Kevin Chamberlin

About my pharmacy practice journey, education, and key accomplishments:

Dr. Chamberlin is the University Director of Pharmacy Residency Programs at the University of Connecticut’s academic hospital. He maintains active adjunct faculty roles in the UConn Schools of Pharmacy and Medicine, runs a clinical practice in Adult Internal Medicine, and is the pharmacist for the Connecticut Comprehensive Pain Center. He has received multiple awards for his clinical teaching excellence, including the 2019 Louis P. Jeffery Award for excellence in precepting and service to the profession.

Current employment, practice, and academic responsibilities:

As the University Director of Pharmacy Residency Programs at the University of Connecticut’s academic hospital, Dr. Chamberlin is charged with providing leadership, oversight, and coordination of pharmacy residents in the PGY1 program, maintaining alignment of the program to accreditation- and institution-based standards, participating in research and scholarship activities, and targeting areas for development of PGY2 programs. Dr. Chamberlin maintains active adjunct faculty roles in both the UConn Schools of Pharmacy and Medicine, runs a clinical practice in Adult Internal Medicine at UConn John Dempsey Hospital, and serves as the pharmacy clinical expert for the Connecticut Comprehensive Pain Center based at UConn Health.

Significant projects and accomplishments:

Dr. Chamberlin has devoted his entire career to the education and development of current and future pharmacists through various roles as an academic clinician, clinical pharmacist, and Residency Program Director. He has developed educators through a 360-degree teaching evaluation program he designed and implemented for the UConn School of Pharmacy Department of Pharmacy Practice faculty, mentored and developed preceptors in practice at UConn’s academic hospital and within Connecticut, and conducted numerous outreach programs focused on pain management and geriatric pharmacotherapy throughout the state and nationally via various grant-funded programs, Project ECHO, and more. Before moving to the full-time University Director of Pharmacy Residency Programs for UConn Health, Dr. Chamberlin served the School and students as the Interim Associate Dean of Admissions and Student Affairs at the UConn School of Pharmacy, guiding the School and its student body through the early part of the pandemic and sudden transition to online learning. Further, Dr. Chamberlin completed the AACP Academic Leaders Fellowship Program as a member of Cohort 16 (2019-20) where he gained significant insight to academic and professional leadership development strategies.

What has been your ASHP journey?

A member of ASHP since 2003, Dr. Chamberlin has served ASHP on various committees related to education. A member of the Ambulatory Care Practitioners Educational Steering Committee in 2011, he transitioned to the SAG on Preceptor Skills Development and served on that committee from 2013-16. In 2017, he was appointed to the SAG on Pharmacy Practice Experiences Precepting where he aided in updating the ASHP Preceptor Toolkit and Web Resources. On a state level, Dr. Chamberlin has been on the state’s residency conference planning committee since 2017 and established the RPD Roundtable bringing together each of the state’s residency program directors to the same table to build collaboration amongst programs. Most recently, Dr. Chamberlin was appointed as Chair of the ASHP Section of Pharmacy Educators Advisory Group on the Development of Post-Graduate Education and Learning Experiences for the 2021-2022 volunteer term.

Share your thoughts on ASHP’s value as a professional organization in contributing to the education of the pharmacy workforce? What do you think are some key success, resources, and opportunities?

Dr. Chamberlin believes the future of pharmacy education and the pharmacy workforce are 2-fold: 1) declining enrollment saddled with declining employment opportunities; and, 2) the need to further differentiate pharmacists and their clinical value and expertise in the health-system workforce in an industry pressured to provide more with less. Dr. Chamberlin believes ASHP can provide a collective voice to advance our practices. However, he also firmly believes our profession needs to work with other professions to learn what those professional needs and wants of us as pharmacists are, and for us to in-turn educate those professions on what we can provide beyond the fragmented understanding of our great worth. ASHP needs visionary leaders to be cultivated and nurtured earlier in their careers so that, through the process of natural attrition, enough of them remain to propel us forward as a profession. ASHP can do this, while also recognizing the need to focus on work-life balance, something so substantiated through this pandemic that we now are at a critical level of attention indebted to it. Finally, pharmacy needs to ride the wave of opportunity that our presence at the forefront of COVID19 testing and vaccination has provided our profession. 

What advice would you provide for individuals new to your area of practice?

Listen. Network. Collaborate. Understand each other's roles in the healthcare system - all of them. Doing so will enable learners to have a broader scope of appreciation and empathy for one another. My biggest pieces of advice include: (1) take every opportunity presented to you; (2) for every opportunity not afforded, but desired, ask for it and go get it; and, (3) establish your own work-life balance early on so that you're not fighting to claw it back as your career progresses.