Summer Intern Perspectives: Avi Patel, AMCP Foundation/Pfizer, Inc. Oncology Intern
Published October 2022
Being an AMCP Foundation/Pfizer, Inc. Oncology Summer Intern was the highlight of my summer. Meeting so many amazing people at Humana and Pfizer opened my eyes to the plethora of opportunities open to new PharmD graduates. This experience has allowed me to fully understand the pharmacy world with my pre-clinical research experience, speaking with different team members at Pfizer, working with Humana to develop prior authorizations, working in a hospital as a pharmacy tech, and in a community pharmacy with my parents. This internship gave me invaluable experience in seeing how each of these groups interact.
I am looking forward to presenting my final project (Defining & Assigning Complexity Scale to Oncology Criteria Relating to Prior Authorization Policy Creation Based on Clinical, Operational & Risk/Compliance Complexities As Well as Impacts to Humana Members and Providers) at Nexus 2022. To paraphrase the title, how to design prior authorizations more efficiently for oncology drugs. This project allowed me to connect my experience in the hospital to an insurance company and a pharmaceutical company giving me a unique insight into how information moves through the pharmacy world. I am excited to present my poster and meet some of my preceptors at this meeting.
I also want to thank Dr. Irene Arias at Pfizer. She helped me gain a better understanding of how Pfizer works and set up one on one meetings with other Pfizer members. This internship answered many of the questions I had developed and learned more about HOER, clinical development, and pharmacovigilance. I am incredibly thankful that she also helped me grow and develop my presenting skills.
At Humana, I thank Drs. Heather Wind, Anna Brown, Susan Wojcicki, and Sheetal Sheth. These outstanding preceptors gave me many projects to work on and allowed me to fail and grow from each of them. Some of the projects focused on tracking oncology spending and health disparities and meeting with each of the teams within Humana that develop prior authorizations to find more efficient ways to build them. My favorite part of working with Humana was the different projects and how the same information can be interpreted in different ways by other teams.
I also want to thank Ebony Clay at AMCP Foundation for organizing this internship opportunity and the Pfizer meetings to see how each of Pfizer's teams interact. The weekly meetings allowed me to see how Pfizer uses data and information to bring drugs to market. I was also able to present my final project and a journal club to my fellow students.
Ultimately, I want to thank everyone who was a part of my internship process and gave me a fantastic summer experience. I will always cherish all the experiences and hope to meet everyone again.