Aspiring to Teach Others: Mackenzie Lloyd

Working as a pharmacy technician may have introduced Mackenzie Lloyd to pharmacy, but it was always her intent to attend Northeast Ohio Medical University — her first choice in pharmacy schools.

Now approaching her third year as a College of Pharmacy student, Lloyd has built upon that initial knowledge of pharmacy and is sharing it with others along the way.

She is a proud and active member of NEOMED’s Student Society of Health-System Pharmacists chapter, Student College of Clinical Pharmacy, American Pharmacists Association and Phi Lambda Sigma-Gamma Phi Chapter.

Lloyd also serves as a tutor — a responsibility she doesn’t take lightly. She enjoys mentoring others, so much that she has a goal of becoming a professor following pharmacy school.

“I love tutoring,” says Lloyd. “There’s a lot of freedom in teaching and I liked the idea of planning my own lessons.”

This summer, Lloyd has the opportunity to teach and lead beyond NEOMED as the lead intern at Cleveland Clinic.

During their 12-week internship, Lloyd and her fellow interns will spend six weeks completing clinical-based rotations, what she describes as mini Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experiences (APPEs), including internal medicine, cardiology, critical care and more. The additional six weeks are spent doing more operational-based tasks, such as IV sterile compounding and preparing medications for delivery.

“My internship is awesome. It’s my second returning summer, so I have a lot of responsibility, which is great, but it’s also a lot of work at the same time,” says Lloyd.

Most recently, she had an opportunity to work in oncology — a specialty Lloyd didn’t have any prior experience in, which excited her.

“This sounds really corny, I’m excited to learn more about the things I’m not familiar with and the things that will make me a successful APPE student. I finally feel like I have everything figured out going into my third year, and by that I mean how to study well,” she says.

Luckily for Lloyd, there will be plenty of new learning experiences in the years to come as she progresses through pharmacy school and her career.