Growing into ASHP Advocacy: Three Members Share Their Stories

Now in his third and final term as a council member, Tom Achey likes to joke he's in his senior year at ASHP Policy Week. But the board certified pharmacotherapy specialist from Alabama is on to something — ASHP policymaking has been at the heart of his professional education ever since he attended House of Delegates sessions as a student pharmacist.

Jacalyn Rogers and W. Justin Moore have similar professional coming-of-age stories involving ASHP. Now a senior director of pharmacy at University Hospitals in Cleveland, Ohio, Rogers worked as a summer intern at ASHP headquarters in 2011. Moore, an infectious diseases pharmacist at Northwestern Medicine, trained as a rotational student at ASHP in 2018.

Achey, Rogers, and Moore join nearly 100 other members convening next week in Bethesda, Maryland, for the start of Policy Week, the annual event that serves as a kickoff to ASHP’s policymaking process. ASHP News Center spoke with the trio ahead of their arrival to learn about how their early start in ASHP policymaking helped shape their careers. 

Experiencing ASHP as Students
While attending Auburn University Harrison College of Pharmacy, Achey joined ASHP as a student member. He was appointed to an executive committee for the ASHP Pharmacy Student Forum his third year, which allowed him to attend his first House meeting as an alternate delegate. He partnered with another student to submit a new business item related to student participation. The next year, he was forum chair, so he attended as a voting member of the House.

Rogers was a member of Northeast Ohio Medical University’s student society of health-system pharmacists (SSHP). She said she wasn’t strongly interested in policy until she was named ASHP’s summer intern in 2011.

Drug shortages had recently become a critical issue, and Rogers saw firsthand ASHP’s advocacy kick into gear. She recalls seeing her office colleagues being interviewed about shortages on national television.

Seeing how pharmacists could use their voices to speak out about issues was a turning point for Rogers. “When I got back, I looked at what was happening on the Ohio level and connected with our local state society’s legal affairs division,” she said.

Moore’s alma mater, the University of Georgia College of Pharmacy, has an active SSHP, which he joined in 2014. But like Rogers, he didn’t see himself as particularly interested in policy and law until he served as an ASHP intern in 2018. That year, he attended Policy Week’s Legislative Day on Capitol Hill and got to speak with congressional staff from Georgia.

“Seeing the direct impact — like, this policy means fewer pharmacists or fewer residents, fewer opportunities to advance patient care … really sunk in for me,” he said. “It was no longer this abstract thing.”

Learning to Share Expertise
His first year at Policy Week, Achey said with a laugh, “I felt like the only one in the room asking what’s going on?” But he soon fell into the familiar cadence of Policy Week, speaking frankly with colleagues about such critical issues as artificial intelligence (AI), pharmacy department business partnerships, and medication-use process optimization. 

“This is the time and place to really scrutinize things as experts, before they get to the House,” said Achey, a member of the Council on Pharmacy Management.

Last year was Rogers’s first Policy Week. As a member of the Commission on Affiliate Relations, she reviewed state societies’ applications and AI usage. On Legislative Day, the rookie was the only Ohio member to talk to her state’s congressional staff. It took time for her to realize that staffers wanted her professional opinion as an informed constituent. She said she’s looking forward to sharing her expertise this year.

Moore, who previously attended Policy Week as a student, participated last year as chair of the New Practitioners Forum.

“As a student, you’re so worried about the details of the message and memorizing the talking points. But you don’t have that firsthand experience yet on how it affects patients or the profession of pharmacy,” Moore said. “Now, getting five years under my belt, I can now pull those stories.”

When Moore makes the rounds on Capitol Hill this year, he’ll stay away from technical explanations and use common language instead. "If you can tell some story about a patient who lived in a rural area and didn’t have access to medication but because of what we did as pharmacists they got that medicine? That’s something they know,” he said.

Connecting Dots in Policy and Practice
Achey said Policy Week has given him insights into what’s behind the policies that he reviews as a House member. “It’s actually elevated my participation in the House to be more thoughtful,” he said.

Achey recalled how delegates at the recent House revised a policy he and his fellow council members had struggled to compose during Policy Week. “We really just needed the members to help us write it,” he said. “They made it better than we did.”

Rogers said she’s learned to connect ASHP policy and advocacy to issues the pharmacy workforce faces every day. Instead of complaining, she tells colleagues, find a way to make a change.

“It’s better to be part of the change than let the change happen to you,” she said.

Working through ASHP is “the easiest way for a regular person to get involved and have their voice heard.” 

Moore added that members shouldn’t shy away from advocacy work either.

“The more we can push the profession forward, it’s going to open doors for everybody down the line — pharmacists, technicians, leaders,” Moore said. “That I think is part of our responsibility and just a tenet of our profession to be able to advocate in a way that gives us more opportunities.”