Lorrie LeClair​

Lorrie’s Story

Lorrie LeClair earned her Doctor of Pharmacy degree from the University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy in 2003. Following graduation, she completed a drug information specialty residency at the University of Virginia Health-System. Lorrie is currently serving her second term as a member of the Section Advisory Group on Emergency Care and serves as the Chair of the Emergency Care Resource Center subcommittee.

Facility

Frederick Memorial Hospital (FMH) is an approximately 300-bed community hospital that serves a mixed rural-suburban population in Western Maryland. It is part of the Trivergent Health Alliance which includes Meritus Medical Center and Western Maryland Health System. FMH treats around 350,000 inpatients and outpatients per year.

Significant Projects

Recently, Lorrie has been involved in a number of projects involving her healthcare partners. In October, she had the opportunity to teach the pharmacotherapy portion of Frederick County Division of Fire and Rescue Services Paramedic recertification course. This was a great mutual learning experience as the paramedics acquired a greater understanding of the medications they routinely use, while Lorrie obtained a greater understanding of the differing needs of those practicing in the pre-hospital environment. She has also been serving as a member of the Frederick County Health Department’s Opioid Misuse Prevention Program coalition. Over the past six months, Lorrie has had the opportunity to work with a variety of community and healthcare partners to develop a plan to address the growing opioid epidemic in her community. It has been truly rewarding to see individuals from various healthcare and non-healthcare fields come together with unique perspectives to develop a solution for our community. She is looking forward to state approval of the plan and the beginning of the implementation phase.

Advice for Someone New to Your Specialty Area

“Emergency Medicine is a rapidly expanding and changing specialty. While most people think of the critical care component of practice, there is also a considerable amount of internal medicine, ambulatory care, and care transitions. Although new EM practitioners can expect to be responsible for certain ‘core’ responsibilities, there is considerable room to find your passion and continue advancing the specialty.”

Involvement in ASHP

“I first became a member of ASHP as a student in order to pursue my residency goals. As I grew as a practitioner, I remained an ASHP member as a way to stay current with hospital pharmacy practice, and to take advantage of the numerous networking and leadership opportunities.”

ASHP’s Value to Members

“ASHP has allowed me to expand my professional support network far beyond my local colleagues and those with whom I trained. It has also allowed me opportunities to get involved in projects and advance the profession in ways that would otherwise be inaccessible to me within the community hospital setting.”

“ASHP consistently advocates for the advancement of the pharmacy profession and provides a framework for how health-systems and pharmacists can incorporate that advancement into their individual institutions and daily practice.”