Chance Sirivong, 2026 PharmD Candidate, University of Washington
When I started pharmacy school, I had a pretty clear picture of what my rotations would look like: filling prescriptions, counseling patients, collaborating with healthcare teams. What I didn’t anticipate was spending six weeks with a marketing team—and discovering how much that experience would reshape my understanding of what it means to be a pharmacist.
Cascadia Pharmacy Group (CPG) is a network of independent pharmacies branching across Washington, Oregon, and California. CPG provides support that helps these pharmacies grow within their communities, deliver personalized care, and stay independent. My rotation with Cascadia Pharmacy Group was unlike anything I’d done before. Instead of standing behind a counter, I found myself behind the scenes attending marketing meetings, working on budgets, and brainstorming ways to help independent pharmacies tell their stories to their communities.
A Different Kind of Pharmacy Work
My primary project centered on the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) Grant, an initiative designed to spread awareness about what independent pharmacies bring to the table. The goal was straightforward but meaningful: help people understand how these pharmacies differ from chain retailers and how they serve as more than just a place to pick up medications. They’re healthcare hubs, deeply woven into the fabric of their communities.
Working on this grant meant wearing a lot of hats. I managed budgets, created marketing materials like flyers, pamphlets, posters, and even billboard designs. I also served as a bridge between the marketing team and various advertising outlets, coordinating everything from radio spots to streaming ads to national press releases. It was a crash course in the behind-the-scenes work that helps pharmacies thrive.
The campaign is set to launch in the next few months, with the goal of increasing community awareness and driving more patients to discover the personalized care independent pharmacies offer. While I won’t be there to see it through, knowing that this work could help shift how people think about their pharmacy options—and ultimately connect them with pharmacists who know their names and their health histories—makes the effort feel worthwhile.
Beyond marketing strategy, I also had the opportunity to help implement a tobacco cessation service across five independent pharmacies. What this showed me about independent pharmacy was powerful: these aren’t businesses waiting for patients to walk in with prescriptions. They’re proactively identifying community health needs and stepping up to meet them. Seeing how this program is taking shape—knowing it could genuinely improve health outcomes in those communities—was one of the most rewarding parts of my rotation and provided me with new skills that will follow me throughout my career.
Skills That Will Follow Me Forward
At first, I wondered how this experience would connect to my future as a pharmacist. I wasn’t practicing clinical skills or reviewing drug interactions. But as the weeks went on, I realized I was building something just as valuable.
I learned how to navigate and organize meetings effectively. I sharpened my communication skills by working across teams and coordinating with external partners. I developed a creative outlook I hadn’t exercised before, thinking about how to present information in ways that resonate with real people. And perhaps most importantly, I gained a deeper appreciation for time management—juggling multiple projects with different deadlines taught me how to prioritize without losing sight of the bigger picture.
These aren’t skills listed in a pharmacology textbook, but they’re skills I’ll carry into every role I take on. One unexpected insight was how much pharmacy students could benefit from exposure to the business side of the profession. We spend years learning drug mechanisms and clinical protocols, but understanding how a pharmacy sustains itself, markets its services, and advocates for its role in healthcare adds a dimension that makes us more effective—whether we end up owning a pharmacy, leading a team, or simply communicating the value of what we do. This perspective of what is outside of what we learn in school
A Rare Perspective
Most pharmacy students don’t get the chance to see this side of the profession. We’re trained to focus on patient care, which is essential, but understanding how pharmacies operate, market themselves, and advocate for their value adds another dimension to that training. For patients, this matters too: the pharmacies that thrive are the ones that can reach their communities and communicate the care they provide. For the profession as a whole, it means pharmacists who can lead, not just practice.
My time with Cascadia Pharmacy Group reminded me that pharmacists don’t just dispense medications. We’re advocates, educators, and community partners. Sometimes that work happens at the counter. Sometimes it happens in a conference room, planning how to reach the people who need us most.
As the role of the pharmacist continues to evolve—toward greater leadership, advocacy, and community health involvement—experiences like this one feel less like a detour and more like preparation. The pharmacists who will shape the future of the profession won’t just be experts in drug therapy. They’ll be the ones who understand how to build, sustain, and champion the places where care happens.