Erin Ulrich

Biography

With technical advances and increased certification requirements for pharmacy technicians, pharmacy must transition from a service-based profession to a knowledge-based profession to remain a critical asset to the health care system. With the pharmacy profession quickly changing, my approach is to excite and motivate students about continually emerging opportunities and to have them become in practice. Throughout my teaching career, I am most excited about navigating future pharmacists throughout the ever-changing health care system. I desire to develop students’ excitement and knowledge about how health outcomes are impacted by the intersection of human behavior and medical treatment. In many cases, human behavior is logical. However, I stress that human health behavior is not always logical and adds to the complexity of health care system. I strive for students to appreciate this complexity and understand the significant role that pharmacists have played over time. In social and administrative sciences, common courses include pharmacy law, ethics, and other social aspects of pharmacy. Because most of these lessons are best learned when students become practicing pharmacists, it is my goal to establish a platform of critical thinking skills and resources for them to utilize effectively in order to handle situations they may encounter in the future.To become successful pharmacists, my students must recognize the relevance of the field of social and administrative sciences, think critically about how their profession fits within the complexity of the health care, and are prepared to work in groups. Many students enter pharmacy school because they have the desire to gain expertise in the basic science of medications. Therefore, students may not be aware of how social and administrative pharmacy topics taught are related to their lives and future profession. I aim to increase student awareness and relevance of social pharmacy topics by providing current examples from academic literature and news sources. Second, group work will be encouraged since pharmacy is quickly developing into a multi-disciplinary profession. Interaction with many different health care professionals is required for optimum patient health outcomes. Therefore, students must learn how to work with people from different backgrounds, personality types and varying levels of knowledge and skills in order to achieve a mutual goal. I have successfully done this through small group projects that focus on critical thinking of the impact a single pharmacist can have on patients and the profession. Finally, critical thinking is important to convey complex social situations within healthcare utilization. To increase critical thinking skills I have used case studies followed by discussion and experimental learning methods. My experience teaching courses across social and administrative pharmacy curriculum has emphasized to me the vital role of student feedback and self-assessment in continued improvement throughout my teaching career. I am dedicated to the continual process that is self-improvement. I will achieve my own goals by further formulating strategies to improve my sensitivity of multiple learning styles and my provision of the structure and rigor essential to fostering an atmosphere of engagement. I look forward to the opportunity to discover new ways of promoting student learning in an atmosphere of intellectual enthusiasm.

Research Interest

Pharmacy Entrepreneurship, and Health Care Service Utilization