David Yang
Rice University
Houston (29.7° N, 95.3° W)

featuring Ekim Ekinci, Clinical Pharmacy Specialist in Oncology, Kaiser Permanente, Denver (39.7° N, 104.9° W)

Ekim Ekinci is a clinical pharmacy specialist in oncology at Kaiser Permanente. She graduated from Rice University with a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry in 2010 and later pursued pharmacy at the University of Kentucky. During her time in pharmacy school, she was actively involved in several student organizations and honor societies. Upon graduation, Ekim completed a residency program in oncology pharmacy at Houston Methodist. In her current position, she is a specialist in hematology-oncology.

I was interested in interviewing Ekim because of our shared interest in chemistry. I am a third-year student at Rice University studying chemistry, a field which I find to be a powerful influence on healthcare through drug discoveries. I am interested in pursuing a profession in the medical field, but I am unsure of my particular role, and I hoped to gain an insider’s perspective of the field of pharmacy during my conversation with Ekim. When I interviewed Ekim, I was interested in how she is able to use her passion for chemistry in her occupation. We discussed how she decided to attend pharmacy school, her extensive day-to-day responsibilities, and misconceptions related to pharmacists. We ended the interview discussing her work-life balance and advice she has for aspiring pharmacists.

Ekim’s discussion about her true passion in chemistry and its effects on the human body resonated with me, since organic chemistry has been my favorite subject of study so far. To me, organic chemistry is less about memorizing and more about understanding concepts and applying them. I think it is fascinating how concepts learned in my organic chemistry class that can seem detached from medicine can be applied in medicinal chemistry and eventually in pharmaceutical studies. Looking forward, I hope to see how interested I am in the medicinal chemistry course I take next semester, since that is a major component of pharmacy.

Because of this interview, I now consider pharmacy as an appealing option for me, though I am still debating whether to choose it as a career over medicine. Ekim provided me many pieces of practical advice on applying to pharmacy school. She also made me realize that pharmacists can take many different types of jobs, not just retail; I didn’t even know fields such as infectious diseases pharmacy existed. I am also attracted to the comfortable work-life balance of a clinical pharmacist, since time I get to spend with family and friends is important to me. I think what Ekim said about shadowing and talking to different healthcare professionals to learn about various jobs is truly valuable. In shadowing professionals, I would be able to get a feel of the everyday responsibilities and to see how well I would fit in. It is always healthy to gain as many perspectives and stories as possible before making any big decisions. I would like to have similar conversation with physicians, where I am able to learn from their career and background in a structured yet open manner.

Highlights from the Interview

What was expected of you from your family or community, and did you adhere to it or stray away from it?

I came to the United States when I was sixteen to go to college at Rice University. The reason why my parents wanted me to go to Rice was that I wanted to be a chemistry major and then continue on to a PhD in chemistry at the time. In Turkey, majority of people go into medicine or become lawyers or go into engineering, so those are the traditional job positions that are considered to be better than others. But I wanted to study chemistry, so I came to the US. However, after completing my bachelor’s degree, I realized that continuing on to a PhD program in chemistry was really not what I wanted to pursue anymore. When I made that decision, I had to think about where I wanted my path to go after that.

I took some time after college and looked into graduate programs, different types of schools, different professional degrees. I was working and also going to the University of Houston to earn extra credit, in case I decided to go to a professional school.

It turns out that a lot of medical and pharmacy schools do not accept International Baccalaureate degree credit in chemistry or would like you to retake some of those classes again in college. For example, I had to retake an organic chemistry lab, which I was able to skip at Rice because I had IB credit. I ended up taking some classes that some pharmacy schools want you to take that I hadn’t taken at Rice. Like statistics, genetics, etc.

My parents wanted me to look into medical school as well. So, I took the MCAT. I also took the PCAT, which is for pharmacy school. I did apply for both, and I got accepted to both types of professional schools, and at the end I realized I wanted to do pharmacy, so I chose pharmacy school instead of medical school. So I’d say that is non-traditional in some ways, especially for my background, but I have been very happy with that decision. 

When did you know for sure that you wanted to follow the pharmacy path over getting an MD?

I explored the work of a lot of physicians and pharmacists early on. I emailed them, set up appointments to talk to them, and even shadowed some of them for half a day. A lot of people will let you do that, especially if you find someone that has a similar background as you, or kind of like a connection, or you may be able to find a name from a mentor of yours. However, I didn’t make my final decision until it was really time to decide between pharmacy and medical school when I had gotten all my acceptances. I looked at the path for both of those professions, and I realized what I am most passionate about is chemistry and how medicines affect the human body. So while I am interested in different disease states, I realized I don’t necessarily want to be the professional who diagnoses, but I would rather be the professional who determines what drugs the patient should get for best care.

What path did you seek in pharmacy school?

Pharmacy school is a four-year school that leads to a doctoral degree, so you are a Doctor of Pharmacy at the end. And then you have multiple paths. You can go into retail pharmacy, which is one way. You can go into consultant pharmacy, you can become a consultant for long-term care companies. You can get a fellowship and go into industry. You can get a residency and go into hospital or acute care, or also ambulatory care pharmacy. And within all of these, and even within retail, you can actually do a residency and become more specialized. You can also join a school as a faculty member. So there are actually a lot of options within pharmacy; if you do a residency, there are sub-specializations and that’s how I’m a specialized pharmacist in hematology-oncology.

What exactly does your position entail? What are your main responsibilities and what are the biggest challenges you face day-to-day?

I am a specialist in drugs that are utilized in hematology-oncology. Anything that is new that may have come up that a physician has questions about, they come to me. If a patient is going through second, third, fourth, fifth line therapy for their disease state, they usually come to me to determine what treatment will be the best option for that patient. Or if a patient has a very rare disease, they come to me. If a patient has a genetic alteration that they have not seen before, or any potential biomarkers that we could target, they come to me. My position is that I’m there to help them determine how to best care for the patient. I also am evaluating any other therapies the patient might be on—and other diseases the patient may have—to make sure the therapies we are going to give are not going to adversely affect the rest of the patient’s health.

Also, working at Kaiser, one of my other responsibilities is to make sure we are containing cost for the general public. So not only do I help the physician choose the best option for the patient, it also has to be the most sensible option.

I also sit in on our clinical trials committee and one of our excellence in cancer care committees. I get to do something different every day—and I learn everyday too, which is very exciting.

Do you think there are any misconceptions about your job? I asked people what they thought about if I became a pharmacist, and they said “Oh, I don’t think you’ll like it because you’ll just be counting pills all day.” That’s definitely not what you’re doing.

Yes, that’s definitely the number one misconception. It’s so strange—when you get into the pharmacy world, nobody talks about that because we all know that is not what we do. But from the outside perspective, it looks like that’s what you do.

How is the work-life balance?

I will tell you that any professional school that you go to, whether that be dentistry, PA, medicine, pharmacy, however many years long you’re trying to get your doctoral degree, you’re—at the end of the day—getting a doctoral degree. So you’re going to have a lot of work that you need to do. So I think that is pretty accepted. In pharmacy school, you have didactic learning for three years, and the last year is your rotations. I believe in medical school it’s two years of didactic learning and two years of rotations. After that, your work-life balance would depend upon the path that you choose. So if you do choose to do a residency, at the end of the day it is a residency. What we say in the world of pharmacy is, and what is accepted within the profession is, one year of residency is worth three years of work experience. So the amount of work that you put in is exactly that much. It is a lot of work, but your residency is only one year. And then if you want to specialize, it is one more year of residency within that specialization. Once that is over and you do get a job, the work-life balance, I’m sure, would depend on the setting that you’re in.

What was the biggest difference that you saw between choosing medicine versus pharmacy?

I’ve always thought that medicine just required a very certain personality, like someone who really wants to go to medical school. Because unless you absolutely love that profession, and love what you do, it is very hard on your entire system going through that. Is it worth it at the end? I would not know because I haven’t been through it. But a lot of people that I know that have always wanted to go to medical school have been through it and are now doctors, and they absolutely love it because that’s what they always wanted to do.

I personally was not the person who wanted to go through that. I took the MCAT and did all the applications because my parents wanted me to consider that option. I respected their decision, and, you know, I was young and I said to myself, they know me better than I know myself, so I will listen to them. I will go through all these paths, but at the end of the day I’ll make my own decision for my future. I’m very happy with that because I specialized in just two years, and now I have a position that I absolutely love, and I have a work-life balance that I absolutely love, and I would not want to give that away or exchange that for anything. And I really do love pharmacy.

(Interview excerpts have been lightly edited for clarity and readability and approved by the interviewee.)