It would be a stretch to say that playing the clarinet led to Megan Tran’s career as a pharmacist — but not much of one.
In high school, Tran — now a clinical assistant professor at the University of South Carolina College of Pharmacy — played the clarinet and the tenor sax. Playing in the marching band was a big reason the Clover, South Carolina, native came to USC, and she considered a career as a band director. But an aunt encouraged her to keep an open mind about career options, and Tran ended up falling in love with pharmacy.
“Coming out of high school, I didn't know what I wanted to do, and I had really varied interests,” recalls Tran, recipient of the Clinical Practice Teaching Award. “I spent a summer with my aunt, and she was going through professions that I might be interested in and she mentioned pharmacy. That one piqued my interest enough that I was happy to dig in a little bit deeper. I thought it might be a fantastic way to use my love of science and mathematics to apply toward patient care and community service.”
Tran’s instinct was right. She dove into the field, earned her Pharm. D. from USC in 2009, and then worked for a decade at Self Regional Healthcare in Greenwood, South Carolina. There, she fell into her specialty of pharmacy oncology.
“Part of it is the problem-solving that goes into it,” she says of what drew her to the specialty. “Oncology is incredibly complex.”
But there’s also the personal side.
“It’s the little stories where you have your patient that comes to you in a wheelchair, nervous about beginning treatment, and you get to watch him progress to where he says, ‘I got to pick up my grandchild for the first time, because I finally was strong enough to do it.’ And it means a lot to know that you had a little bit of a role in that, in helping him reach his goals.”
When she’s not helping patients reach their goals — which today she does at the Prisma Health Midlands Cancer Institute — Tran is helping students reach theirs.
Teaching came gradually to Tran, but it is deeply rooted in her life experiences. That time spent playing music and thinking about being a band director, including being a teacher cadet, connects directly to the work she does now. Musicians work as a team, and band directors are leaders; they work with every player under their baton to help them reach their full potential.
“Pharmacy knowledge is discrete only at a point in time, and then it's going to change. So, I don't necessarily need them to always remember the exact drugs or the exact algorithms. But how did we make that treatment decision? Where can you go to get that information or confirm that that information is correct?”
Tran connected with the teacher inside her while she was working in Greenwood.
“When I was at Self Regional Healthcare, I was beginning to get some of those fourth-year pharmacy students rotate through, and I enjoyed those mentorship opportunities,” she says. “The students taught me and pushed me to be better — and to really cement my knowledge. I loved getting to watch them grow, find new things they enjoy doing and gain confidence in themselves.”
Before coming to USC, Tran was a guest instructor for several years at the Presbyterian College School of Pharmacy. There, she really honed her skills.
“I liked answering questions, and I liked being able to help connect the dots for the students,” she says. “To take something as complex as oncology and break it down so a beginner can learn it is its own intellectual challenge.”
Part of her approach is making sure that students are learning how to think, not just how to memorize material.
“Pharmacy knowledge is discrete only at a point in time, and then it's going to change,” says Tran. “So, I don't necessarily need them to always remember the exact drugs or the exact algorithms. But how did we make that treatment decision? Where can you go to get that information or confirm that that information is correct?”
Tran is particularly sensitive to the varying comfort levels of students as they transition from classroom work to working directly with patients.
“They've had all this chemistry, they've had all this biology. Then all of a sudden they're in there with someone who's got one of the forms of cancer that you work with.” Some students are ready to have that conversation; others freeze up.
Tran tailors her approach to the student. The ones who feel ready to talk to patients might just need a little practice first. The students who are hesitant to take that step will benefit from observing over time through a modeling approach.
“They can listen to us have these interactions at the beginning, and then they have the opportunity to step in,” Tran says. “The goal is that by the end of the rotation, the students are independently speaking to the patients or the providers or the nurses, and then we are in the periphery. We’re close enough where we can step in if we need to, but they’re gaining that feeling of independence.”