Higgins grateful for KU’s influence
Pharmacy was the path she was focused on since high school, but at KU, 2023 graduate Lily Higgins found much more than a Pharm.D. degree. At KU she was “more than a number,” she found faculty who were interested in her, she found “close relationships” in her pre-pharmacy and pharmacy classes, and she found an opportunity to connect her healthcare ambitions with her passion for children.
As a freshman, the Mequon, WI native and honors program student, was working in a program led by then clinical child psychology professor Ric Steele, now associate vice provost for graduate studies at KU. Steele passed along a summer counseling opportunity at a camp for kids with sickle cell disease. The combination of a camp counselor role, which she’d always entertained, and helping kids dealing with health conditions struck a note with Higgins.
“I was enthralled with how smart and resilient these kids were, especially with the amount of hospital visits and medications they went through to keep them healthy,” said Higgins. “They sparked an interest I otherwise likely would not have discovered: medication management in adolescent and childhood blood and cancer disease states.”
Higgins is now a second-year resident at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis studying oncology and hematology pharmacy and medication management. She will be doing a rotation in sickle cell later this year. Coincidentally, Steele spent time at St. Jude as a post-doc focused on children with sickle cell.
The summers she spent as a camp counselor had an influence on Higgins’ pharmacy path. “The kids there knew way more than I ever thought that they would know about their own medications. They were telling me about the mechanism, how they were working within their bodies, and even why they were taking certain things. I was blown away.
“From then on, I was really interested in the pediatric side and wanted to work with a vulnerable population, taking care of kids who otherwise might not be able to care for themselves. It pulled me in the direction of hematology and oncology.”
While the work is rewarding, it isn’t easy working with children who have life threatening diseases. Higgins says you have to go into these environments knowing the toll it can take and try to prepare yourself for difficult outcomes.
“It can be a bit saddening honestly, on a personal level,” she says. “But of course you want to provide the most professional education or information to those patients. It can tug at your heartstrings a little bit, because you get to know the families.”
Higgins says leaning on coworkers who are dealing with the same issues helps you handle the losses as does having a good support system away from the hospital. “It’s important to do things non pharmacy related to try to get things off your mind. It’s a difficult area to work in, but helping families understand medications and helping them over the fear hump is very rewarding for us on the pharmacy side.”
For students considering a future in healthcare, Higgins says they should take a closer look at pharmacy. “There are so many different areas of pharmacy,” she said. “I had no idea about the whole industry sector, and there are so many specialty areas in hospital pharmacy. My advice would be to do more research into the different paths of pharmacy.”
Higgins is still in touch with many of her KU classmates and says those are relationship she’ll have “for a very long time.” She’s proud of her KU education and was given feedback from her year one residency at Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City, that she was one of the top knowledge performers they’d ever had.
“That’s very rewarding to hear,” said Higgins, “and I think it’s reflective of KU’s experiental offerings—sending us to the very high institutions that are able to provide great learning for students.”
When Higgins completes her current residency at St. Jude’s, she’ll be heading back to Utah and Primary Children’s Hospital in August where she has accepted a position as a pediatric medical/surgical pharmacist.
