Traci Hennessy
Hometown?
Clovis, California (mostly). My dad was in the military so we moved around a lot when I was younger.
How do you spend your free time?
What's free time? Just kidding, but with 2 young kids, it can be hard to come by! Pre-COVID, I would meet up with friends for dinner/drinks or get a massage/pedicure. Chicago has SO many great restaurants and bars - you could eat out at a different restaurant every night (assuming you have unlimited funds) for probably 3 years in a row.
What is your favorite movie or television show?
My favorite movie is Tommy Boy. This was the question asked for the essay portion of SSPPS's interview and I wrote about why Tommy Boy is one of the greatest movies of all time. For television shows, I have lots of favorites, including: The Office, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, and After Life.
If you could travel anywhere, where would you go and why?
I would like to travel to Ireland and Western Germany to specific regions where my 23andMe Ancestry Profile shows I'm from.
If you won the lottery, what would you do?
To be honest, I have no idea - I'd contact a financial planner right away. I would donate a portion of the winnings to charity using a site like GiveWell.org to guide me as to where the money would have the most impact.
Current position and location:
Clinical Coordinator of the Meds2Beds program at the University of Chicago Medicine (UCM).
What do you do? What is your role and responsibilities?
I coordinate the daily activities of the hospital's discharge medication delivery service. Along with the other pharmacists on my team, we perform discharge medication reconciliations to make sure the patient goes home on the right medication with the right dose/route/frequency/timing. We review the inpatient notes and labs, screen for any potential drug-drug/drug-disease state interactions, make therapeutic interchanges based on the patient's pharmacy insurance, work with social work and case management to address medication affordability, and counsel patients on the medications we deliver to bedside.
Did you do a residency?
Yes, I completed my PGY1 at UCM. It was an acute care focused residency with the opportunity to experience 24-hour in-house on-call shifts.
Why did you choose a career in Pharmacy?
A career in Pharmacy was a secondary goal for me. I loved organic and biochemistry in college (I majored in Pharmacology at UCSB) and was fascinated by the fact that a molecule could be ingested and change what was happening in someone's body. My primary goal was seeking out an education where I could become an expert in how these molecules affect our bodies and all the minute details involved in that process. What I discovered in pharmacy school was that I also loved learning about what our body does to the molecule and the downstream effects of that process as well.
How has SSPPS prepared you for your career?
SSPPS has prepared me by focusing their curriculum in hard science (pharmacology/pharmacokinetics/therapeutics), teaching me critical thinking skills, and challenging me to think beyond the status quo and outside-of-the box. SSPPS also taught me that diversity matters - when you have a bunch of people from different backgrounds and cultures coming together to solve problems, the solutions end up being more creative and inclusive.
What is your fondest memory of your time in school?
There are too many. Winning the CSHP Clinical Skills competition and getting to go to Midyear in New Orleans for free, performing the 'Thriller' dance on stage at an event with other Kappa Psi brothers, going downtown to different restaurants/bars with students from the School of Medicine (we'd usually have to rent a party bus), running my first 5K during the PhunRun, competing with the other classes during the end-of-the-year competition at La Jolla Shores, dressing up for Halloween with my roommates, etc. I could go on forever.
What have you been doing since graduation?
I stayed at UCM after completing my PGY1 and since then I've worked in inpatient pharmacy operations (central dose, IV room, chemo, and OR's), ambulatory care clinic seeing patients (warfarin management under protocol), and most recently, helped start our Meds2Beds program in 2017.
Any words of wisdom for a new graduate or a current student?
Almost all drug information questions you are asked in the future can be fully or partially answered by understanding the pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics of the drug and relating that information to the patient in question. You don't have to know everything, but you do have to know where to go to look something up and how to apply that information to a real patient case. In addition, you can make the world's best medication recommendation, but it won't mean anything unless the patient actually takes the drug - always address any potential barriers to medication adherence (affordability, tolerability, understanding of therapy, complex medication regimens, pill burden, patient-specific beliefs, etc.).
