Whether you are a student seeking your path, a resident wondering what your next steps are, a new practitioner trying to figure out your balance, or a seasoned practitioner drumming up your resilience, we all face one question at some time or another: What am I doing and why??  Purpose is a funny thing.  There are so many aspects to the experiences we have and who we are that how do you determine a singular purpose?  

As individuals, this determination is difficult enough.  As the nerdy pharmacist that I am, I have taken this completely existential thought and reduced it to a simple equation:  

You have to be willing to be self-reflective and honest but also have a pulse on your passion - which can change over time!  What is potentially even more difficult is translating multiple individual purposes into one common group purpose.  As members of this organization we have all connected our individual path to ICHP’s mission of “Advancing Excellence in Pharmacy” either intentionally or inadvertently.  Recently, we had the ICHP Leadership Retreat in lovely Zion, Illinois, and we used the concept of personal and group purpose to drive our goals to make an impact! After spending a little time defining who we are individually, we discussed how we fit together within ICHP. We asked questions such as:

Some of us loved math and science and chemistry.  Others were drawn to pharmacy because of patient care or a way to balance life.  Yet others were intrigued by the unknown possibilities within the profession.

Networking, acceptance and understanding, personal outreach, as well as the opportunity to give back and make a difference were some reasons identified.

Answers included educational opportunities, possible solutions/innovations to problems, advocacy, and helping patients by making the profession and health care better.

I’m hoping that you can identify with some of the answers above in your own journey.  What was most meaningful in my opinion was that regardless of where we all came from, ICHP was filling a similar role for us all.

We are all a blend of thinkers and doers.  I’m sure you can easily identify the disadvantages of being either by thinking of the extremes (e.g., people who can’t execute on anything because they overthink every step or those who plow ahead without thought or regard), but the reality is that we need a good blend of both to make sure we are making the right choices.  We need to be empathetic and take the next steps towards where we want to go.  Therefore, after a couple of nice warm and fuzzy thinking sessions, we needed to start kicking into action by determining the top three priorities for ICHP for 2019.  There are many wonderful activities that we are involved in and many opportunities that get presented to us as an organization, but the reality is we can’t do and be everything.  I call this the Nemo principle: to achieve anything of significance we all need to be swimming in the same direction!  So get your flippers on because the group of leaders present at the retreat compiled the following three goals for 2019:

Sustainability: Ensure long-term financial and operational stability through succession planning of staff and officers, while growing membership, products, and services.

Advocacy: Lead the development of public policy related to pharmacy that allows pharmacists and pharmacy technicians to work at the top of their education and training.

Engagement: Educate and energize our members, the public, and other health care professionals to advance the practice of pharmacy.

In order to make these goals SMART we identified tactics for each which included (but was not limited to) developing a process for succession planning for each board member, division/committee/network chair and ICHP staff member; revising the Pharmacy Practice Act and advocating for provider status; evaluating member needs; and increasing outreach to other health care professionals and the public, respectively.

There are still so many things we can and need to do to truly advance pharmacy excellence.  And despite the many brilliant minds at the leadership retreat and in our committees, we need more.  We need everyone swimming in the same direction. So let me ask you…