Mentorship, Leadership, and Professional Growth in Oncology Pharmacy

In an interview with Pharmacy Times®, Don Moore, PharmD, BCPS, BCOP, DPLA, FCCP, FASHP, clinical oncology pharmacy manager at Atrium Health Levine Cancer Institute in Charlotte, North Carolina, shares highlights from the 2025 HOPA Annual Meeting and what it meant to be recognized with a leadership award by both his colleagues and the broader professional community.

Pharmacy Times: Can you start by introducing yourself and discussing your pharmacy career?

Donald Moore, PharmD, BCPS, BCOP, DPLA, FCCP, FASHP: My name is Don Moore, and I am the Clinical Oncology Pharmacy Manager at Atrium Health Levine Cancer Institute in Charlotte, North Carolina. I've been at this institution now for going on about 9 years. I originally got my Doctor of Pharmacy at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy in Boston, Massachusetts. I'm originally from up in that area. I did a PGY1 at a hospital up there, St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center. Briefly, I did a brief few-year stint in Missouri at a small community-based health system and cancer center there before coming over to Levine Cancer Institute in 2016.

And really, here I've had a few different hats. I firstly started off at an infusion center at one of our small locations in Rock Hill, South Carolina, for a few years. And then I made the transition up to being a hematology clinical pharmacist at one of our clinics at our second-largest campus up in Concord, North Carolina. And then in early 2022, I transitioned to a leadership position, becoming the clinical pharmacy manager for our heme/onc service line. I still maintain a clinical practice, primarily in myeloma and lymphoma generally.

Throughout my career, I've been very involved in a number of different professional organizations. I've had some leadership positions within ACCP, ASHP, and HOPA, and I try to be very actively engaged in scholarship through research, writing, publishing, and speaking. And now, after doing these things for several years, I also have some editorial positions with a couple of journals, primarily serving on the editorial board for Annals of Pharmacotherapy, and now, more recently, I have been appointed to be one of the section editors for Journal of Hematology Oncology Pharmacy—or JHOP, for short—which is the official journal for HOPA.

Lastly, I've been, with a lot of things I've been able to do in my career, very, very fortunate to have the opportunity for—I've been formally recognized for such. So, I've been recognized as a Fellow of ACCP, and I will be awarded Fellow of ASHP at their summer meeting next month in June, which also happens to be right here in Charlotte, North Carolina. So, really looking forward to that.

Pharmacy Times: What is your experience with HOPA?

Moore: So, my experience with HOPA has been—really, I've been a member now for the past 8 years or so. I've had a few different opportunities within HOPA, all of which I'm very grateful for. Currently, I am going to be the incoming Chair of their Mentorship Program Subcommittee. I've been serving on that committee for now a couple of years. This past term, I've been the Vice Chair, so I’ll assume the role of Chair really—I believe—like next month. And so that has really given me the opportunity to help lead HOPA’s mentorship program, which really has a very special place to me, and I think for a lot of people.

It’s really focused on mentorship for new practitioners, helping them to develop leadership skills, as well as helping them navigate different types of opportunities within HOPA. Previously, I've served on the Chemotherapy Stewardship Task Force, which led to the publication last year of a nationwide survey on stewardship practices throughout the U.S. I've also had the opportunity to serve as a representative of HOPA on a couple of initiatives related to hematology in partnership with ACCC—the Association of Cancer Care Centers—primarily focused on addressing health inequities and disparities in access to care among patients with anemia related to low-risk myelodysplastic syndrome.

Pharmacy Times: Reflecting on this year’s conference, what takeaways or data do you feel are exciting or pivotal coming out of the meeting?

Moore: I would be remiss if I did not mention this first with this year's HOPA meeting, but my biggest takeaway was actually how engaged my team at LCI was at this meeting. So being the manager of a service line, I oversee a large team of about 20 clinical hematology/oncology pharmacists. We had several attending the HOPA meeting with a lot of active engagement. So we had several people presenting CE, one who got Fellow of HOPA, and several who were co-authors on research that was presented—whether through our residents—as well as actually on one of the platform presentations. And then also, actually, a pharmacist in the mentorship program that I helped to lead—the committee that helps establish that program.

So, I would be remiss to not say how proud I am, and really one of my biggest key takeaways is really getting to be very grateful and to have the opportunity to work with all these people who are so professionally engaged and really trying to move the needle and trying to advance our profession.

Data-wise, there was a lot of great CE at this conference, and I think that really what we see is—we see lots of new data, new drugs, and advancements in how we treat different diseases across the spectrum of hematology/oncology. A couple of highlights that stand out: there was a session on advancements in EGFR-positive non-small cell lung cancer. That was a great standout presentation. It was a really great debate on some of the controversies there—those were really excellent updates. Lots to name.

There was also a great presentation on congenital thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura—or congenital TTP. So I think it’s always great to see some attention going towards ultra-rare hematologic conditions while they're being talked about amongst other different types of topics for our profession.

Pharmacy Times: You received a leadership award from HOPA. What does this award mean to you?

Moore: It really means a lot. Leadership is tough, and the landscape of healthcare is really quite challenging right now. And so, to even think that one of my pharmacists here on our team—she put me up for the award—it was really just an honor to be recognized in such a way by both the people I get to directly work with and HOPA as an organization. So it's just an honorable and humbling experience to really have my efforts in leading the team that I have here at LCI through what has really been very transformational change at our health system—both the local level as well as the national level—as well as some of my efforts and engagement in HOPA and really what I'm trying to do within the oncology pharmacy profession at large.

So it's just—it's really great to see the point of reflection of the things that I have done to be recognized, and also just even looking at who else has received this leadership award. And the predecessors before me and a lot of people that I do greatly admire and look up to. And knowing that it’s good to be recognized by the organization, being in a certain class of professionals—to be recognized like that.

Pharmacy Times: Do you have any advice for pharmacists as they advance in their careers?

Moore: I think the biggest piece of advice that I always try to give to others who want to be what I like to call “professional citizens”—people who want to be involved in HOPA or in other organizations. Maybe they want to write, they want to publish, they want to speak, or they want to be professionally engaged—outside of direct patient care—as those activities are really good supplements to what they're doing for patients and their institutions on a day-to-day basis.

My biggest piece of advice would really be to be open to a diversity and a range of professional experiences. So, we never know what we're truly going to find value in when we do these types of activities. And you also never know what one activity is going to lead to eventually for yourself and change the overall trajectory of your career. So I can think of, at least for myself, countless times in my career in which I did one activity, and unbeknownst to me, it would lead to an entirely different opportunity—and oftentimes an opportunity that I was really—that’s what I was really seeking out in the beginning or a goal that I had to get to.

And so your careers are never quite linear. When we get to our career, it’s linear getting there. Oftentimes for many of us—you go to school, you get your PharmD, and you do residency. Sometimes you do a second-year residency. Then you get a job, and then you get board-certified. But all the things after that are oftentimes very non-linear. And sometimes you just need to take—they always say, “Step outside of your comfort zone.” I like to say, just be open to trying out different professional things. Maybe take a stab at submitting a HOPA proposal. Maybe try to speak at one of your local pharmacy conferences. Maybe try to write that paper. Maybe say yes to that certain project. Just try out different things, see what you like, and see what it might lead to—because you never know what it's going to lead to in the end. And it might lead to a really great opportunity that can really change the overall trajectory of one's career and what they end up doing and becoming an expert in.