Behind the Counter: Tell us about one of your wildest memories from pharmacy school.

Here’s what they said:

Mark Garofoli, PharmD, MBA, BCGP, CPE, CTTS

I’m in my P1 year, adjusting to it all, but my rock was knowing anatomy and physiology, for whatever reason. Well on the night before an A&P Exam, as a resident assistant (dorm RA), we had ourselves one heck of a “situation” causing me to be up rather later into the morning, yet providing enough time for a little nap before the exam (mind you, I was the only RA in the entire university pursuing a degree beyond the undergrad level, and I’m happy to say there have been many others since).

The nap was great, too great, as I slept through my alarm, and woke up with a sense of relaxation quickly followed by “oh no” (or some similar word). I stood up, grabbed my shoes, ran out the door to our SoP about two blocks away, and got to the exam room to find no one left. I was doomed, I just missed an exam, adios PHARMDreams.

I realized I needed to talk to our professor, yet had no idea where in the world, let alone the building, his office was. So I remembered that there was a dental-office-like black board with white letters on one particular floor, ran up the steps to it, found his office number, and ran up a few more flights of stairs to his office.

I appeared at his door sweating in pajama pants and a t-shirt while completely out of breath, as he looked up at me from his chair asking “are you alright?”

I awkwardly paused to catch my breath, and said, “no, I missed your exam, I’m incredibly sorry, is there anything I can do?”

He smiled and said, “you’re in luck, one of your classmates was in a car accident this morning!”

I paused again, with some form of a confused and concerned face, and then asked, “are they okay?”.

He smiled again and said “yes, and you can simply take the makeup exam with her next week, but be prepared as it will be a doozy.”

I aced said exam and my friend had a minor fender bender, but more importantly I will never, ever forget his humility in the moment, vowing to myself to deploy that daily as a faculty member today. Life happens, life that is much bigger than any degree, career, or profession. 

Peter Kreckel, RPh

It would have to be the Eli Lilly trip to Indianapolis, Indiana. Back then at the end of the fourth year, Lilly paid for us to come to Indianapolis and tour their facilities. We were put in a beautiful hotel and treated like kings. Although Denise [Mr. Keckel’s now-wife!] and I were dating other people at the time, we fell in love during that trip. And we lived happily ever after!

Kevin Hope, RPh: 

In a random act of generosity, I volunteered to be the designated driver at one of our pharmacy school parties on the beach. There were two problems, however, with my offer:  

(1) I extended that offer to way too many people. 

(2) In college, I drove a Mazda 323 hatchback.  

Granted, the Mazda 323 hatchback was a giant in comparison to some cars on the road today (I am looking at you, Smart Car), it was still not known for its spacious interior. Nonetheless, after the party, we started packing people in. The logical thing, of course, would be to make multiple trips from Folly Beach to downtown Charleston. That, however, was not the approach that we used. 

We began “stacking” folks in the back, and I am pretty sure that there were faces pressed against the windows and someone’s legs around the gear shift. I really have no idea how many people were stuffed in that car, but we had a designated driver!  Had we crashed, I doubt that the insurance company would have believed the car’s occupancy number. But, we did not crash. We all made it safely back downtown, with each passenger dropped off in order that they were able to physically get out of the car. Guardian angels work overtime during college years. 

Donald Sullivan, RPh, PHD: 

We had a chemist who was not a pharmacist teaching us clinical pharmacokinetics.  He was so arrogant about how he taught, like he knew everything clinically.  Once he told us that aspirin is a base.  The class used to live for the opportunity to correct him and embarrass him in class. We finally got a visit from the associate dean telling us to cut him some slack.

Did you like this interview-style article? Check out part 2 of this series here to see how our faculty answered the question: what do you like most and least about your career?