Bernice Y. Man, PharmD, BCPS, CPHQ, CSP, DPLA ([email protected]) is the clinical pharmacy manager in specialty pharmacy at University of Chicago Medicine. She has experience in multiple areas of specialty pharmacy, including direct patient care in various clinical service lines, clinical and operational management, accreditation, quality, safety and advocacy.
Man has a bachelor's degree in Economics from the University of Chicago, earned her PharmD from Chicago State University College of Pharmacy, completed a PGY1/PGY2 health-system pharmacy administration residency at the University of Chicago Medicine, and is in the Master of Business Administration program at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
Man is currently serving as chair of the Section of Specialty Pharmacy Practitioners Advisory Group on Workforce Development. She has been an active member of ASHP, serving as member of the Council on Public Policy; Illinois delegate at the House of Delegates where she proposed new policies for House consideration and subsequent approval; and faculty for the ASHP Specialty Pharmacy Certificate.
Policy gives our profession power and influence to serve patients and their medication needs from efficacy, safety, and access perspectives. The inspiration for policy, advocacy and helping underserved patient populations began during pharmacy school and my passion for social impact has exponentially grown while working in the specialty pharmacy space. While working at two different academic medical center specialty pharmacies in Chicago with socioeconomically different patient populations, I have noticed one variable that remains the same – too many patients experience barriers to expeditious and affordable initiation of and access to specialty medications.
Our Section has done tremendous work in sharing information, creating resources, and establishing best practices for health-system specialty pharmacies in all stages of development and demographics. We have advocated for patients with each prior authorization, appeal letter, and financial assistance application. Despite these individual patient advocacy efforts, we continue to see strong third-party influence over specialty medication affordability, product integrity, and patient safety, whether through threats to the 340B program or payer-mandated drug-distribution models.
Being a Council on Public Policy member and Illinois delegate have afforded me opportunities to speak to legislators on issues important to our profession. Now is the time to actively add legislative and policy efforts to our section's areas of focus and given my passion for advocacy, I would be grateful to join our section's leadership with this vision in mind. Thank you for considering my candidacy as it is truly an honor to be a director-at-large candidate for our section.