Every year HealthPRO welcomes students as part of its placement program to help them gain real-world experience while contributing to the organization.

Phinehas Cheung, a fourth-year student, from the University of Manitoba (U of M) just completed an 8-week rotation under the mentorship of Tracy Gallina, HealthPRO’s Product Quality Pharmacy Director.

We had the pleasure of interviewing him to share his experience.

How would you summarize your experience at HealthPRO?

It was very eye-opening. To draw an analogy to quality electricity or water transmission, most people don't realize the efforts to get good drug products to hospitals reliably, and as short as my eight weeks here has been, I'm very fortunate to have had this behind-the-scenes glimpse. It's reassuring to see the work HealthPRO does to support hospitals.  As a student, I realize I'm still very new to the practice of pharmacy. I plan to equip myself with more experience at hospitals, so that I can gain a firsthand understanding of their perspectives.

What part of your placement at HealthPRO did you like the best?

I enjoyed training under the product evaluation team because they apply their skills and knowledge to provide resources to suppliers and hospitals that contribute to medication safety. 

What type of pharmacy practice do you think you will pursue once you graduate?

I’d like to apply my skills and knowledge to develop new drugs.

Tell us about a project you got to work on.

As part of the PH23 General Trade Request for Proposal (RFP), I got to learn about packaging and labelling standards and contribute to the through evaluating many different products. I also worked on a multivitamin product comparison for members, a wellness article for staff, and reconstitution data that will assist members that use dockable mini-bags.

What is it about HealthPRO that appealed to you?

I enjoyed supporting patient safety and better patient outcomes.