Summer Intern Perspectives: Justin Chong, AMCP Foundation/Pfizer, Inc. Managed Care Internship

This past summer, I was privileged to be part of the AMCP Foundation/Pfizer, Inc. Managed Care Internship at Cigna. I was honored to meet incredible preceptors, mentors, and residents. Before this experience, I had little exposure to the managed care field and industry. As most conventional pharmacy curriculums are more clinically focused, I have always been passionate about exploring non-traditional pharmacy routes. This internship splendidly fulfilled that passion and broadened my scope of unique roles that pharmacists can take on outside of the community and institutional settings. Throughout these ten weeks, I gained firsthand experience as to how pharmacists can improve access to health care in a health plan and attain insight on and apply managed care concepts. I came out of this internship with a more solid foundation of research skills, a more assertive communicator, and a clearer long-term professional goal. 

During the internship, I worked closely with Cigna Medicare and Commercial on multiple projects under the guidance of my primary preceptor, Dr. Annie Schuster. I am incredibly grateful for her patience and continual support since day one. She is genuinely one of the kindest, most humble, and most knowledgeable leaders I have come across ever since I was exposed to the world of health care. I shadowed CMR calls, participated in a journal club, and worked on a project that optimizes communication channels between Medicare health plans, healthcare providers, and patients. Besides learning the ropes in managed care, it was just as rewarding to connect with everyone on the team and learn about their career stories. I would also like to thank my preceptor on Cigna Commercial, Dr. Nicole Caffiero. Her energy and enthusiasm made it a wonderful experience when I worked on monthly newsletters that looked at recently approved pipeline drugs by the FDA and a specialty pipeline report for Non-alcoholic Steatohepatitis (NASH).  

Dr. Eric Millheim, my preceptor at Pfizer, is also very knowledgeable and always willing to help. I really admire how he still practices as a pharmacist at an institution while taking on his role as a Medical Outcomes Specialist at Pfizer. He presented a series of education sessions with other colleagues for all AMCP Foundation interns to dive deeply into a wide range of industry topics we might not have heard of. I am thankful for his guidance and advice on the projects I worked on at Cigna.  

My capstone project with Dr. Chris Powers was an unforgettable and eye-opening experience. We explored the impact of the expanded heart failure indication for empagliflozin on the Medicare diabetes medication adherence measure. Under Dr. Powers’ patient guidance, I developed a foundation of research skills, such as proposing ideas, requesting data, and interpreting models. I would also like to thank the other co-authors, Dr. Annie Schuster, Dr. Kim Truong, and Dr. Caroline Riedel, for their input in this project.  

Lastly, I would like to thank AMCP Foundation, Pfizer Inc., and Ebony Clay for facilitating this phenomenal experience.  It was a pleasure presenting my capstone research project during AMCP Nexus 2022 in National Harbor, MD. 

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