Wednesday, Feb. 25, the College of William and Mary’s chapter of Remote Area Medical hosted Dr. Ryan Feldman, an emergency medicine pharmacist and clinical toxicologist. The meeting consisted of an interview with Feldman and a live Q&A session.
Caroline Clinton ’27, the president of the College’s RAM chapter, explained how the group works to provide services to underserved areas through volunteering, social events and pop-up clinics.
“We function as a sort of partner organization to a national nonprofit called Remote Area Medical,” Clinton said. “They do pop-up clinics around the country for people who are uninsured, undocumented and just that don’t have access to medical care in general.”
The event was designed to give students insight into Feldman’s work as an emergency medicine pharmacist and clinical toxicologist. Feldman spoke about his education, residency work and other medical pursuits throughout his career.
Grayson Carnall ’28 is the outreach chair for RAM. Carnall discovered Feldman’s work through “The Poison Lab,” a podcast.
“More than a few people mentioned that they were interested in pharmacy, and we hadn’t really expressed that path before,” Carnall said. “I wanted to bring someone with quite a background in pharmacy so that they could talk about it.”
Feldman described his journey to a career in emergency medicine pharmacy, which began at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
“I then went to the University of Wisconsin-Madison for their school of pharmacy, the four-year doctoral pharmacy program,” Feldman said. “It’s three years of didactic in classroom work and then approximately one year of dedicated clinicals for all of your learnings in a hospital or in a clinic or in a pharmacy.”
Feldman explained how the path to a career in pharmacy can differ from other medical fields.
“You do not have to finish your undergraduate degree [for applying to pharmacy school],” he said. “You can often do it in as early as two years.”
Feldman addressed a common misconception that pharmacists only work in retail pharmacies. He explained how this false belief hides many available career options for pre-medical students, such as his field.
“I think pharmacy has a little bit of an iceberg problem where we have one group of our profession that’s very, very, very visible,” Feldman said.
Feldman’s work as an emergency medicine pharmacist is entirely separate from the world of retail pharmacy. In the emergency room, he would be a pharmacist present at the bedside of patients to identify proper medications for treatment.
“For any given drug, you know you’ve got any given disease, you identify different drugs that treat it,” Feldman said. “And what we do is pretty much optimize the pharmacotherapy for the drug treatment side.”
In addition to his role as an emergency medicine pharmacist, Feldman is also a clinical toxicologist. In this role, he has worked with hotlines, in ambulances, at poison centers and marathons to provide first aid and respond to poisonings.
“I also give medical advice to the public for the management of a million different poisonings,” Feldman said.
One of his specialties includes poisonous mushrooms. He mentioned how he recently received a mushroom identification certification.
A student asked Feldman whether he had any advice for undergraduates interested in health care professions. Feldman said that shadowing opportunities are one of the most important parts of a medical school application.
As a part of the admissions team for the Medical College of Wisconsin School of Pharmacy, Feldman has seen firsthand how clinical exposure is useful for students.
“Get out and volunteer or find some clinical shadow that you can do somewhere nearby,” he said. “If you’re interested in pharmacy, maybe try to work in a pharmacy or pharmacy field.”
Emily McLaughlin ’28, RAM’s vice president, explained how the club’s social nature helps ease the competitiveness of the pre-health experience. McLaughlin highlighted the sense of community she sees in bringing a diverse group of pre-health students together to volunteer and learn more about possible careers.
“Even the little things we do in the community really do add up,” McLaughlin said.
