Maria Ogrodowski
Interviewed by: Dean Najarian, PharmD, BCPP
Maria Ogrodowski, RPh, BCPP is currently the Pharmacy Manager at New York Presbyterian Hospital in White Plains, NY - part of the Cornell and Columbia University Hospital System. She currently supervises 9 pharmacists and 6 pharmacy technicians in this full-service, 250-bed acute care mental health hospital. Earlier in her career, Maria was a critical care pharmacist at the sister hospital. After an opportunity opened up at the psychiatric hospital, Maria reluctantly made a career change. However, she soon found the new experience to be “fascinating” and realized “so much needed to be done to help patients with mental illness.”
In order to deepen her knowledge in the psychiatric pharmacology, Maria decided to take the BCPP review course, upon recommendation from a colleague. Maria then took the exam, and successfully passed in 2003. At the time, she was assigned to the geriatric unit, where she helped patients and families understand proper medication use - especially during the discharge process. Maria was awarded the “Senior Caring Award” for her efforts and was quite proud of her accomplishments. She has also worked in collaboration with the Nursing department and the proposal for a hospital-issued grant was chosen as the winner. This grant helped to purchase medication pill boxes, which were labeled in English, Spanish and Braille and became part of the medication teaching tools upon discharge.
In 2005, Maria was promoted to Pharmacy Manager and currently serves on several multidisciplinary committees including: the Formulary and Therapeutics Committee, the Nursing and Pharmacy Committee, the Medication Safety Committee, and the Medicine and Psychiatry Liaison Committee. Maria also belongs to a Cultural Diversity Committee and with her help, the pharmacy department conducted a “fair” for all hospital employees to learn more about the cultural aspects of healthcare, since the hospital serves a very diverse group of patients and employees. Being of Polish descent, Maria also serves as an interpreter and was recently asked to help mediate with a family whose son was hospitalized with his first episode of schizophrenia. The mother of the patient could not understand the nature of her son’s illness and mistakenly thought it was a temporary sickness, like a cold. Maria spent a lot of time clarifying with the patient’s family members, who too did not quite understand the nature of the illness. She was able to follow the patient through the discharge planning process--including medication education—and found the patient’s ultimate improvement especially gratifying. She truly believes that, “We save lives in a different way than other pharmacy specialties, but it is just as important.”
Maria finds CPNP an important resource for getting advice from respected members. It can be tapped into with just a quick post to the “list serve” and to learn from other members’ posts. Maria endorses the CPNP annual meeting as a valuable educational resource in psychiatry, since other annual meetings such as ASHP offer little in this area. Maria commented that while pharmacy students may be reluctant to enter psychiatry, she feels there is a “renewed interest” in helping patients who suffer from mental illness, especially given the recent attention to the needs of veterans suffering from PTSD. Maria thinks that the partnering efforts of CPNP and advocacy groups like NAMI will surely make a difference in patient lives.
