Pharmacist Spotlight: Callie Paine, PharmD

Can you tell us a bit about your career and what you do now?

I earned my PharmD degree from Massachusetts College of Pharmacy, in Boston, in 2012. While in school, I started as an intern at CVS Pharmacy, and upon graduation became a pharmacy manager in downtown Boston. I joined the corporate office in 2014, where I’ve held a variety of roles focused on improving medication adherence, increasing access to vaccines, and unlocking self-service capabilities for our patients within the CVS Health app. Currently, I am a director on the immunizations team, although I just moved over from supporting our omnichannel experience team.

Can you describe a typical day in your role?

Every day is different! A lot of my time is spent bringing together a team of diverse individuals from throughout the organization to have discussions on a variety of topics, such as evaluating data to understand current state behaviors and identify any opportunities. We also hold brainstorming sessions to think of new and unique ways that we can interact and support our patients. Other times we are building and testing new approaches or tactics to learn what will be successful with our patients or colleagues. These tests can [include] creating text-based campaigns, standing up in-store interactions for our colleagues, or partnering with the information technology (IT) team to create a digital experience on the app or web. Ultimately, the goal is to roll out strategies that are successful to support all of our CVS Pharmacy patients across the country. We also have ongoing partnerships with our field teams, develop communications and change management strategies, conduct observations in our call centers or stores, and collect feedback along the way.

What aspects of your role do you find the most rewarding?

I love solving problems and finding simple solutions that make health care easier for patients. In my prior role, I was focused on how we could create omnichannel solutions that allowed patients to interact with our app to do things like refill or transfer a prescription. Solutions like that help make it simpler for the patient by not requiring a call to the pharmacy but also allowing our pharmacy teams to be focused on the patient in front of them. I also love leading a team and supporting the development of more junior colleagues. I love being able to coach, provide feedback, and ultimately see individuals grow in their roles. Being able to bring different perspectives and ideas together to come up with the best solutions possible is so rewarding!

How have you seen career opportunities for pharmacists evolve over time?

Even though I have been in retail pharmacy for my entire career, it has been amazing to see how the role of the pharmacists in our stores has grown. The incorporation of additional health services, such as administering vaccines or prescribing birth control, has expanded so much in the past handful of years, and it is great to see the impact this is having on improving access to care for our patients. When I started in the corporate office, there were some pharmacists on the team, and over the years there have been so many new opportunities for roles that pharmacists can be in, including our IT or legal teams. I also continue to learn more every day about other pharmacy roles that my friends have moved into, and it is amazing to see the possibilities out there.