Get to Know M. Petrea Cober, PharmD, BCNSP, BCPPS
What is your current job title and work location?
Clinical Coordinator, Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Akron Children’s Hospital
Associate Professor, Pharmacy Practice & Section Lead, Specialty Care, Northeast Ohio Medical University, College of Pharmacy
What is your educational background?
I attended Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee, and received my BS in Biochemistry and the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, College of Pharmacy in Memphis, Tennessee, and received my Doctor of Pharmacy.
I completed my PGY1 Pharmacy Residency at Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and my PGY2 Pediatric Pharmacy Residency at the University of Michigan Hospitals and Health Systems.
How did you get involved in the field of clinical nutrition?
It started in pharmacy school. Attending the University of Tennessee, I had excellent mentors in nutrition both in the didactic education, as well as my clinical rotations. During my last year of pharmacy school, I was able to take a pediatric nutrition rotation at LeBonheur with Mike Christensen and loved it. When I went on to Penn State, the program did not have a pharmacist who specialized in nutrition, so I requested a unique rotation in which I rounded with one of the dietitians for an entire month and monitored various PN patients throughout the institution. This was an excellent experience to understand the multidisciplinary team needed to provide great nutrition support. When I completed my pediatric pharmacy residency in Ann Arbor, I was able to have a pediatric nutrition support rotation with Imad Btaiche. All of my experiences prepared me for the initial job I took with the pediatric surgeons at U of M and my subsequent job with the NICU at Akron Children’s.
What specifically do you do in your current position?
I really do a little bit of everything. I am the clinical pharmacist for the 75-bed Level IV NICU at Akron Children’s. I provide parenteral nutrition support as well as drug dosing recommendations for patients from 23 weeks gestational age to full term and beyond. I also serve as the clinical supervisor for the PN ordering process at Akron Children’s. Throughout my time in Akron, I have been able to move our PN ordering process closer to the ASPEN required process and am almost 100% there. In the last year, I have worked with our EPIC team to translate the previous paper forms into an electronic system that is integrated with the CAPS outsource pharmacy we used to compound our PN orders. It has definitely been a process, but I am proud of how far we have been able to come, especially without the resources of a formal nutrition support team in the hospital. Outside of my responsibilities at Akron Children’s, I am shared faculty at the Northeast Ohio Medical University, College of Pharmacy. I serve as the pharmacist responsible for teaching nutrition support and pediatrics to our pharmacy students. It is great to know I have been able to pass on the education and many different experiences I have received to future generations of pharmacists.
Why did you become involved in ASPEN, and what are the benefits of being involved?
I would have never become so involved in ASPEN without the mentorship of Dr. Daniel Teitelbaum. When I started working with the pediatric surgeons at U of M, I was heavily involved with the day-to-day management of PN, but he came back from a conference and immediately wanted to try out “ethanol lock therapy” on some of our intestinal rehabilitation kids. We were able to initiate a fairly robust protocol for the process. He knew that we had worked out a process that many others would be interested in and encouraged me to present it at CNW. After the first visit to CNW, I was hooked. It was great to go to a conference where I could share ideas and questions with others who were seeing a lot of the same things that I was seeing. I could never thank him enough for everything his mentorship has meant to me. It was definitely a great loss to the nutrition community at his passing this summer.
The benefits of involvement are the sharing of ideas and experiences with others. This is a two-way street. I feel I learn a lot from my interactions within ASPEN and strive to share as many of my experiences with the people I interact with in ASPEN. I see one of the greatest benefits as being the spreading of practical clinical knowledge to those with whom I interact. I love teaching others about PN.
What recommendations would you give to someone just starting out in your field?
1. Get involved. You will grow immensely from the experiences and will never regret it.
2. Pass on what you what learned. It is vital to the continued growth of nutrition support to share what we know with those around us.
