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Jessica Bular, College of Pharmacy student

A Goal to Improve Care for Patients Like Herself: Jessica Bular

Making the transition to professional school has its challenges, but they have been well worth it, in the eyes of second-year College of Pharmacy student Jessica Bular.

Two hours away from her hometown of Eighty Four (yes, she gets a lot of head tilts when she says that; the township got its name from the census), Bular has embraced living on her own, meeting new people and developing new, more efficient study habits.

She has also developed an interest in psychiatric pharmacy.

Pursuing psychiatric pharmacy

After being diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder as a college freshman at Seton Hill University in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, Bular took an interest in psychiatry.

“I’ve been lucky enough to have family and friends that are really supportive and really understanding. I want to have my own input on mental health in the field to try to make it easier for patients to get the care that they need — without any stigma attached,” she says.

Bular has taken the opportunity to gain additional experience in psychiatric pharmacy by serving as the president-elect of NEOMED’s College of Psychiatric and Neurologic Pharmacists (CPNP) student chapter.

“CPNP works to educate students, staff and faculty at NEOMED about psychiatric and neurologic conditions, along with some of the problems that their patients can face — including breaking down the stigma of seeking psychiatric and neurologic help,” Bular explains.

Interning to improve

She’s also working towards gaining additional experience by interning at Mercy Health – St. Elizabeth Boardman Hospital in Boardman, Ohio. Bular essentially functions as a pharmacy technician at the hospital.

She describes what a normal day is like as an intern: Dispensing patient medications, stocking the Omnicell (a medication dispensing cabinet) to make medication retrieval more efficient for the entire health care team and preparing IV bags for patients.

Her journey to and through pharmacy school

Looking back to when she started her first pharmacy job at age 15, Bular acknowledges how far she’s come.

“At that point, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do when I graduated. I thought I wanted to be a vet, but then I job shadowed at a vet and I watched them spay and neuter and I quickly realized that wasn’t for me. Then I thought about being a professor of English language arts or something along those lines, but I still wasn’t really sure. When I started working in the pharmacy, I was like, “Huh, okay. This is something I could do,” says Bular.

Whether it’s in the classroom, an in-patient or a clinical setting, Bular appreciates the atmosphere and people of pharmacy.