Pharmacy Perspectives - Graduation 2019 - 4

Graduation :

Derick Wilkerson:

Cover to Cover
BY SANDY GRAHAM

lmost four years ago, first-year pharmacy student Derick Wilkerson got his
white coat - and landed on the cover of Pharmacy Perspectives.
Now, he's about to become Dr. Wilkerson, picking up his PharmD degree
in May with the rest of the 2019 class of the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and
Pharmaceutical Sciences.
Pharmacy Perspectives asked Wilkerson for highlights of his four years
at CU Pharmacy.
P1: Wilkerson, whose mother has been a pharmacy technician for 29 years, had gone to work as a
boy with Mom at her Safeway pharmacy job in Pueblo and later, had worked himself at Safeway after
completing a pharmacy tech course. So he knew the business. He especially enjoyed Pharmacotherapy

1 in the second semester, taught by
Sarah K. Scoular, PharmD, assistant
professor of clinical pharmacy. "It felt
like we were finally doing what we
were there to do," he recalls.
P2: Wilkerson's health system IIPE paired him with Sarah
Weisdack, PharmD, clinical oncology pharmacist in the urologic
and g ynecologic cancer clinic at
UCHealth. This "made me a lot more
comfortable going into" P3's oncology course, widely viewed as the most
challenging class of pharmacy school.
"I learned a lot from her," he says.
P3: The summer before P3,
Wilkerson worked at Parkview
Medical Center in Pueblo and found
his passion: clinical pharmacy. He
returned to Pueblo for his advanced
introductory pharmacy practice experience (aIPPE) at Centura Health
St. Mary-Corwin Medical Center's
intensive care unit. "Getting to
practice acute care and critical care
was a great experience," he recalls.
His most challenging case was a man
with active tuberculosis. Wilkerson
advised the care team on appropriate
drug regimens.

"It felt like we were
finally doing what
we were there to do."
- Derick Wilkerson

Derick Wilkerson dons his white coat for the first time during the school's fall 2015 White Coat Ceremony.
Four years later, Wilkerson will earn his PharmD degree during the school's commencement ceremony on campus. Photo: Jaron Bryant

CU Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences

P4: Wilkerson made sure most
of his rotations focused on hospital-based clinical care, including
spending one six-week stint at the
renal transplant outpatient clinic
at University Hospital. Wilkerson
and his preceptor, Patrick Klem,
PharmD, conducted research to find
predictors of poor transplant outcomes. The findings, with Wilkerson
as primary author, will be presented
at the American Transplant Congress
this June in Boston.
While Wilkerson didn't match
to a residency program, he plans to
work for the coming year and apply
again in 2020.

Pharmacy Perspectives - Graduation 2019

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