SUPER HEROES AMONG US
OUR PREMIERE PharmD AUTHOR Mary Barry , MD
Nancy Matyunas , PharmD , is the sort of person everyone instinctively looks up to . She has defined and helped to elevate the practice of pharmacy here in Louisville , and in retirement , she has continued to volunteer in many ways , especially with LouVax . She heard about LouVax in January from her friend Diane Bellafronto , who volunteers at Supplies Over Seas and got the word there .
She spent her first day at Broadbent directing traffic outside in the bitter cold , figured they might have a need for people with actual clinical skills and left a note in the mailbox . Immediately , Dr . Ruth Carrico snapped her up and she began to appear almost daily at the pharmacy station , drawing up thousands of doses over the winter . Nancy has volunteered nearly 500 hours with LouVax so far and is still a constant presence at the mobile missions .
“ At Broadbent , our shared purpose made us happy - the people coming through were so relieved to be there at last . We had a joyful spirit and so much fun seeing each other . We got to contribute in such a meaningful way .” The pharmacy crew worked tons of shifts with the same personnel , which made for a lot of in-jokes . Working with the just-thawed Pfizer was initially a beast - that first day , following every minute step outlined in the manual , we ran over three
hours late at Broadbent . The cops outside had to gas up people ’ s cars . Out in the lanes , we called bosses to verify why workers were late . Nancy and the others , despite a horribly frustrating day , put their heads together and streamlined that process until nearly midnight . The next day was noticeably better and after that , we were back to head ‘ em up and move ‘ em out , cowboys .
Nancy was born and raised in Royal Oak , Michigan and in high school was drawn to the sciences because of fabulous biology and chemistry teachers . She was not an English major , nor a fan of blood and guts . When she researched good jobs in biology , she found that Wayne State would give her a free ride to study pharmacy , and she jumped right on board . Her class was only 30 % female ( current ones are 30 % male ). She liked it all , a lot , and did a residency in general pharmacy in Philadelphia , working on the hospital side , rounding with the medical teams and teaching students , learning to deal with snotty doctors and nice ones too . ( Snotty docs learned quickly that Nancy had the data down cold and what they should do , if they had half a brain , would be to thank her , stat .)
Her first focus was on poison control , stemming from her experience in Detroit , listening with horror to medical students rather ad-libbing calls into that center . She realized that they knew little of the products they were supposed to assess and were poorly equipped to recommend the next steps to the worried parent . So
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