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March 18, 2010

Family affair: Pharmacist of the year

Brown has multiple relatives in the biz

By VANESSA McCRAY

TRAVERSE CITY -- Kathleen Brown started her pharmacy career as a soda jerk at her parents' Detroit-area drugstore.

Now, she's the Michigan Community Pharmacist of the Year. Brown, a pharmacist at the Munson Community Health Center Pharmacy in Traverse City, received the award last month at a ceremony attended by her mother, also a pharmacist.

"That's where I really learned my empathy and my compassion," Brown said, of her mom.

Pharmacy runs in the family. Her parents Marian and Eugene Hamlin both were pharmacists who met in college and owned pharmacies in Dearborn and Inkster. She met her husband Barry, a pharmacist, at Ferris State University. Her brother and brother-in-law also are pharmacists.

Brown credits her mother as a key inspiration. She started working in her parents' store at age 9 or 10. She recalls the old cash registers, the soda fountain with all the flavors and the root beer floats. She also remembers her mother, one of very few female pharmacists at the time, reassuring dubious customers.

"I can still hear her saying, 'This is the pharmacist. This is the pharmacist. I am the pharmacist,'" Brown said.

As a junior in high school, Brown went to the library and pulled out a huge book that listed occupations. She picked two possibilities -- marine biologist or pharmacist. She knew her profession would require "empathy with sea animals or people," Brown said.

She's worked in a variety of pharmacy positions, including a drugstore in Petoskey where she started geriatric assessment clinics before they became more common. She joined other professionals from various backgrounds who conducted a battery of tests and looked through a person's medications. Brown also has worked in hospital and compounding pharmacy settings.

"(I'm) always counseling, sharing the knowledge with the patient," Brown said.

Brown began working for the Munson pharmacy about eight years ago. She enjoys educating customers and conducts classes on diabetes and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease as well as talks on stroke, drug interaction, osteoporosis and other topics.

She also practices medication therapy management, which involves sitting down one-on-one with a patient, going through all of their medications and working with physicians. She makes sure patients understand how each medication works, determines if any medications are unnecessary or which ones they should be taking but aren't, combs through any herbal or over-the-counter remedies and provides tips about the best times to take certain drugs.

Jim Carpenter, also a pharmacist at the health center, was one of two people who nominated Brown for the award from the Michigan Pharmacist Association.

"She goes the extra mile, does extra projects, has done the extra education to become an educator in diabetes, asthma, medication therapy management," Carpenter said. "She's led the way for us on that."

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