Intern Perspectives: Natalie Keohane, AMCP Foundation/Pfizer Oncology Internship

This summer was full of professional and personal growth, and I am so thankful to have met every person involved. I would recommend the AMCP Foundation/Pfizer Oncology internship to any future pharmacy student interested in managed care and industry!

The overarching project during this internship was a Capstone Project that I will be presenting at AMCP Nexus in October. My project focuses on analyzing real-world data and commenting on the total cost of care for patients who have received BCMA-targeted therapies for relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma. I want to thank my preceptors Dr. Simone Ndujiuba and Dr. Scott Bourret who were amazing mentors as I navigated this process of creating a research project from the ground up. This was my first time working with real-world data and understanding the therapeutic landscape of multiple myeloma. I spent a lot of time reading through NCCN guidelines and understanding coding processes, which will always be a learning process. The opportunity to work on this research has improved my ability to interpret other research projects especially in oncology. I am so excited to present this data at Nexus and I am very proud of the work that was put in from this team. Also, thank you to Dr. David Eckwright from Magellan for helping me with the data analysis, my research writing and being an additional mentor throughout my internship.

At Magellan I was also involved in multiple managed care projects. For one project, I worked on extracting patient data to better understand how biomarker testing is utilized for the treatment of cancer patients. I really enjoyed this project because I was able to go through clinical data and better understand the patient experience. Additionally, I learned about the importance and rising prevalence of biomarker testing and precision medicine. I also presented two Journal Clubs- one to the Specialty Medicine team who I worked closely with at Magellan and another to AMCP leaders and other interns. I really liked creating these presentations and presenting to different audiences. Through this opportunity, my presentation skills were improved, and I loved the conversations that came from presenting these articles.

Another aspect of this internship was the weekly Pfizer educational series. I would like to thank Dr. Jennifer Harris for facilitating these sessions which were extremely well rounded and gave us an in-depth look into industry. Every person who talked to us was so genuine and really made me excited to pursue a career where we can impact millions of lives. These sessions led to great discussions, and I am thankful to everyone who participated.

Finally, thank you to Ebony Clay and Elene Wogedersgne at the AMCP Foundation for facilitating such an amazing internship. I also want to thank Dr. Pranav Patel, who volunteered his time as an AMCP Foundation alum and served as an amazing mentor. I am so sad this summer came to an end but looking forward to an amazing week at Nexus! 

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