The President's

CAROL MOTYCKA, PHARM.D., CHSE

Ifirst want to say thank you all for putting your trust in me to serve the members and the profession for the next year. Most importantly, I want to thank my family for supporting me through this journey. To my dad, thank you for being a role model as a community pharmacist for over 50 years, caring for your patients and our profession and setting an example of what a great pharmacist should be. To my children, Braden, Bryce, and Brianna, thank you for being understanding if I have to miss one of your events and know that if I could clone myself to be there, I would spend every dollar I have to do that. And to my eversupportive husband, Brent, thank you for being the rock of the family, always helping if I can’t be there and making me feel like a part of events through video and Facetime. It means more than you can ever imagine.

As some of you may know, I have a family of long-distance runners and there is so much to be learned from long-distance running. For those of you who aren’t as familiar with the sport, it is just as much a mental challenge as it is a physical one. Somewhere during the run, your body begins to tell you that you should stop the pain and exhaustion and just slow down, or better yet, stop altogether. Runners have to fight through those mental and physical cues because they know that at the end of the run is that finish line and the glory of the accomplishment they just achieved. After they have completed the race, they are exhausted and exhilarated. There is a short time to celebrate before they quickly begin their training again as they gear up for that next race. And so the story goes again and again.

Long-distance running is reminiscent of pharmacy’s continued efforts towards putting our patients first and ensuring pharmacists are able to provide the incredible pharmaceutical care we all know we are fully capable of. The

pandemic has changed all of us in many ways forever, much as it has also changed our profession. Pharmacists worked through the exhaustion and sometimes pain to provide care for millions of patients. Patients often sought advice for care from us because they had difficulty getting into their physician’s office, but the pharmacist was always there, always available. From ,

Carol Motycka, Pharm.D., CHSE

OTC medication counseling for a sick child to advice for a loved one suffering with Alzheimer’s, pharmacists have been there, never shutting their doors when the uncertainty of COVID made going out of the house unbearable to face for some. Pharmacists were granted the ability to provide immunizations to millions and they took up the challenge without any hesitation. Although you were exhausted and weary, and sometimes even in pain, whether it be from the loss of a loved one or the ache in your back as you put in one more 12-hour day, you all, the pharmacists, were there to push through.

My family is inspired by David Goggins, who once stated: “Don’t stop when you are tired, stop when you are done,” and that is exactly what pharmacists did day after day, week after week. And after pharmacists have proven themselves again and again that they are fully capable of providing excellent care to patients through review of drug-drug interactions, dose

• Training, Quality Assurance CE, and resources • Patient Safety Organization protection for your QA work • Practical tools to collect and analyze patient safety data