Influencing Pharmacy

These School of Pharmacy alumni have made their mark on social media, bringing niche pharmacy expertise to a wider audience

By Archer Parquette

Scroll Instagram or TikTok and it’s easy to get lost in a content rabbit hole. Yet in that vast landscape of videos and photos, if you try searching for guidance on pharmacy fellowships, managed care careers, or how to survive your first year of residency, the results thin out fast.

The social media health space is dominated by physicians, nurses, and even medical students, leaving future and early-career pharmacists with few relatable voices to turn to. Three University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Pharmacy alumni decided to change that, combating medical misinformation, helping future pharmacists achieve their goals, and sharing what it takes to build a career in pharmacy.

A resident’s life

During the spring semester of Shelby Koen’s (PharmD ’21) third year of pharmacy school, everything shut down. It was March 2020, and students were suddenly learning remotely and social distancing at the onset of the COVID pandemic.

With nowhere to go, Koen found herself checking social media for updates, following medical influencers.

“I saw that there was so much misinformation out there surrounding COVID, a lot of it related to medications,” she remembers. “And I also noticed that there weren’t a lot of pharmacists active on social media — it was a lot of medical students, nurses, physicians.”

Koen saw she had a unique perspective to offer and decided to put herself out there. The future pharmacist took to Instagram and TikTok, posting about public health topics, medication uses, and the industry.

“When I first started, I really didn’t know what I was doing,” she says of her early videos and Instagram slides. “I was learning how these apps work, how to edit videos, how to write a blog post or a caption, and what works best on what platform.”

She continued dialing in her approach, and the posts began to attract a following.

“Many of my followers were pharmacy or pre-pharmacy students,” she says. “People were reaching out, engaging in the comments, asking for advice.”

In response, she started making her content more personal and reflective — posting videos sharing how she prepared for her residency interview, offering advice for taking the NAPLEX exam, and talking about her experience navigating the pharmacy job market. Those posts took off, attracting a following of young pharmacists inspired by her career journey.

“I met people in the industry that I don’t think I ever would have developed connections with if I hadn’t done this,” Koen says. For example, she worked with major brands like Figs scrubs and CeraVe to advocate for the pharmacy profession and spoke at a local pharmacy conference about the value of pharmacists on social media.

“I think it’s important for people in the medical world to grow their platform on social media so that laypeople see content that is accurate and has a good message.”
–Shelby Koen

After earning her PharmD, she moved to North Carolina in 2021 for a PGY-1 residency at Cone Health in Greensboro, followed by a PGY-1 ambulatory care residency in the Durham VA Health Care System, where she now works as a clinical pharmacist in primary care. The move led to a decrease in her social media posting. Using social media as a practicing clinician, she says, is tricky because you never want to risk it interfering with your work. But now that she is more established in her job, she says she’s considering returning to social media in the future.

“A lot of people get attention on social media for content that’s not accurate and can be harmful,” she says. “I think it’s important for people in the medical world to grow their platform on social media so that laypeople see content that is accurate and has a good message.”

An industry mentor

While Koen was first posting on Instagram and TikTok, one of her followers was a young School of Pharmacy student named Rachel Hawley (PharmD ’23).

“I remember seeing Shelby posting about her residency experience: tips, things she would have done differently,” Hawley says. “And I thought it was really inspiring and helpful — but I was applying to fellowships, not residencies. I saw that there wasn’t anybody out there creating content in that space who could help me.”

After graduating, Hawley landed an industry fellowship at Alnylam Pharmaceuticals in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which led to a full-time role as a medical outcomes science liaison. Students applying for similar roles reached out asking for her advice, and she realized that, having now made it through the difficult fellowship application process, she could fill that missing niche she’d noticed in the social media ecosystem.

“Engaging with people one-on-one is great, but social media lets you have a broader reach and a broader impact,” Hawley says. “I thought it would be really useful for people to have that resource.”

Hawley started her Instagram account @IndustryPharmD in 2023, with the goal of “demystifying industry fellowships.” She started posting about her personal experience with fellowships, answering questions, sharing advice, and as the account grew, she began offering more resources: guides to industry fellowships and fellowship relocation, free trackers for students to use when applying, and more.

Recently, she used the account’s popularity to launch a mentorship program called the Industry Fellowship Intensive. Students who join get one-on-one personalized coaching and mentorship from Hawley, who is now working with the first cohort of five mentees spanning from Arkansas to Massachusetts.

“I think pharmacists sometimes tend to be long-winded — there’s so much information we can give about a certain disease state or medication,” Hawley says. “But on social media, you need to prioritize the most important information share it in an engaging way to communicate effectively. That’s a skill I’ve developed and I’m using every day.”

Managing care

During a holiday break from her residency, Ziting Zhang (PharmD ’23) posted her first TikTok. Her social media use began as just a here-and-there habit, until followers began to respond to the content she shared about her life as a pharmacist.

Zhang now works as a clinical formulary pharmacist with Centene Corporation, a managed care company. The non-traditional pharmacy role has given her a niche to post about, including how people in traditional pharmacy jobs can transition into non-traditional roles.

“There’s value in talking about these experiences, especially for other people who may be interested in the field,” she says.

She also started a blog, Managed Care Rx Insight, sharing information about managed care pharmacy, debunking misconceptions about the field, sharing advice about how to break into the managed care, and more.

In one post, she wrote: “Managed care pharmacy might not be the first path that comes to mind in pharmacy school — but for those who take the time to explore it, this field offers a fulfilling and impactful career that blends clinical knowledge with population health, policy, and strategy.”

After seeing her content on social media, the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacists reached out to Zhang to talk to their residents about moving from a resident position to a full-time one.

As an avid runner, Zhang has expanded her social media presence to share her life outside of being a pharmacist while balancing a full-time position, incorporating health and fitness content, documenting her running journey with posts tracking her progress, or celebrating her latest race.

“I just thought, ‘If I want to start doing something, I should just do it,’” she says. “On social media, I found that folks mostly respond to positivity and being genuine.”

 

Connect with Shelby Koen          Connect with Rachel Hawley          Connect with Ziting Zhang