What does the future hold for pharmacists? Steve Martin, Pharm.D., foresees transformative changes that more closely align the field of pharmacy with physicians and psychiatrists for enhanced health and wellbeing. His predictions are based on both a lifetime of observation and practice along with academic insight into the ever-evolving and expanding pharmaceutical field.
On the eve of Martin’s retirement, he said he is optimistic about the direction of pharmacy, in large part because of the caliber of ONU’s pharmacy students and alumni. He recently took time to consider his career trajectory and what it has meant to him to be a Polar Bear (video located at the end of this story).
From family to faculty
For Martin, who became Ohio Northern University’s Raabe College of Pharmacy dean and professor nine years ago, practicing pharmacy has been a family tradition. While growing up, he and his two brothers; along with his mother, a nurse who served as the neighborhood fixer upper when it came to physical mishaps; and a cousin; all worked at the family pharmacy where Martin’s dad was an owner and pharmacist, thereby ensuring the profession “was always part of the conversation” within their household and engrained in their service-focused philosophy. Inevitably, Martin followed in his father’s footsteps.
Transitioning his career into education also came naturally, he said.
“I think the number one thing that I enjoy about what I do, either in my role as a pharmacist taking care of patients or in my role as a faculty member working with students, is helping people,” Martin said.
As the days count down to his June 30 retirement, it’s more evident than ever how Martin achieved this goal in myriad ways. His nearly decade-long tenure as an administrator and teacher at ONU has coincided with significant changes in the pharmacy field, key enhancements to the Raabe College’s academic offerings, a greater programmatic focus on serving the surrounding rural community, and a worldwide pandemic that further elevated pharmacists as essential public healthcare practitioners.
Martin came to ONU as a leader with a clear objective: define the College of Pharmacy’s purpose. “We are not Ohio State University… We are distinctly Ohio Northern University. We needed to practice pharmacy right here in Ada and in the surrounding community and we needed to be an even greater resource for the underserved community around us. We’ve done that and we’ve done that well, I think,” Martin said.
HealthWise Mobile Clinic, for instance, travels to where people live in Hardin, Hancock, Allen and Logan counties; the Wheeler Pharmacy Services Center provides medication management and adherence counseling for patients locally and across the country; the Center for Drug and Health Information Center continues to thrive; and HealthWise Pharmacy on campus remains an important regional healthcare option. All four offer invaluable hands-on learning opportunities for pharmacy students, too.
Program-wise, ONU’s PharmD six-year, state-of-the-art program, which offers a unique direct-entry option, expanded to include a new Bachelor of Science in Integrated Health Sciences degree after four years; it just graduated its first cohort this spring semester. Th PharmD program now offers a four-year option for students who come to ONU with an undergraduate degree or the requisite coursework. A new undergraduate degree in pharmaceutical and biomedical sciences was also recently introduced. In April, it was announced a new partnership between Ohio Northern University and Clarkson University will allow students to simultaneously complete an MBA in Healthcare Management, Master of Science in Clinical Leadership or Master of Science in Healthcare Data Analytics through Clarkson University’s David D. Reh School of Business, thus increasing their marketability and competitiveness.
All along, Martin has ensured that programming has adapted to rapidly-evolving pharmaceutical and healthcare industry needs while maintaining rigorous instructional standards pertaining to drug and product knowledge. These efforts have impressed outside entities, as evidenced by accolades such as the American Association of College of Pharmacy’s Lawrence C. Weaver Transformative Community Service Award and the American Pharmacists Association Pinnacle Award.
Crisis communication
When the COVID-19 pandemic descended, Martin rapidly became a go-to campus expert on contagious disease protection and response. As a frequent TV, radio and print presence, he dispensed wisdom based on historic and at-hand knowledge during the pandemic’s many twists and turns, thereby helping people make informed health decisions. He and his pharmacy colleagues were also vital to Ohio Northern’s internal communications and planning. Leaders were tasked with keeping students, faculty, staff and visitors safe while continuing to deliver the highest quality educational experience. Decisions were made that enabled ONU to remain one of the few schools to resume holding in-person classes when the fall 2020 semester started.
ONU’s Raabe College of Pharmacy, relying on faculty and pharmacy students, also served as a key COVID vaccine provider in Northwest Ohio. The region’s first clinic, held at King-Horn Sports Center’s field house, was attended by alumnus Governor Mike DeWine, JD ‘72, and his wife, Fran DeWine. HealthWise Mobile Clinic also helped ensure that state-sponsored vaccine clinics were held in the region’s more rural locations; one such location accommodated Amish arriving in buggies.
“My background is in infectious disease and critical illness, and I had postdoctoral training in infectious disease,” Martin said. “So, I think early on, when a new infectious disease problem came out, people were looking for someone who might have some expertise in that area. Although I hadn’t dealt with many pandemics in my life, I learned a lot.”
Martin said he, and the rest of us, realized the necessity of community during the pandemic. “We are all connected to each other in ways that we maybe didn’t realize before. The connectivity we have is incredibly important,” he noted. Cooperation is vital, too. “There are times when we all need to row in the same direction,” he said; health practitioners and academics joined forces like never before to share knowledge and to solve problems. “We really came together in a tremendous way,” he said. And, finally, “that need we have to help each other” ultimately helps everyone.
Meanwhile, pharmacists stepped into a more prominent spotlight during the pandemic while managing their own professional pivots. The job, Martin pointed out, is evidenced based, with facts and data paramount. “And yet oftentimes, we are not blessed with facts and data. We have to use our noggins to make the best decisions we can,” he said.
Pharmacy’s future
Martin said he remains “bullish on pharmacy.” For those interested in becoming a pharmacist, he likes to point that, while most of us see pharmacists behind the counter at a drug store, “that’s only one component of maybe 100 or more different directions that young people can take in their career. It’s a profession that has just tremendous versatility, variability in the things we do. If people want to get into a career where they’re going to make a difference in the world, I can’t think of a better direction to go than pharmacy,” he maintained.
“Maybe a lot of things that (future pharmacists) will do haven’t even been invented yet,” Martin said.
Some of those jobs of the future, Martin thinks, will focus on “stepping into the gap where physicians have previously operated, with duties such as managing medication therapy.”
Additional future jobs, he hopes, will involve “a structured partnership between psychiatrists and pharmacists.” The ongoing psychiatrist shortage in the country is coinciding with a spike in need, particularly since the pandemic. Life-impacting conditions such as chronic depression and anxiety are on the rise. Pharmacists could step into some of those voids, Martin believes. “We could free up psychiatrists to see those acute patients that need care urgently, with diagnosis and beginning therapy, while pharmacists could manage the pharmacotherapy for patients to really optimize their care,” he claims.
Finally, Martin thinks “you’re going to begin to see pharmacists in leadership positions in the private industry to a much greater extent, in health care systems as well as in the government, in the military, in the V.A. Rick Keyes is a good example. He’s a ’92 pharmacy program alumnus and now president and CEO of Meijer,” Martin pointed out.
Martin’s retirement plans will see a different kind of leadership realized. They will include “putting some miles on the bike” and simply having more time to do things. “I don’t want to prescribe what those things are. I’m looking forward to the chance to just make a spur-of-the-moment decision and do what I want to do. We’ll see how that goes!” he said.
Martin is also eager to see how Polar Bear pharmacists will thrive and change others’ lives for the better. During his tenure as dean, he said it could be easy to become hyperfocused on matters such as declining enrollment, competition with other institutions and programs, and aging infrastructure issues. What has provided him with a balanced perspective, he said, are the students, the alumni who have gone on to do great things, and colleagues who consistently uphold the ideals of higher education.
“I think what we have to do once in a while is step back and just look at the great things that happen here. We have amazing students from all over the world who bring diverse backgrounds and experiences and attitudes and faith representation. Those students have an outstanding experience here” and go on to “live lives that are so impressive,” Martin said. In turn, “they’ve been touched by the experience they have on this campus and the interactions that they’ve had. I’ve talked to a lot of alumni and they all have a fond memory of their experience at ONU. There’s magic here. I realized that when I first started.”
