Preceptor of the Year
Congratulations to Eli Eggen, PharmD, the 2022 recipient of the Preceptor of the Year award!
Eli graduated from the University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy in 2017 and completed his PGY1 residency training the following year with Minnesota Community Care as his practice site. Eli enjoys working closely with all members of the health care team and values the opportunity to mentor and learn from pharmacy residents in this interprofessional setting. Eli was nominated by 2022 Minnesota Community Care resident Debesai Hailemicael, pictured left and right respectively. Residents were asked to provide a story of how their preceptor personified this quote:
“A mentor is not someone who walks ahead of us to show us how they did it, a mentor walks alongside us to show us what we can do.” — Simon Sinek
An excerpt from Debesai's submission:
I will be honest here; I was shy at first and stayed away from communicating with providers. Moreover, I was not sure at first how people would judge me and what they thought of me. So I was hesitant to interact with providers and take on more tasks for fear of making mistakes and being judged. Dr. Eggen encouraged me to get out of my comfort zone. He challenged me to take the wheel of patient care, provide recommendations, and guide treatment approaches. Because of this, I have grown significantly and even did presentations for all providers, which they were grateful for. Sometimes I feel I am taking a lot of time and energy from Dr. Eggen, but he always makes you feel welcome to ask and share. It seems he lives by this quote from Theodore Roosevelt, "people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. Dr. Eggen is the epitome of caring, knowledgeable, and professional clinical pharmacists that residents aspire to emulate.
Dr. Eggen went above and beyond to see me succeed in my residency training. He kept me in the loop of what is going on in the department so that I make the right decisions. He showed interest in my well-being as a resident and went the extra mile to make sure I learned and grew to be the independent ambulatory care pharmacist I aspire to be. As a person of color and immigrant, it might not be easy to fit into situations/teams, not from others' wrongdoing but that negative thought in my head that whispers, "you do not fit here. There is no one who looks like you". In such a situation/environment, Dr. Eggen helped me feel at home as a new resident. Honestly, I always get stressed with the burden of proving myself that I am a hard worker and a human being who aspires to succeed. I always tell myself that I am not here to fill a quota but get the job done. With such a thinking process, having allies who genuinely care is priceless. Dr. Eggen had been there to help me with my research project specifically since I was unfamiliar with the software we use for dispensing. Sometimes I took a good chunk of his time, but Dr. Eggen is very patient and always ready to help; he is a model of professionalism in patient care and interacting with providers and coworkers. Even on the most challenging days, he kept his composure and was cheerful and respectful. Out of all my coworkers, it is Dr. Eggen that I feel comfortable with talking about my challenges or concerns. There were days that I did not feel like going to work and just quit, but remembering the care and time Dr. Eggen invested in me, I end up going to work eventually due to partially not to fail a person who cared about my success and, more importantly, about patient care. Dr. Eggen is a hardworking, intelligent, and caring clinical pharmacist. It has been a blessing to know him and work with him. Dr. Eggen taught me a lot of clinical aspects of ambulatory care and pushed me to tap my potential to learn and research more. He challenged me with good questions and guided me to find the answers. He introduced me to the "All during one visit " patient care notion. The notion is to provide patients all rounded care during a single visit as needed by ordering labs, and scheduling patients with the lab, PCP, chiropractor, and dietitian rather than sending notes to the call center to do the same. This is because our patients are from underserved communities and have difficulty navigating the complex US healthcare system. I have more to say, but this should be enough and clear of what I think of Dr. Eggen as a preceptor.