'It's Important to Be Flexible with Your Plans,' Says Pacific Alumna

When a classmate encouraged Marta Stueve ’11, PharmD/MHA ‘16 to complete Pacific’s master of healthcare administration degree along with her PharmD, Stueve had no idea it would shape her career.

“The MHA program, as well as the social and administrative science classes opened my eyes to the direct impact pharmacists could have on our profession,” she said. “I started to understand that if I were to have crucial conversations with influential people, I could help move along pharmacy priorities … I could impact far larger population groups and influence policy changes I believed in.”

Stueve, who earned her undergraduate degree in biological chemistry at Pacific in 2011, completed her PharmD and MHA in 2016. She went on to a residency that eventually led her to her current position, supervising an oncology pharmacy department.

“I someone had told me at graduation that I was going to complete my second-year residency at Yale-New Haven Hospital and become a supervisor (in oncology) right after, I would not have believed them,” Stueve said. 

Today, Stueve is responsible for day-to-day operations in the department, working to increase efficiency and decrease wait time for medications. She manages part of the hospital-based technician training program, and supervises technicians, pharmacists and interns. She’s also been involved in the launch of a compounding room for the oncology pharmacy — and as part of her residency, she created a business and operational plan to build a centralized compounding facility for the whole health system.

“The healthcare industry is moving toward wellness and prevention instead of direct treatment. Our department is already heavily involved with hundreds of clinical trials, but we are starting to include pharmacogenomics as well,” she said. “This is an exciting new field that allows us to directly target medications to patients and can save the patient time as well as decrease unnecessary healthcare spending on less efficacious medications.”

Her Pacific experience, she said, helped prepare her both clinically and administratively to take on new ideas and challenges in her career.

“I am grateful that our School of Pharmacy is so involved in state pharmacy regulation and kept the class engaged in recent developments and discussions,” she said. Such topics may not have been in her original plans, but flexibility is key to success.

“It is important to be flexible with your plans, think creatively, and not be afraid to take a risk. I ‘leaned in’ to unexpected opportunities … taking those risks has moved my career forward to this point very quickly.”