Abimbola Farinde, PharmD, MS, A.S.P.E.N. Member and Volunteer (Publications Review Committee)
Over the years I have come to recognize the critical importance of remaining actively engaged in my profession. I am always looking for new ways to remain both competent and proficient as I grow professionally in my pharmacy career. There are a myriad of professional and personal reasons that people may have for joining a professional organization, but for me the primary motivator for joining the American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (A.S.P.E.N.) was the opportunity to maintain my knowledge base through access to continuing education opportunities, networking with other healthcare professionals, and striving to educate the general public about my role as a practicing pharmacist through my active participation on A.S.P.E.N committees.
When I think about what A.S.P.E.N means to me, I can immediately conjure up thoughts of an organization that is strongly committed to fostering growth, enhancing knowledge, and improving the skills of all healthcare professionals, including physicians, pharmacists, nurses, nurse practitioners, dietitians, physician assistants, and more. As a pharmacist, one element of the ongoing learning process that I find to be important is gaining different hands-on experiences in a variety real-world clinical practice settings. Experience provides a healthcare professional with the opportunity to obtain comprehensive knowledge of parenteral and enteral nutrition to apply in their own clinical practice. Extensive training and knowledge of a variety of healthcare settings is an important aspect of mastering the concepts of nutrition support; when the days do arise when I am presented with an exceptionally complex patient case, I can feel confident in my abilities as a result of the various training and professional development opportunities that I received through my involvement with A.S.P.E.N.
Although there are only so many hours in the day, Farinde still makes time to volunteer. Photo by klynslis via Flickr Creative Commons.
The need to obtain continuing education, training, and professional experience is a common thread for most healthcare professionals. Maintaining competency and involvement in professional organizations such as A.S.P.E.N. provides that opportunity. By attending A.S.P.E.N.’s annual meetings, I will have the opportunity to network with other healthcare professionals engaged in real-world practice who share their expertise through workshops, seminars, lecture series, and presentation of their research findings. The opportunity to engage in dialogue with these experienced professionals can possibly help to enhance the high quality of training and experience that I have received thus far as a clinical pharmacist.
Prior to becoming a member of A.S.P.E.N, my interactions with the general field and practice of nutrition support were largely limited to my work setting. I found myself to be simply content with hearing about how other healthcare professionals succeeded in making positive social changes because they made the selfless decision to become change agents rather than bystanders. I secretly wondered if I was capable of bringing about such changes and I reached a point where I no longer desired to wonder. Luckily, I came to realize that my lack of involvement with my professional peers would only hinder my development as a versatile pharmacist and not make the complete transformation into the effective clinical and scholarly practitioner that I wanted to become. With this epiphany, I came to recognize the importance of being a member and volunteering with A.S.P.E.N. because it does provide healthcare professionals such as myself with access to resources. Being able to engage in rich dialogue with other healthcare professionals who can share their experiences about their clinical practice and interventions has been invaluable in helping me to identify the skills that an effective healthcare professional must possess in order to succeed in everyday clinical practice.
