Work Worth Getting Up and Doing Every Day

Through a winding career path, Patrick Brown, PharmD ’13, has found fulfillment in where he is today

Story by Zach Read | Published April 9, 2024

Patrick Brown, PharmD ’13, first learned about pharmacy as a career from his grandfather who lived in Robbins, North Carolina, located in Moore County. In Robbins, Patrick’s grandfather worked in and helped operate a small-town drug store, Tar Heel Drug. Although he wasn’t a pharmacist, Patrick’s grandfather knew the ins and outs of the entire operation, from running the soda fountain to understanding the needs of the business and its customers.

“I grew up hearing stories about the drug store,” explains Patrick. “My dad worked there when he was in high school. It seemed cool to me and like an interesting thing to do.”

When Patrick had the opportunity to explore a career for course credit in high school, he chose working in a community pharmacy.

“I loved it,” the Asheboro native says of the experience. “It was enough for me to think I might want to go to pharmacy school.”

Which Patrick did, at UNC, after completing pre-pharmacy coursework for three years at Campbell University. At UNC, Patrick took advantage of the broad rotational experiences available to him, including inpatient clinical rotations in infectious disease and psychiatry, outpatient rotations in diabetes management and pain management, and several rotations in community pharmacies, which included vaccine and medication therapy management.

“I realized I was never interested in working at a clinic or in a hospital,” he says. “I liked it when I did it, but I had the sense that it wasn’t what I wanted for my career.”

After graduation, Patrick continued trying new experiences. He completed residency at a community pharmacy in Concord, which he loved, but the day-to-day running of a pharmacy wasn’t for him. He returned to Carolina for a fellowship, focusing on helping implement broader patient-care services into community pharmacies. He worked for Mutual Drug, a wholesaler for independent pharmacies, for five years. He maintained his connection to the School of Pharmacy, teaching and working on residencies.

Then, as COVID-19 changed the landscape of health care, Patrick received a call from a contact at the Division of Public Health in the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.

“They were looking for help in the COVID response,” he remembers. “I’d been working to help pharmacies prepare for the vaccine rollout and helping make sure they could find staff if people were out sick and they had to keep the pharmacy open, but I wanted to do more in the pandemic response.”

Patrick worked at the state health department for almost two years. The first year he worked solely on the COVID-19 vaccine rollout. The second hear he transitioned into workforce recovery.

“That’s when I started working closely with health departments across the state,” he says. “I fell in love with working with the people from local health departments—the local health directors and their teams—at the county level.”

Two of Patrick’s passions were becoming his work: supporting community pharmacies and independent pharmacies and serving the health-services needs of rural North Carolina. Then, in November 2022, he landed a role that has been the perfect fit: Executive Director of the North Carolina Public Health Collaboration, which comprises the North Carolina Public Health Association, the North Carolina Association of Local Health Directors, and the North Carolina Alliance of Public Health Agencies. The position allows him to advocate on behalf of rural health departments.

“I really enjoy doing advocacy work on behalf of underappreciated but critical resources like independent pharmacies and rural health departments,” he says. “These health departments are underfunded, and a lot of times your smaller counties not only get less money from the federal and state government because of the smaller population they serve, but they also have a smaller county tax base and a smaller percentage of that tax base coming to their health department. If I can do whatever I can to help those departments advocate for more resources so they can help their communities thrive, be healthy, and be economically successful, it’s work that’s worth getting up and doing every day.”  

Patrick admits that working in public health was not on his list when he was in pharmacy school; yet today he finds himself presenting on public health at the School of Pharmacy and explaining public health to students.

“I couldn’t have told you what public health meant when I was a student,” he says. “I didn’t have a clue. But when I bridged out of COVID vaccine work and was doing broader work with the division, I learned and understood public health a lot more.”

He credits his pharmacy degree and his approach to his education and career with helping him get to where he is today.

“The pharmacy degree gives you a lot more flexible options than I think a lot of graduating pharmacists realize they have,” he says. “The thing you have to be comfortable with if you want a nontraditional path is that you may have to carve that path a little more for yourself. You may have to build a network, get to know people, pitch yourself as the right candidate.”

Growing up in rural North Carolina, Patrick couldn’t be happier to have been the right candidate for his current position.

“I grew up in rural North Carolina, my whole family is from rural North Carolina, and I really love this state,” he says. “It’s the only state I’ve ever lived in. For as long as I’m doing this work, I’m going to be in a place where I can have some statewide level of focus and support rural communities. Smaller communities shouldn’t be forgotten in what makes North Carolina special.”