Second time’s a charm for PharmD student

Heather Garr came to Binghamton University’s School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences as a P1 student in fall 2019, but it wasn’t her first time at a pharmacy school. Nor was it her first time earning a college degree.

With a veterinary science technology degree from SUNY Delhi (she’s a licensed vet tech) and a bachelor’s degree in biological sciences from SUNY Cortland, she enrolled as a member of the Class of 2021 at the University at Buffalo School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, but left there in the fall semester of her second year.

“At that time, my mom’s health declined and I was in a bad relationship and thought there was no way out other than to just walk away,” she said. “It was very hard and I thought I wouldn’t get a second chance, but it turns out that I just made the right decisions at the wrong time because now I’m here and flourishing and in a better place.”

Garr’s mother is doing well, she is out of her toxic relationship and, in her words, she’s “so much happier.”

Taking her P1 year over at Binghamton has been good practice for her, she said. “There’s a lot of repeat information for the most part, the foundational information,” she said. “But the big difference is when I have trouble and see a professor, I feel more like a colleague. Overall, the professors are more open and understanding.

“They’re younger and new on this path, all working toward accreditation, and they’re trying to get us up to par,” Garr added. “We’re going to be their colleagues and equals. I didn’t feel that at Buffalo. The differences are astronomical.”

Garr, a native of Auburn, N.Y., has also gotten involved in extracurricular activities, the biggest so far as a member of the American Pharmacists Association Academy of Student Pharmacists (APhA-ASP).

“I’m the Women’s Health Campaign co-chair and work to try and promote the HPV vaccine, and utilizing pharmacists as a women’s health resource because we’re so accessible,” Garr said. “I was also elected Region 1 Member-at-large in October at the Midyear Regional Meeting by my fellow student pharmacists.

“My role is to promote the chapters’ individually within the region to get recognition at a national level. I look at their social media and try to push information to other chapters — all 18 them!” she said. “I keep in regular contact with them and I’m their go-to person for any questions.”

Garr is also president-elect for our Student Pharmacists Society of the State of New York (SPSSNY) chapter and recently attended the Mid-Winter Meeting in Albany, “and got our faces out there.” She, in fact, was a member of the winning OTC Self-Care Challenge — a Jeopardy!-style competition held during the meeting. “It was a nice showing for Binghamton!” she said.

But that’s not the end of Garr’s activities. She is also Colony Coordinator for Phi Delta Chi professional pharmacy fraternity.

“I had pledged in Buffalo and our chapter was actually abolished for five years, so when our chapter ended there, I became an alumni brother, so I can establish a colony here,” Garr said.

“We’re starting the chapter from scratch. I know the inner workings,” she said. “We’re going to have 32 candidates at the upcoming pinning ceremony where they’ll pledge to know more about the fraternity, and after six weeks of projects and getting to know one another, they get pinned as brothers. That’s their initiation.

“I am definitely a yes person,” Garr said. “When someone asks me to do something, if I can, I generally say yes.”

Garr said she’s taking on these extracurricular roles because she already knows what’s expected of her in the classroom. “And, while grades are important, they are not the be all and end all,” she said. “I need to grab other opportunities and leading 32 candidates will show I can handle multiple things. I want to be well-rounded and showcase what I don’t get from the curriculum.

“It’s not just about how you perform in the classroom, but how you perform on top of that to make you a well-rounded pharmacist,” she added. “I’m trying to let people in my class know these opportunities are available and, if you don’t find them, you can start something yourself. The opportunities are so plentiful right now at a new school and they’ll continue to open up. It’s not just a community pharmacy path. There are so, so many things you can do and a club for each of them.”

Career-wise, Garr hopes to put her love of animals to use — she has a tortoise-shell cat named Bella with a mind of her own “who runs the show” — to find a position in veterinary pharmacy.

When she was earning her degrees from Delhi and Cortland, her main goal was to work in pharmaceutical research with lab animals.

“But, working as a pharmacy technician at Kinney Drugs in Auburn while I was commuting to Cortland opened my eyes more to pharmacy and I saw that pharmacists are so accessible but under-utilized,” she said. “I found that there is a small niche of veterinary pharmacy and I’m hoping that my background in vet sciences on top of pharmacy will help me find something in that niche, but there are very few residencies in vet pharmacy.”

Garr said that, if she finds herself in that niche, good, but she has also liked rotations in hospital and ambulatory care settings. “The only thing I’m currently ruling out is community pharmacy!”