“I was pretty shocked. I said, ‘You picked me?’”
That’s what Christina Brizendine, PharmD, BCPS, said of winning the Greenville Region Preceptor of the Year award. “There are so many wonderful preceptors.”
Dr. Brizendine began serving as a preceptor for the University of North Carolina (UNC) students in 2008, primarily offering fourth-year students internal medicine rotations. More recently, as pharmacy clerkships began earlier in students’ education, Dr. Brizendine helped re-design the early immersion rotations, an innovation recognized by the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy faculty and students.
“Her instrumental role in providing excellent experiences to students through this new program has led to other organizations adopting some of her processes,” said Angela Mayo, PharmD, MBA, FACHE, the director of Retail and Ambulatory Pharmacy Services. This work is one reason UNC recently recognized Dr. Brizendine as the Greenville Region Preceptor of the Year.
A UNC alumna, Dr. Brizendine came to ECU Health with the intention of staying a few years. “That was 19 years ago,” she laughed. “I got married, made friends and bought a house. I’m here for the long haul.”
ECU Health offers pharmacy student training for local universities and colleges, with UNC Eshelman representing the most students. Each year, ECU Health pharmacy team members provide approximately 120 student-months’ worth of precepting for those students.
In addition to precepting UNC students, Dr. Brizendine also worked with students from Campbell University, Hampton University in Virginia and the University of South Carolina. She was drawn to the role after having impactful experiences with her own mentors when she was a student.
“I had some great preceptors who took time out of their days to support me. I wanted to do that too. And when you have a great student, they challenge you in ways you can’t expect.”
During her 17 years of working with pharmacy students, Dr. Brizendine saw more and more students starting their clerkships earlier in their education. “Preceptors were getting burned out, not sure how to fit these younger students into a practice environment,” she said.
That’s when she took on the role of program coordinator for direct patient care immersion rotations and created a program to cluster student cohorts.
“This provided continuity in which cohorts did the same things and had the same experiences with one point person to ask for questions,” she explained. “Previously, students were all over the place only a few days at a time and it was less cohesive. This new set up gives students a good experience to see a lot of different things, meet up with each other every week and support each other.”
The result has been rewarding for the students, and for Dr. Brizendine – literally.
More than one student nominated her for the Preceptor of the Year award, and what resonated the most, according to their nominations, was Dr. Brizendine’s effort at connection.
“They valued that I asked them how they were. I wanted to ensure they had a work/life balance, which is hard when you’re a student. A lot of comments said, ‘She cared about me personally,’ and I really do.”
Dr. Brizendine recently transitioned to a new role as a clinical pharmacist with ECU Health’s Outpatient Parenteral Antimicrobial Therapy (OPAT) program. While she misses working with the students, she hopes to get back to precepting in the future.
“There’s a value to training students,” she said. “Students see what they have learned in class put into practice, and as preceptors, it makes our own jobs more satisfying.”