IAM405- Pharmacist and Leadership Trainer Encourages People To Be Their Best

Dr. Jerrica Dodd is a pharmacist, entrepreneur, coach and leader.

She holds a Doctor of Pharmacy degree from Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, a Master of Science in Pharmacy Administration and pharmacy residency from The Ohio State University, and a Master of Science with a focus in Applied Pharmacoeconomics from the University of Florida.

Dr. Dodd has been a pharmacist for 21 years and transitioned into full time entrepreneurship after a 17-year career in the pharmaceutical industry in multiple roles in Medical Affairs.
Her recent educational pursuits have been completion of a Nutrition Health Coaching Certificate from the Institute of Integrative Nutrition. Currently, she is enrolled in the Institute of Functional Medicine and aiming to introduce a functional medicine perspective to the pharmaceutical management of member patients of Your Pharmacy Advocate, LLC where she is the founder and CEO.

Dr. Dodd has been requested to serve as a speaker for numerous and diverse professional and community events. Her experience also includes speaking to diverse audiences including health care providers.

With her background in pharmacy, leadership training and her passion for people, Dr. Dodd enjoys encouraging people to be their best and to get the most out of every opportunity that life presents. Her favorite scripture is Luke 12:48…”to whom much is given, much is required” and Dr. Dodd endeavors to live life giving back from the abundant ways in which she has been blessed.

• CEO Hack: Book – No B.s Time Management for Entrepreneurs
• CEO Nugget: Everyday is not an up day
• CEO Defined: Responsibility and priviledge of leading clients and other business owners

Website: http://yourpharmacyadvocate.com/

Facebook: Your Pharmacy Advocate
Instagram: Your Pharmacy Advocate
LinkedIn: Your Pharmacy Advocate and Dr. Jerrica Dodd

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Transcription

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Intro 0:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:30

Hello, hello, hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Dr. Jerrica Dodd of Your Pharmacy Advocate. Dr. Jerrica, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Dr. Jerrica Dodd 0:39

Thank you. Thank you for having me today.

Gresham Harkless 0:41

No problem. Super excited to have you on and what I wanted to do was just read a little bit more about Dr. Jerrica. So you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. Dr. Jerrica Dodd is a pharmacist, entrepreneur, coach, and leader. She holds a Doctor of Pharmacy degree from Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, a Master of Science in Pharmacy Administration and pharmacy residency from Ohio State University, and a Master of Science with a focus in Applied Pharmacoeconomics from the University of Florida.

Dr. Dodd has been a pharmacist for 21 years and transitioned into full-time entrepreneurship after a 17-year career in the pharmaceutical industry and multiple roles in medical affairs. Currently, she is enrolled in the Institute of Functional Medicine and aims to introduce a functional medicine perspective to the Pharmaceutical Management of member patients of Your Pharmacy Advocate LLC, where she is the founder and CEO.

Dr. Dodd has been requested to serve as a speaker for numerous diverse professional and community events with her background and pharmacy leadership training in her passion for people Dr. Dodd enjoys encouraging people to be their best and to get the most out of every opportunity that life presents. Our favorite scripture is Luke 1248. To whom much is given, much is required. Doctor Dodd endeavors to live life giving back from the abundant ways in which she has been blessed. Dr. Dodd, thank you so much for being on the show. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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Dr. Jerrica Dodd 1:56

I am ready. Thank you.

Gresham Harkless 1:57

No problem. Thank you for rockin' and rollin'. And I wanted to kick everything off to hear a little bit more about what I call your CEO story and what led you to get started in your business.

Dr. Jerrica Dodd 2:05

Sure, my CEO story actually is more of a personal story. I don't know that I set out to be the CEO of a pharmacy consulting practice. But several years ago, probably about four years ago in 2015, I had the circumstances of following and supporting my father as he was diagnosed with stage four lymphoma. He's a Vietnam vet. And then also five months later I supported my mother through a triple bypass heart surgery in which she came out of that surgery with dementia that lasted for about two years.

And five months after my mother's surgery, I had brain surgery. And so I found that along that journey, everything happened five months apart for each one of us. However, I was an advocate for my parents and also was an advocate for myself when I was in the hospital recovering. In that time decided that I was going to definitely build something to help advocate for patients as they were on their health journeys because I realised how many questions people have about their health and don't have anyone to support them to get the answers they need.

Gresham Harkless 3:16

Absolutely. Well, I'm definitely obviously sorry to hear all of that happened especially in such a short period of time, even though five months can seem long. But that's definitely a lot to take in a short period of time. So to show them a tremendous strength to be able to just go through that. But I appreciate you for not only helping yourself helping your family, but also sounds like reaching out to help so many other people. Right?

Dr. Jerrica Dodd 3:36

Yeah.

Gresham Harkless 3:37

So I wanted to drill down a little bit deeper, I know that when those times happen, they're usually unexpected. So you need to have people to lean on. So I know you touched a little bit on it. But can you tell us a little bit more about what you're doing?

Dr. Jerrica Dodd 3:51

So as I said, as I was recovering, I decided that I was going to build a business that could help patients by advocating for their health journey. And I built Your Pharmacy Advocate, which is a virtual pharmacy consulting practice, where essentially every patient has their own personal pharmacist.

So on average, when a patient goes to a physician's office, they get about 7 to 10 minutes in the exam room. And that's not a long time to talk about your health history or what's ailing you at the moment. And so when that patient then leaves that office and then heads to their local pharmacy to pick up their prescription. Generally, they're tired, they've encountered the health care system, they're ready to get home ready to get kids home, what have you.

And so there's usually not the pressing need to ask a lot of questions at that moment because that's just not usually where their focus is. And given the circumstances in today's pharmacy profession, that pharmacist likely may or may not have the time to spend a lot of time with that patient answering their questions.

So Your Pharmacy Advocate fills that gap so that a patient can have a personal pharmacist that's assigned to them that knows their health, and that can be available to answer their questions. Maybe it's at 7 pm when they get home, and they've had a chance to download from the day, and they have additional questions that they couldn't even think of in the doctor's office, or at the pharmacy counter.

Gresham Harkless 5:14

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And like you said because I imagine it's so emotionally, maybe necessarily taxing, but maybe draining is the right word, where there's just so much going on. And as you said, you've gone through the day, all you want to do is just get home, it's where you're safe spaces, and you don't want to have to worry about anything, you're not thinking about questions, because pretty much you get your prescription. It's like, Do you have any questions? And no, you don't really have any questions, because you never really thought about it. But when you get back home, in your safe space, you might have certain things you want to ask and to be able to tap into expertise. But also people who know you are definitely huge.

Dr. Jerrica Dodd 5:45

Sometimes you even just want more privacy, you don't necessarily want to stand and ask all of your questions with a line of people who are waiting to pick up their prescription. And you may feel like you're rushed or like you're in a hurry. And so those are also factors that weighed into the way that I designed this program.

Gresham Harkless 6:02

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And that's why I definitely appreciate you talking about you know exactly what happened to you. So it's not as if you're like a fly on the wall. Looking at this situation, it sounds like you were in a similar situation. So you understand the frustrations, the standing in line and not wanting to ask certain questions all those things that are going through people's minds, you've actually built your company around.

Dr. Jerrica Dodd 6:22

Right, some of the other things that caused me to build the platform, the way that I did, is that oftentimes patients are seeing multiple physicians. And so while that challenge is somewhat helped by the fact that we have electronic medical records, oftentimes patients have prescriptions from several doctors, and if they go to several different pharmacies, potentially, because maybe they are looking for better deals for the prescriptions.

So if you have multiple meds from multiple doctors, and potentially coming from multiple pharmacies, who are able to keep track of all of that and make sure that one, ultimately the patient is number one and safe, who is able to help that patient communicate about those prescriptions, or about any side effects or adverse events that are happening having, as a result, and the pharmacist with your pharmacy advocate are able to do that, we're also able to help patients to have communication with their doctors, many patients won't call back and say, this caused me to have a headache or this upset my stomach, they'll just think, well, I don't want to bother the doctor, or the pharmacist that they work with is able to either coach them on what to say and how to say it, or we can interact with the healthcare practitioner directly on their behalf.

Gresham Harkless 7:37

Now, that makes perfect sense. Because a lot of times you have to be able to kind of quote-unquote, speak the same language, or understand exactly how to say certain things. And it's funny, because a lot of times, I always say my big phrase is putting on your own oxygen mask. So making sure that you're taking care of but a lot of times we'll put the doctor seem so busy, so I don't want to bother them, I don't want to take them out of their regular schedule or whatever. But a lot of times, we have to understand how best to do that so that we can be healthy and safe. So we can take care of our family and our friends.

Dr. Jerrica Dodd 8:02

Right.

Gresham Harkless 8:03

Nice. And so you might have already touched on this. But could you talk I guess a little bit more about it could be your personal secret sauce, or your secret sauce for your organization or your company and what you feel kind of sets you guys apart.

Dr. Jerrica Dodd 8:12

So what sets Your Pharmacy Advocate apart are a couple of different things. Number one, we're virtual. And so we're able to reach patients where they are, we're able to communicate with them, either by phone call or by virtual meeting. And all that can be done through either a website or an app on their phone or their tablet. So that makes it easy for the patient to basically literally have that pharmacist in the palm of their hand. If that's convenient for them. And it also allows us to dig a little deeper and we are able to spend time, because we dig deeper, we spend time with patients so that not that 7 to 10 minutes, we spend time asking questions. And you would be amazed some of the times when we're talking with patients.

And you just ask the question, is there anything else? And they Oh, yeah, forgot to tell you this. And so it really gives them a chance to answer the questions that help the pharmacist know more about their health. And then another secret sauce, if you will, the ingredient is that we take care of patients from a functional medicine standpoint. So we help ask the questions. Why? Why do you have hypertension? Why do you have diabetes? Why oftentimes, in conventional medicine, patients are given a prescription because of the symptoms that they're experiencing. But we're not really getting to the root of the problem.

And so we aim to have those conversations and introduce that perspective into caring for that patient. We also serve as team members to be an advocate not only for the patient but also to support that patient's physician and having a pharmacist on their team if you will.

Gresham Harkless 9:54

Nice, that makes perfect sense and so that is what functional medicine is being able to I guess function in society and on a regular basis is that the correct way to phrase it?

Dr. Jerrica Dodd 10:04

Functional medicine is a discipline of medicine to get to the root cause of our problems. So for example, many of the chronic conditions, and this is a very high-level, generalization description, but of the chronic illnesses or chronic conditions that we experience or that people experience diabetes, hypertension, immune disorders, such as multiple sclerosis, lupus, chronic conditions, such as those are really the result of our body's saying, there's something going on and the immune system does not is not reacting well to it, or there's a considerable amount of underlying inflammation in the body.

And so there are medications that you can give. However, if they are not getting to the root cause of what that inflammation is, it's almost like trying to smolder or put something over a fire and it's still smoldering underneath, we've got to get to the root cause of what is keeping this fire going.

Gresham Harkless 11:01

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And I've always heard that a lot of times when you're, I guess getting the flu, and this is a poor example, cuz I'm not a doctor, but whatever that is, is sometimes a manifestation of something that's going on deeper. So a lot of times I know people deal with a lot of stress. So sometimes they'll have pain in certain parts of their body, or they have a headache. And they think, Okay, let me take this Advil. But in reality, if you're stressed, that's really the underlying cause and you got to figure out what that is.

Dr. Jerrica Dodd 11:25

Absolutely, yes. Right.

Gresham Harkless 11:28

I wanted to switch gears a little bit. And I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. This could be an app or book or a habit that you have, but it's something that makes you more effective and efficient.

Dr. Jerrica Dodd 11:37

So I would say, especially when I was newer in this journey, the book that was recommended to me was called The BS Guide, the BS Guide to Time Management for Entrepreneurs. And it's by Dan Kennedy. And there's a portion of the beginning of that book where he talks about how to value your time, what is your time worth. And I think sometimes when you begin the journey of CEO, you have goodwill, and you want to spend time and talk to everybody that wants to talk with you. But going through that portion of the book, working through the example and even says in the book, don't get caught up in all of the details.

But basically, as best you can estimate what your time is worth, and he gives a formula for that. It helped me really see how to structure my calendar, what appointments to say yes to what appointments to say yes, for an hour versus Yes, for 20 minutes. So that is probably one of the biggest help that I had as a new entrepreneur.

Gresham Harkless 12:43

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And I appreciate you for sharing that with us. And so now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. And this is a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. Or if you can happen to a time machine. What would you tell your younger business self?

Dr. Jerrica Dodd 12:55

Oh, gosh, what I would tell my younger business self is that every day is not an up day, as I would say, oh, and so oftentimes, when I began this journey, I thought, well, it's just going to be peaches and cream. But that is not the case. And what I've learned is that when it's not an update, when it appears that a day is going to be a rough day or extremely difficult day, that number one, it will pass, it's not going to last forever. And two, it's very easy for us humans we don't like to be under we'd like to get out from under anything that makes us uncomfortable.

But that takes a lot of energy. If we're flailing about and going, Oh, I don't like this. I don't like how this feels. But I've learned to understand that because this will pass, I'm able to say, I don't really like how this is going. I don't like how this feels. However, it won't last forever. And that takes less energy. I'm expending less energy trying to avoid the negative feelings or the down day if you will, versus just breathing walking through it, and knowing that this too shall pass.

Gresham Harkless 14:04

Exactly, exactly. So now I want to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on the show. So Dr. Dodd, what does being CEO mean to you?

Dr. Jerrica Dodd 14:14

Being a CEO means that I want to get a lead, I get to lead other patients, I get to lead other business owners another pharmacist, and it's a great responsibility. But it's also one of the most rewarding responsibilities because I get to design and lead my perspective on how patients should be taken care of and how their health should be cared for. And so while it's one of the greatest responsibilities, it's also one of the greatest privileges that I've ever had.

Gresham Harkless 14:48

I appreciate that. Appreciate your time. Appreciate all the awesome things you're doing. What I wanted to do is ask you if there's anything additional, you want to let our readers and listeners know and then of course, how best they can get ahold of you to find out about everything you're doing.

Dr. Jerrica Dodd 15:00

Sure. So the one last thing, the last parting thought I'll leave. And this is really something that I learned along my journey with my parents and then my own health is that I am very passionate that it is important to be the CEO. Since we're talking about CEOs, it's important to be the CEO of your health, your health is not the responsibility of your spouse, your adult children, or even your doctor in that regard. In that regard, your health is your responsibility. So I'd like to encourage everyone to be the CEO of their health.

And then the way to stay connected or to connect and follow me is the website, yourpharmacyadvocate.com. There's a contact page there where you can fill out their contact information, and I'm able to get that and follow up on social media. Your Pharmacy Advocate has a page on Facebook, there is an account on Instagram, and then there's also LinkedIn. So again, Your Pharmacy Advocate is on social media, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.

Gresham Harkless 16:04

Absolutely, thank you so much and we'll make sure to have those links in the show notes definitely thank you for the reminder as our health is our greatest wealth so we have to make sure that we are the CEO of that so that we can have the best life that we can have and the most wealth that we are able to achieve so I truly appreciate your time Dr. Dodd again and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Outro 16:22

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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