. My first name is Morteza. My last name is Rasoulian. People here in the school may see my the long version of my last name, which is indeed. I'm going to take this opportunity to explain why my last name is so. 00;01;55;02 - 00;01;57;21 Michele Williams Thank you for that, by the way. 00;01;57;23 - 00;02;20;11 Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni So my my last name is Rasoulian. So students can feel free to call me with that last name. The second part of what you see in my last name is actually the city I was born in. So there should be space between the two. But, because it might be confused with a middle name versus a last name, if someone puts a space in between the two. 00;02;20;14 - 00;02;47;01 Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni That's why we try to kind of keep the two words together. So Boroujeni is my last name and which is the city I was born in. I got my PhD at University of Wisconsin-Madison and joined Gatton College of Pharmacy in July 2025 as an assistant professor. And I'm very glad to be here. I'll be happy to kind of talk about more more about my background that sounds great. 00;02;47;03 - 00;02;57;24 Michele Williams That does sound great. And we're really, really happy to have you here. And, tell us a little bit about your the career path that led you to Gatton. 00;02;57;26 - 00;03;26;02 Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni Sure. That's a very good question, because I sometimes think about kind of how I got here and kind of, like, chose this, career and becoming a faculty. It's a long story, but if I'm going to start from the very beginning, I was always very interested in working in healthcare, things like including biotech, but I was I was also very, very good at math. 00;03;26;05 - 00;04;01;18 Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni So when I wanted to start my undergrad program, I was always thinking I wanted to be an engineer because I've, like, been good at math. But I really loved biology and the application of all those kind of things in biology. So I decided to go for a biomedical engineering program. So that was my undergrad background. And then later, in my kind of experience in at the university, I learned more about drug delivery, which is, one of the fields that biomedical engineers work on and also pharmaceutical scientists. 00;04;01;21 - 00;04;46;29 Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni And I kind of like I can say, I fell in love with that, with that field to kind of work on it. And I joined several labs to, to kind of work on different aspects of this. I've worked for Marquette University School of Dentistry for a while before I start my PhD, and there was a biomaterials lab over there that I work and I learned that I want to take my research experience to the next level and start a research based career, which for me in, in that time was either becoming a faculty and have my own research program, or joining a biotech company, like a pharmaceutical company. 00;04;47;02 - 00;05;13;23 Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni And for both, a PhD could be the route to kind of get there. So I started applying for it for graduate schools. I joined the University of Wisconsin, and I did my PhD there. It might be very interesting, if you know that before the end of my PhD, like I was, I was I was applying and getting interviewed by pharmaceutical companies, like Merck and Johnson and Johnson. 00;05;13;26 - 00;05;50;26 Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni But during the interviews and doing more research, I started to think that is it. What I'm going to do long term, kind of. It was it was very attractive for me because they deal with the end product that at the next step goes to market or, into the clinic and kind of helps patients. But at the same time, you know, as you get to that level of quality control, CMC manufacturing and all those kind of things, you can have less of innovative research and initiating new projects and kind of have that freedom to work on whatever you excites you. 00;05;51;01 - 00;06;19;15 Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni And it more like you have to stick to very, serious and well established standards. Right? So then I was like, okay, maybe I'm interested in a research, but maybe more like early stage innovative kind of research. And that's when I decided to join a startup company. So during the last year of my PhD and early days are postdocs I worked with a startup company in San Francisco for a while. 00;06;19;15 - 00;06;49;26 Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni I was between like flying between Madison and San Francisco. Oh my. For a long time. And then over there. It was exciting to do this kind of research, because that was at at the interface of kind of introducing a new technology and commercialize that. Right? I'm still very interested in that. But what I also learned is that I like to stand here, but I also want to be able to initiate new ideas to feed into this pipeline. 00;06;50;03 - 00;07;17;14 Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni So after finishing my postdoc, I learned that a faculty position in, School of Pharmacy can help me do that. That's why I was like, I'm going to apply for faculty positions while also keeping in touch with the startup companies in order to translate my research to, to, to a startup companies and later as a product. So applying for, pharmacy schools to become a faculty. 00;07;17;17 - 00;07;34;21 Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni I got familiar with Etsu. I interviewed here the very first thing that impressed me with, about Etsu, where people and the culture we have here. And I got to join Etsu, and here I am. 00;07;34;24 - 00;07;39;14 Stephen Woodward So that's great. We hear that so much about the culture. And the people here are definitely people first. 00;07;39;17 - 00;07;52;26 Michele Williams Yeah, and you fit right in. Yeah, too. Thank you. Yeah, I can remember when when you came for your interview. We we, either went out to once at breakfast or or lunch or dinner, I can't remember. 00;07;52;26 - 00;07;56;08 Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni I think it was. Yeah, I think it was dinner. 00;07;56;10 - 00;08;00;17 Michele Williams I think I remember thinking that you would be a good fit. 00;08;00;20 - 00;08;30;29 Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, yeah, it was great when when I visited here, like, Etsu had all that research infrastructure that I had. I heard about their plans to further develop this. Yeah. I loved the support of the leadership for research and the plans they have to kind of develop this further. And I also thought it also gives me the freedom to kind of work at this interface of focusing on my own research, while also working with startup companies to try to transition that. 00;08;30;29 - 00;08;54;00 Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni And actually, right now I work with, the office of, research and sponsor programs. Really, kind of I, I joined their that the trainings and all that resources they have for, for, filing a patent for example, how you can spin out the startup, from the university. You know, Etsu is moving toward that direction. I can contribute to that. 00;08;54;01 - 00;08;55;16 Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni That's awesome. Yeah. 00;08;55;18 - 00;09;04;29 Stephen Woodward Well, I could tell you connected well with the students, too, because it will be in retreat. I mean, out of the gate. You were playing volleyball and everything, and and so it was really nice. Got some good pictures of my day. 00;09;05;00 - 00;09;16;25 Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni Yeah. Thank you for that. They they are the best picture salon has ever taken. Oh yeah. Yeah. No, it was the moments, you know, you thought. 00;09;16;27 - 00;09;22;19 Stephen Woodward Yeah well it's great along those lines. And what classes can students expect to see you school. 00;09;22;21 - 00;09;47;26 Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni For the current semester and all the spring semesters? I'm going to be teaching in pharmacology to, and I'm going to be covering the oncology part like oncology drugs, because that's also part of my research. We can talk about it more. But yeah, I focus on cancer and treating cancer for my research. And I'm going to be teaching oncology drugs, for pharmacology too. 00;09;47;28 - 00;10;19;03 Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni In fall semesters I'm going to be teaching pharmacology. One. And in that course I mainly cover antibiotics. And that longer term plan is also for me to cover to, to instruct, PCA. So yeah, right now, I'm joining Doctor Lugo’s classes to kind of see the structure of the course, while also we have another course which is called advanced PCA, and that's for graduate students. 00;10;19;03 - 00;10;29;19 Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni That's a three credit course, which I take care of, one extra credit for graduate students. So right now I'm teaching also in advanced PCA for graduate students. 00;10;29;19 - 00;10;30;21 Michele Williams And PCA is for. 00;10;30;28 - 00;10;34;03 Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni Some other kinetics. Sorry. Yeah I yeah, some of the kinetic. 00;10;34;05 - 00;10;37;17 Michele Williams So there's an advanced PCA strategies that. 00;10;37;17 - 00;10;40;08 Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni Yeah. 00;10;40;10 - 00;10;52;26 Michele Williams So you mentioned your research and I understand that students can work with you definitely research, which is very exciting. So can you give an example of the kind of research that students can do with you? 00;10;52;27 - 00;11;29;07 Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni Sure. I, I'm, I have just begun, establishing my research programs, my research program. I'm going to have two research programs. One of them and and both of them are going to be about nanomedicine. The first one, which is mainly focused on lipid nanoparticles, which are nanoparticles used for in the formulation of Covid vaccines. They are used to package mRNA or other genetic material for gene delivery application, or of course vaccine application. 00;11;29;07 - 00;11;55;09 Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni So these nanoparticles are very complicated to design. And the reason for that is that we do not have enough knowledge about how they structure properties, relationship between what we use in making these nanoparticles and what they can do in the body works. Right. So if, for example, we're going to shoot for a certain application, which is let's say producing insulin for diabetes, right? 00;11;55;09 - 00;12;23;12 Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni So we need to be able to target these nanoparticles with an mRNA for example, in it to their pancreas. Right. So pancreatic tissue but no one knows how you can kind of, decide about formulation components and how you can mix them in order to, kind of control the bio distribution in the body and target them toward pancreatic, pancreatic tissue or any tissue of interest. 00;12;23;15 - 00;12;49;09 Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni But we know that there's a correlation between the two. What I'm trying to do in my research is using artificial intelligence AI to establish this structure. Property relationships, because we can have data for formulation and we can have data for the final response, which is, for example, accumulation in a certain tissue or, entering the cell or expressing a certain protein, whatever it is. 00;12;49;10 - 00;13;18;27 Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni So we're trying to establish AI models for these lipid nanoparticle design and have an AI guided design of lipid nanoparticles. So because this doesn't need that lab work at this point and is more computational, I have already initiated that program. And actually I have some student faculty students already involved in that project. And then the second, like at some point when we use AI to design these lipid nanoparticles, we will try them in real world, like in vet lab. 00;13;18;27 - 00;13;42;01 Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni So we will formulate what I suggest us to formulate. And then we administer them like we inject them to animals to see whether they work the way they're supposed to work, as AI is guiding us in that direction. So that's one of the research programs. And the longer term goal is this the second research program I'm trying to establish, but it needs an extra, some extra time, to get there. 00;13;42;01 - 00;13;57;22 Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni Where we can initiate this project is on cancer and nanomedicine, which we use polymeric nanoparticles to encapsulate chemo drugs and change their pharmacokinetic and bio distribution in order to reduce the side effects and increase the efficacy. 00;13;57;28 - 00;14;02;04 Michele Williams So they go straight to the place that they need to treat versus going out into the. 00;14;02;08 - 00;14;03;23 Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni Exactly. That's the. 00;14;03;25 - 00;14;04;11 Michele Williams Places. 00;14;04;11 - 00;14;30;06 Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni That's the goal. Yes. Thinking about oncology drugs and chemo, a lot of them are hydrophobic. And students who have, who have tech, who are taking, pharmacokinetic course or they know that they distribute all over the body. So when this drug, which is super toxic, is all over the body, it kills all the healthy cells as well as is killing cancer cells. 00;14;30;06 - 00;14;52;08 Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni It's not it has some selectivity mechanisms associated with it, but it's not super selective to what cancer cells. And that's what why you see these side effects. So for patients who are treated with chemotherapy, what we're trying to do is that to encapsulate this in a nanoparticle, and sometimes we add a targeting ligand on the surface of these nanoparticle. 00;14;52;14 - 00;15;14;21 Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni That targeting moiety targeting agent can attach to cancer cells and or cancer tissue more efficiently that it can attach to healthy tissue. So we expect that after injecting, we see more nanoparticles in cancer tissue and no less or no nanoparticle in other tissues. And that way we improve efficacy and we reduce toxicity. 00;15;14;25 - 00;15;23;22 Michele Williams That's amazing. Yeah. So if a student is interested in working with you on your research, what do they need to do? Kind did just. 00;15;23;22 - 00;15;24;19 Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni Reach out to me. 00;15;24;19 - 00;15;25;23 Michele Williams And they can email. 00;15;25;23 - 00;15;48;02 Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni Me. Yes, definitely. I'm very open to kind of very direct communication. And that's what we're doing right now. ... And that, that that's what happened. The current students we have in the lab, they reach out, reach out to me directly, and they express interest in my research. I talk to them, in, in several meetings, and I even present my research in the PowerPoints that I have. 00;15;48;02 - 00;16;25;28 Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni So they have an idea. They know I work on nanomedicine, but they may not be familiar with the details of what I'm doing. So I introduce all those details, first and then if they, still express the interest, I'll share with them several papers to read. And if they continue being interested, then I ask them to sign up for a research elective, for example, if that helps them to also manage their coursework and and credit, for research, and if even if they are interested in to kind of do it beyond just research electives, I'm very open to that and I'll be very happy to work with them. 00;16;26;00 - 00;16;27;16 Michele Williams That's great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 00;16;27;20 - 00;16;33;07 Stephen Woodward What kind of tools in your lab do you use to manipulate these nanoparticles? Yeah. 00;16;33;07 - 00;17;01;20 Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni So these nanoparticles are made by, by many different ways. But what we try to do to use principles of just mixing different agents, including organic solvent with aqueous, solvent. I can give you an example. You have seen have you ever added oil to water? For sure. You've done what happens? Like if you mix it so like harsh it becomes small. 00;17;01;20 - 00;17;03;08 Michele Williams Droplets little pellets. 00;17;03;08 - 00;17;25;21 Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni Yeah. So let let let's say we do this. We have a polymer which is a piece of plastic but it's biodegradable inside the body. And we dissolve it in a solvent which is hydrophobic, meaning that it doesn't like to mix with water like oil. Right. And we we choose the solvent to be very volatile, meaning that it evaporates very fast. 00;17;25;23 - 00;17;53;11 Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni It leaves that whatever you have, like the beach or the glass, container that you have. So if we put the polymer and the drug in that organic solvent oil, and we add it to water and we mix it harsh, and while we're mixing, we allow the organic solvent to leave the container because it's volatile. What happens is that the particles solidify and while they're solidify, they encapsulate the drug in them. 00;17;53;14 - 00;17;58;22 Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni And then we separate them. And these nanoparticles now can be used for like injection. 00;17;58;27 - 00;18;01;02 Michele Williams And so they're very, very tiny. 00;18;01;02 - 00;18;29;28 Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni Yeah. They're very tiny nano size like tat. If you let me think about it, how I can, you know, give you an A scale so they 10 to -7m, which is like if you put together 1 million of them, right? 1 million of these particles, it's going to be, ten centimeters or like two, three inches. 00;18;30;00 - 00;18;30;19 Michele Williams Oh, wow. 00;18;30;21 - 00;18;31;17 Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni So that's. 00;18;31;17 - 00;18;31;29 Michele Williams A little. 00;18;32;06 - 00;18;48;19 Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni Million of them. Yeah. You put next to each other. So, these nanoparticles should be and that should be the case because when we inject them the blood, if they're large, they lead to very adverse reactions, like the body recognizes them as foreign. 00;18;48;21 - 00;18;52;19 Michele Williams You can't have them in your tissue or in your blood vessels if it's too big. 00;18;52;19 - 00;19;00;07 Morteza Rasoulianboroujeni

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  Episode #32

  Episode 32 — Dr. Kelly Covert on Hospital Pharmacy, Residency, and Tips for Success

  Jun 29, 202617 minS0

  <p>On this episode of White Coat Radio, we’re joined by Dr. Kelly Covert, Associate Professor of Pharmacy Practice at East Tennessee State University Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy. She precepts third- and fourth-year student pharmacists, as well as pharmacy residents, on an adult medicine rotation at Johnson City Medical Center (JCMC). Dr. Covert is the college's PGY2 Residency Program Director. In this episode she discusses a day in the life of her practice site at JCMC, as well as tips for rotations and pursuing a residency.</p> <p> </p> <p>Transcript:</p> <p>00:00:00:00 - 00:00:25:03<br> Kelly Covert<br> If I...

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  Episode #32

  Episode 32 — Dr. Kelly Covert on Hospital Pharmacy, Residency, and Tips for Success

  Jun 29, 202617 min

  On this episode of White Coat Radio, we’re joined by Dr. Kelly Covert, Associate Professor of Pharmacy Practice at East Tennessee State University Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy. She precepts third- and fourth-year student pharmacists, as well as pharmacy residents, on an adult medicine rotation at Johnson City Medical Center (JCMC). Dr. Covert is the college's PGY2 Residency Program Director. In this episode she discusses a day in the life of her practice site at JCMC, as well as tips for rotations and pursuing a residency. Transcript: 00:00:00:00 - 00:00:25:03 Kelly Covert If I have a student who can see a problem and try to to learn how to solve that problem, if they can see a med they're not familiar with and go look it up and tell me what they found versus me having to ask them to do that. I think that's the mark of someone who's going to really excel in their pharmacy career 00:00:55:12 - 00:01:18:12 Michele Williams Welcome to White Coat Radio, a podcast from East Tennessee State University. Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy in Johnson City, Tennessee. Each episode we cover a wide range of topics about the pharmacy school experience, from study tips to deep dives with faculty and student pharmacists. I'm one of your host doctor Michelle Williams, assistant professor and director of academic success. 00:01:18:15 - 00:01:50:05 Stephen Woodward And I'm Stephen Woodward, marketing and communications manager. Today we welcome Doctor Kelly Covert, associate professor of pharmacy practice, who joined Gatton faculty in 2016. She precepts third and fourth year student pharmacists, as well as pharmacy residents on an adult medicine rotation at Johnson City Medical Center. Doctor covert is a 2014 graduate of the University of Tennessee Health Science Center College of Pharmacy, and completed her pharmacotherapy residency at the Medical University of South Carolina from 2014 to 2016. 00:01:50:07 - 00:01:57:19 Stephen Woodward At Gatton she serves as a PGY2 internal medicine residency program director. Now let's get to our interview. 00:01:57:21 - 00:02:00:01 Michele Williams Welcome to White Coat radio, Dr. Covert. 00:02:00:02 - 00:02:02:13 Kelly Covert Thank you. I’m excited to be here. 00:02:02:15 - 00:02:23:06 Michele Williams So, I'll get us started. You teach a number of courses here, at the college. And you're the course coordinator for the pharmacotherapy two course. Which students take in spring of therapy two year. What makes this course challenging for students, would you say? 00:02:23:09 - 00:02:52:27 Kelly Covert Yeah. I think, a piece of it is the design of the course. So when we redesigned the curriculum, there was a lot of intentionality in trying to kind of meld together. Pathophysiology and pharmacology and pharmacotherapy. And so this course does that to a certain degree. So we do expect students to do some pre-reading with regard to pathologies prior to coming into the course, which often students are less used to having to do. 00:02:52:29 - 00:03:15:25 Kelly Covert And then as the course builds, the disease states that they have learned earlier in the course, if treated incorrectly, end up leading to disease state. They learn later. So everything kind of builds, and we try to be intentional about not forgetting content that they had not only earlier in pharmacotherapy too, but also in therapy. One in the fall semester. 00:03:15:27 - 00:03:19:21 Stephen Woodward Can you tell us about your teaching specialties and what got you interested in those areas? 00:03:19:22 - 00:03:39:15 Kelly Covert Yeah. So when I first came to Gatton, gosh, almost ten years ago, I knew that I would be taking over the then Renal Integrated series and the GI integrated series, which works perfectly for me. In residency, I had a strong interest in solid organ transplant, and where I trained, most of our transplants were kidneys and livers. 00:03:39:22 - 00:04:04:02 Kelly Covert And so I had a strong, just interest in those disease states at baseline, not only the post-transplant stuff, but also all of the disease states that lead you to potentially needing a kidney transplant, or a liver transplant. And so it was an interest area of mine. And then I just got lucky that that's what the college needed, and have been fortunate to keep most of the content that I was kind of given at the very beginning of when I started here. 00:04:04:04 - 00:04:06:02 Kelly Covert Okay. Yeah. 00:04:06:04 - 00:04:09:24 Michele Williams So what do you like best about teaching again? 00:04:09:27 - 00:04:29:15 Kelly Covert Oh, lots of things. Number one, and this is not me saying this because I am a faculty member. I love our faculty members. I consider all of them really close friends of mine. And so I think we have a good group of people who care a lot about teaching students well. But I also like having a smaller cohort of students that it lets us get to know them really well. 00:04:29:18 - 00:04:52:18 Kelly Covert And you get to see people grow and change over time. If I notice, you know, maybe a student, a student seems off or someone who normally makes, you know, a B grades is struggling. I feel like we can recognize that more easily. And then the last thing that I appreciate is, I think in a lot of colleges, it doesn't always feel like everyone's on the same team. 00:04:52:21 - 00:05:12:11 Kelly Covert But especially when we were redesigning the curriculum, it definitely felt like a all hands on deck in a positive way effort. Like, everyone was willing to kind of put pride aside and say, yeah, I'll teach this, or yeah, you're right, that's too many hours for this, this disease state. So I just there's a lot of collegiality that I appreciate. 00:05:12:13 - 00:05:15:02 Michele Williams That's great. Yeah, I agree with you. Cool. 00:05:15:03 - 00:05:17:05 Kelly Covert Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. 00:05:17:07 - 00:05:22:14 Stephen Woodward Well, what tips for success or any advice would you give to our current students. 00:05:22:16 - 00:05:39:29 Kelly Covert Studying more than you think you need to. I, I was actually telling this to a student the other day. I think a lot of times, especially if you are a student who, in high school and undergrad didn't have to study very hard, you may have never really learned how to study, to be honest. That was me as a student. 00:05:40:01 - 00:06:01:11 Kelly Covert I kind of coasted through, and got to pharmacy school. And it's not that our material is harder, in my opinion. Still, to this day, physics is the hardest class I've ever taken by a lot. It's just that there's a higher volume and so if you don't know how to study and then the volume is so much higher, it just sets you up for a really challenging first semester. 00:06:01:14 - 00:06:23:04 Kelly Covert So I always tell students, study for more than you think you need to start earlier than you think. You need to break things down into smaller pieces than you think you might need to. Because the things that might have worked in undergrad when you were taking maybe 1 or 2 math and science courses, and then some fluffier or less intensive courses just probably won't work in pharmacy school. 00:06:23:06 - 00:06:27:03 Kelly Covert And then I always refer them to to Michele. Literally, always. 00:06:27:06 - 00:06:33:10 Michele Williams Thanks for that. Yeah. Yeah. I agree with you falling behind. 00:06:33:12 - 00:06:55:09 Kelly Covert It's just impossible to dig out. Yeah. And the challenge is everything builds. So, like, if you have a really rocky first semester, not to say your second semester will be equally as rocky, but if you don't learn things well on the front end, you're just going to be having to work that much harder to relearn something you were supposed to have already known, to then learn the new content for that semester. 00:06:55:11 - 00:06:56:24 Michele Williams Yeah, it does make things a lot harder. 00:06:56:25 - 00:07:00:12 Kelly Covert Yeah, for sure. 00:07:00:15 - 00:07:12:03 Michele Williams So, you oversee the residency teaching and learning program here at Gatton? And you direct the Pgy two internal medicine residency here, too? 00:07:12:07 - 00:07:12:26 Kelly Covert I you do that as well. 00:07:12:27 - 00:07:27:25 Michele Williams Yeah. And you yourself were a resident at the Medical University of South Carolina, right. What advice would you give a student who's interested in pursuing a residency that they might not get from a brochure or. 00:07:27:25 - 00:07:49:07 Kelly Covert Yeah. Yeah. I think the earlier you can identify that you might want to do a residency the better, because it it really will change how you set up the rest of your pharmacy school time. So, for instance, if you knew without a shadow of a doubt that you wanted to go own your own independent pharmacy, you would pick very different electives. 00:07:49:07 - 00:08:10:14 Kelly Covert And if you knew that you wanted to go be an infectious diseases clinical specialist at a hospital. And so I think if you can identify that early, it just helps you set up what you want the rest of your time at Gatton to look like. So it might make pursuing research interests more or less important to you. If you want to pursue residency, it might make you change the way that you rank your rotations. 00:08:10:16 - 00:08:28:29 Kelly Covert It might make you change the electives that you take. Or if you choose to pursue the residency track or not. And so I just think it's always a challenge of students realizing their fourth year they want to do residency, but haven't necessarily set themself up to be a great applicant from the beginning, because there's there's ground that's hard to make up after that point. 00:08:29:06 - 00:08:31:23 Michele Williams That makes sense. That makes sense. 00:08:31:25 - 00:08:46:16 Stephen Woodward So in addition to teaching and overseeing residencies, you also are a practicing pharmacist and preceptor. Could you kind of tell us about what a day in the life of teaching here and going to practice is, like where you practice at what is what is a day in the life of that look. 00:08:46:16 - 00:09:06:26 Kelly Covert Like a day in the life? Sure thing. So I practice over at Johnson City Medical Center. So just across the parking lot from us, which is nice. I can pop back and forth between the college in the hospital. I work with an inpatient family medicine team, so the way I describe it is all of my patients are sick enough to be in the hospital, but not so sick that they're necessarily requiring, the intensive care unit. 00:09:06:28 - 00:09:26:15 Kelly Covert We see a ton of different patients with different disease states and different levels of acuity. So some of our patients are much closer to discharge, and we might be dealing with more kind of chronic disease state management, not quite ambulatory care, but kind of in that vein. And then some of our patients are really quite sick and could be transferred to the unit. 00:09:26:15 - 00:09:52:12 Kelly Covert And so it's a variety. My team is comprised of an attending physician, three family medicine residents myself, a gaggle of medical students and pharmacy students, and sometimes pharmacy residents. And then also occasionally a psychiatry intern. So our team is large, interprofessional. And basically, my role on that team is to make sure all the meds that we're using and patient are appropriate. 00:09:52:12 - 00:10:13:15 Kelly Covert And sometimes that changes day to day, but then also to make sure that when the patient leaves the hospital, the plan that we have in place for them from a meds standpoint is, is feasible, both from a, you know, number of pills per day, cost of meds. If if a patient, doesn't have reliable ways to store their medications, that might change what we do. 00:10:13:17 - 00:10:30:16 Kelly Covert So most of my mornings and early afternoons are spent over at the hospital. We do table rounds as a team where we talk about each of our patients and make medication changes in the medical record. And then we go on walk around, and that's when we go see all of our patients and talk with them, update them on medicine changes. 00:10:30:17 - 00:10:53:22 Kelly Covert That's when me and and or my pharmacy students will do discharge counseling and making sure, again, meds are affordable and available to patients. And then my afternoons are kind of a mixed bag. If I'm teaching, it's almost always in the afternoon at the college, so I may come back over here and teach. If not, then I usually stay at the hospital and my students and I will do topic discussions or journal clubs. 00:10:53:24 - 00:11:00:18 Kelly Covert Just to kind of help. If there is any kind of loose ends we need to tie up, tie those up before we're done for the day. 00:11:00:20 - 00:11:05:04 Stephen Woodward Can you tell us what is a preceptor and what do you like most about preceptor? 00:11:05:06 - 00:11:26:05 Kelly Covert Yeah. So a preceptor, is an overseer of students who are on rotations at your site. The way I view myself is I am a safety net for students, so I encourage them to pretend as if they are a licensed pharmacist. So when you're looking at patients in the morning, if I wasn't here, what medication changes would you recommend? 00:11:26:05 - 00:11:50:29 Kelly Covert What labs would you recommend my team monitor? What would you make sure that you dose adjusted? That sort of thing. But ultimately students are licensed pharmacists. And so a preceptors role is to make sure any recommendations student makes is an appropriate one. Help guide them. If they've never been in the hospital before, help guide them on what a hospital pharmacist does, potentially help them streamline their workflow process. 00:11:50:29 - 00:12:12:22 Kelly Covert So if it's taking a student an hour to work off one patient, you know, helping them gain efficiency. And then another key part of my role is providing feedback. So students get a midpoint in the final evaluation of all of their fourth year rotations. But I also do feedback Friday on my rotation, which is basically just a touch point on how the how the week has gone. 00:12:12:22 - 00:12:35:16 Kelly Covert I have students set goals on the first day of what do you want to get out of this rotation by the end of it? And so we reflect back on those goals. How is that going? So it's it's kind of a safety net overseer, feedback giver, emotional support person occasionally. But what I like about preceptor, I mean, I a lot of times students get to my rotation. 00:12:35:17 - 00:12:59:22 Kelly Covert They haven't ever been in the hospital and they're totally freaked out by it. There's a lot of beeping, there's a lot of noises. It can be scary. And so I really appreciate seeing students go from totally fish out of water to by the end, they're integrated with my family medicine team. I'm fortunate to work with a team that's very pharmacy friendly, and so they're easy to integrate into. 00:12:59:24 - 00:13:16:00 Kelly Covert But just seeing students kind of get their sea legs and figure out how to navigate this process, even if it's not something they want to do when they're in a pharmacy school. So I have many students that want to go into ambulatory care community, but there's still a transitions of care piece that they might get to see on the rotation. 00:13:16:00 - 00:13:18:21 Kelly Covert So just seeing the growth is my favorite part. 00:13:18:23 - 00:13:20:03 Stephen Woodward Thank you. 00:13:20:05 - 00:13:35:12 Michele Williams That sounds great. What advice would you give students who might be on rotation with you. So what kinds of things do you like to see students do? Or what kinds of behaviors are you looking for? 00:13:35:14 - 00:14:04:03 Kelly Covert My number one thing that I think is most important for students on my rotation is to take some ownership of their learning. So rotations are when, you know, the reins come off a little bit and you're out in the wild doing what a pharmacist would do. And so if I have a student who wants to be told every single step in their day to get from beginning to end, that can be challenging because there's not a lot of, autonomy. 00:14:04:03 - 00:14:18:21 Kelly Covert There's not a lot of self-directed learning that happens there. So if I have a student who can see a problem and, and try to to learn how to solve that problem, if they can see a med they're not familiar with and go look it up and tell me what they found versus me having to ask them to do that. 00:14:18:23 - 00:14:45:21 Kelly Covert I think that's the mark of someone who's going to really excel in their pharmacy career, because honestly, like half the things that we teach students in pharmacy school by the time they're 5 or 10 years out, aren't accurate or relevant anymore. Just because meds change and guidelines change and drugs come on and off the market. And so if I have someone who's able to see what they don't know and try to fill that knowledge gap, I think that's my most important quality in a student. 00:14:45:24 - 00:15:05:27 Michele Williams That that makes a lot of sense. And I it, it almost sounds like between you're saying you're a safety net and you're saying, you know, kind of generate some of this stuff within yourself and do it. It almost sounds like you're saying take a take a step forward. Don't don't be a wallflower. 00:15:05:27 - 00:15:06:06 Kelly Covert Yeah. 00:15:06:11 - 00:15:11:21 Michele Williams Jump in there and give it a try. You'll catch them if they're doing something they shouldn't be doing or you’ll 00:15:11:21 - 00:15:12:25 Kelly Covert 00:15:12:25 - 00:15:16:20 Michele Williams Guide them. But but to get in there and give it a try and. 00:15:16:20 - 00:15:41:10 Kelly Covert Yeah, I mean, I'll tell students, you know, depending on what their career path looks like, apps are some of the last times that they they will have a safety net. And so kind of take advantage of that and practice at the highest level that you can. That way, you know, you know where your shortfalls are, versus if you are really timid or need to be told every step from A to Z to get through your day. 00:15:41:12 - 00:15:51:17 Kelly Covert I just don't know that you're going to be able to function as independently as a pharmacist when you're done with pharmacy school, and it is your license at the end of each decision that you make. 00:15:51:19 - 00:15:54:10 Michele Williams That makes sense. That makes sense. 00:15:54:12 - 00:16:02:06 Stephen Woodward Well we'll switch gears just a little bit as we head towards the end. But what is something about you that might surprise people. 00:16:02:08 - 00:16:18:22 Kelly Covert I don't I was looking at that question I hadn't had an answer for yet. I admit this, and this is shocking, but I'm a huge sports fan. I love I have season tickets to Etsu basketball. It's one of my favorite things that from the time I got here to Gatton, we bought those tickets and it's been a blast. 00:16:18:23 - 00:16:27:02 Kelly Covert We go to the Southern Conference Championship in Asheville every year. But I feel like most pharmacists are not known for being like sports fans, but I, I'm a. 00:16:27:04 - 00:16:29:08 Michele Williams Sports. 00:16:29:11 - 00:16:30:06 Stephen Woodward Editor, most for the. 00:16:30:06 - 00:16:37:16 Kelly Covert Scene as nerds. That's what I think. Nerds. There you go. No other interests. 00:16:37:18 - 00:16:42:19 Stephen Woodward Well, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast. Yeah, we look forward to this coming up. Yeah. 00:16:42:21 - 00:16:44:14 Kelly Covert Awesome. Thanks for inviting me. 00:16:44:16 - 00:17:00:29 Stephen Woodward Thanks for listening to White Coat Radio. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe and leave us a review. To learn more about ETSU Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy. Visit us at etsu.edu/pharmacy or follow us on social media at @ETSUpharmacy. We'll see you next time.

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  Episode #31

  Episode 31 — Dean Debbie Byrd on new state funding, Gatton's 20th anniversary, and answers to student questions

  Jun 9, 202643 minS0

  <p>On this episode of White Coat Radio, we’re joined by Dr. Debbie Byrd, Dean of East Tennessee State University Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy. She discusses the latest news regarding state funding and reduced tuition, the college’s 20th anniversary, her philosophy for overcoming challenges, and answers questions from student pharmacists</p> <p>Dean Byrd is celebrating her 10th anniversary as dean of Gatton this year. In March, she was named a Distinguished Fellow of the Pharmacy Academy by the National Academies of Practice (NAP), a prestigious honor that recognizes excellence and leadership in interprofessional health care.</p> <p>TR...

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  Episode #30

  Episode 30 — Drs. Tabitha Sineath ('24) and Katie Cox on Specialty Pharmacy

  May 12, 202628 minS0

  <p>On this episode of White Coat Radio, we’re joined by two specialty pharmacists making an impact in Tennessee. Dr. Tabitha Sineath (’24), an ETSU Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy alumna who earned both her PharmD and MBA through the college’s dual degree program, now serves as Lead Pharmacist at Walgreens Specialty Pharmacy in Nashville, where she is the Clinical Lead for Transplant and Chronic Inflammatory Conditions. She is joined by Dr. Katie Cox, who manages Walgreens Specialty Pharmacy in Knoxville. Together, they share insights into careers in specialty pharmacy, their work in women’s health, and the real-world applicat...

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