The College of Pharmacy honored Stephen Williams, Pharm.D., of the University of Washington School of Pharmacy, and his clinical workplace, the Rainier Center, as its respective Preceptor of the Year and Preceptor Site of the Year.
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From left, class president Beau Ehlers, Faculty Preceptor of the Year Gregory Peitz, Pharm.D., and Courtney Fletcher, Pharm.D., dean of the UNMC College of Pharmacy |
Gregory Peitz, Pharm.D., adjunct associate professor and clinician of pharmacy practice, and pharmacy case management coordinator at Nebraska Medicine, was named Faculty Preceptor of the Year.
It’s the first time a single site swept the preceptor and site of the year awards. A common theme throughout students’ feedback on Dr. Williams and his site was the dedication shown to students who traveled all the way to Buckley, Wash., for their rotation.
Dr. Williams, a UNMC College of Pharmacy alum, and the Rainier Center specialize in habilitation for individuals with developmental disabilities. Students were impressed with this area of patient care with incredible need for pharmacists’ involvement in assisting patients with the numerous medications that may help them live better lives.
Class president Beau Ehlers, Pharm.D., said, “Students consistently remarked about the eye-opening experience that changed them for the better in the way they view patients; the way we should view patients — not as numbers, lab values, bed No. X, Y, Z — rather, viewing them as the whole person and what is it that the whole person needs.”
Dr. Ehlers said Dr. Peitz, the college’s Faculty Preceptor of the Year, was equally deserving.
“I am not sure if he sleeps,” Dr. Ehlers said. “He takes two students at a time on his rotation in the Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit. He also precepts first-year residents on his rotation throughout the month, he is the critical care second-year residency program director, gives lectures to second- and third-year pharmacy students, is heavily involved in several research projects and is finishing up his master’s in clinical translational research.
“Yet, while on rotation, he was always present for his students and would respond to questions emailed or texted to him immediately all through the night.”