Jing Wu and Aminah Jones

[00:03] JING WU: All right. Hi, my name is Jing Wu, and today's date is June 7, and I'm located in Washington, DC. My partner today that I'm interviewing is Amina Jones, and I'm her preceptor.

[00:17] AMINA JONES: Hi, everyone, my name is Amina Jones. Today's date is the 7 June. We are located in Washington, DC, and I'm here today with my preceptor, Jing Wu. So happy to be here today.

[00:32] JING WU: I'm happy that you're here with me. I guess just as kind of a prequel, since we're kind of talking with each other, but maybe just for other people to get to know us. We're with the American Society of Consultant Pharmacists, which is an organization that focuses on older adults and complex patients from a pharmacy lens. So it could be pharmacists practicing in skilled nursing facilities, long term care in the community, but it's really just focused on the people who are aging and also those who might need some additional needs. And so someone like myself, I'm currently our director of data strategy and innovation, and I'm really lucky to have residents like Amina roll through the organization, sadly only for a specified period of time, like a year, but she's going to be going on to bigger and greater things soon. Amina, I was hoping today we could talk about what brought us to the organization, some of the work that we do together, and how our backgrounds kind of contribute to the work that we do. What do you think?

[01:41] AMINA JONES: Yeah, that sounds absolutely great. If I could I just give a little more background because I'm not a traditional resident right now. That's true. My official role is a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, Peter Lammy center. The ASCP is one of the organizations that we partner with to help with aging in place for our older adults. So I'm primarily in the Baltimore location, like clinic wise and teaching wise, but I do come out to Alexandria to help out with ASCP, like Jing iterated earlier. So just a little more background about my role as I'm not a traditional resident in this space.

[02:26] JING WU: I feel like that's so important. I think just in general for people to know and even within the pharmacy profession that that's a pathway you can pursue. But just even for people who maybe aren't familiar that pharmacists do this kind of work and especially what we're talking about today. So I probably should share some of my background there, but I think it'd be great if you kind of just like, wrapped up, maybe even sort of your journey to why you joined pharmacy, why you went down that path, and just to add a little color to what you said, the American Society of Consultant Pharmacists, ASCP, is located. Their headquarters is in Alexandria. So the coverage is very close to that area. But, yeah, share it. Tell us more about your journey to being a healthcare provider. And then I. And I guess I'll go, yeah.

[03:19] AMINA JONES: So I feel like my journey's not the most unique. You know, in high school, they tell us, like, you know, pick a major for college, make sure it's something that you want to do for the rest of your life. And, you know, 17 year old Amina was like, I don't know what I want to do. So I was thinking about the classes that I took, and I was like, well, I like chemistry. It's pretty cool. Like, you know, we see fire sometimes. You know, we mix chemicals together. I'll be a chemist, and my professor or my teachers at the time were like, okay, so what do you want to do with that? I was like, you told me to pick a major. You didn't ask me to do all that. So I had to have another conversation with my mom and just people that I introduced my, or I work with, and someone suggested to me, like, what about pharmacy? And I was like, what about it? They were like, well, no, no, no. Why don't you become a pharmacist? And I was like, well, I don't know any pharmacists. And especially for me, I grew up in Hartford County, Maryland, which is a very royal part of Maryland. There weren't a lot of pharmacies, and there weren't a lot of black pharmacists. So I think about 20. I graduated 2014 in high school. I think in 2016, I actually met my first black pharmacist, and he happened to be our community pharmacist for several years before transitioning to a different role. But he was my very first pharmacy mentor, and I owe a lot to him for helping me get into this field, you know, sitting with me, talking about interviews and stuff like that. But he was the one that kind of introduced me to pharmacy, and he was like, well, you need to have an open mind. You need to, you know, our field is very lucrative. You can do almost anything you can do. He named industry, he named retail, he named hospital. And I was like, well, what about the community? He was like, well, community, absolutely. Always. He was like, that's where we are at. We're in a retail pharmacy. So, you know, after, you know, having several conversations with him. I asked if I could, you know, shadow him, and then that led to an actual intern position before I even got into pharmacy school, and then the rest is history. I got into pharmacy school. I worked with that company. I still work with that company now there, but I transitioned to geriatrics, I think by very last year of pharmacy school. Had a very tough rotation. You know, I had to go back, and I had to redo one of my rotations, and I just so happened to be with my current boss at her geriatric clinic. And I always had, like, an inkling that I might be going into, like, a field with older adults, but I didn't know for sure. But after having a rotation with her, I was like, oh, absolutely. This is where I belong. This is just me. I love being with older adults. They always have a story to tell, and I always loved listening. So, for me, it was just the most logical route. But then that led me to this position. I had originally applied for our two year fellowship, and I unfortunately, did not get it. But because the team really liked me and because I really had a passion for the community and geriatrics, they offered me a post, a part time postdoc at the university. So that's how I kind of got into this position. That's how I met Jing. And, you know, the rest is kind of history, and, you know, every day, it's like I'm learning something new.

[06:49] JING WU: Oh, I love that. That makes me so happy. As one of your preceptors, I mean, that's what you would hope, right? That continual learning, that continual growth, is always happening. But I think, you know, that background that you shared with us so far will kind of even shape the direction where we go. And some of the projects that we'll discuss that we're even working on and what matters and what we kind of see as important for health equity, at least in aging care. But I guess then, if you're okay, maybe it'll be my turn.

[07:19] AMINA JONES: Yeah. I was gonna ask. Please tell us your journey.

[07:22] JING WU: Cause a little crazier. Pretty strange. Well, I mean, I'm grateful that I have a resident like you, that I can share this kind of background, which is little bit different. But you know that I am a severe traumatic brain injury survivor, and for me, my accident happened. Now, gosh, we said it was June 7. It'll be ten years on July 3. So that's really challenging for me to wrap my head around, even. But I was born and raised in Madison, Wisconsin, so I'm from the midwest. And I, that would have been my whole life had I not moved to the Washington DC area. But that is where my accident happened. And at least in my case as a brain injury survivor, my mix of disabilities kind of led me down a very interesting path. But some that I think are kind of salient and unique are that I have lifetime retrograde amnesia. So I kind of explain it using movie references, but I don't know if I can necessarily in this context, but basically, can I? Okay, so I often explain it as either like Jason Bourne, like the Bourne Supremacy series versus 51st dates. And the difference between the 250 1st dates is she kind of forgets her day every single day and restarts every day. So that's an example of Ontario grade amnesia, which I don't have. I remember my days and they're continuous. So I'm more like Jason Bourne, who, you know, the premise is like, he's an assassin, he just wakes up one day, he starts doing all this stuff, but he kind of gets haunted. Like, he gets these flashbacks all the time about his past life. And so I'm more in that category, which actually is true to my experience. I live my life, but my past kind of comes up in my current life. So it's sort of like I'm balancing more than one memory at the same time, which that, and I think in itself is kind of tricky for people to conceptualize. But that's also also what puts me into the neurodiverse community is that the way that my mind works is a little bit different than other people. So that's one main component, I guess, in my condition. But then other parts of my condition, which I guess if anyone ever encounters someone with brain injury, is that everyone is different. It depends on where they're injured. And you kind of discover what's, I don't want to say, wrong with you, but kind of what's wrong with you when you start living, like, they figured out, like, oh, you can or you can't do these things because these regions of your brain are damaged. And of course they take like a scan and all this and that. So for me, they figured out that it was a right sided brain injury where a really important artery ruptured and so all the regions that needed the blood and, you know, the circulation wasn't getting it. And instead the medical term is hemorrhaging, but basically like, blood was pooling inside my head and like, causing pressure. And I was experiencing, experiencing all the symptoms of that. And then I think there was an outlet too, because my right ear was caked with blood, so I was actually entirely deaf in my right ear in the beginning. So I think it's very astounding for people now when they meet me, it's like, yeah, I technically had to learn how to walk. I was completely deaf. My olfactory nerves were severed, so I couldn't smell at all. You know, I have this, like, memory challenge. The right side, there's a lot of, like, emotional processing. So we figured out that I had some emotional blindness, and it's. It's tough. I genuinely have a lot of empathy for my patient population. And now we know that I'm nearly ten years out, a lot. I can see in hindsight, but at that time, it's just like, I woke up. It was really confusing. It was really challenging, to say the least. But then I guess what's kind of a story of our healthcare system overall, at least in the United States where we're located, is that transitions of care is really not the best.

[11:31] AMINA JONES: Yeah.

[11:32] JING WU: And for myself, I was underneath my parents insurance at the time. It was in my early twenties, and my insurance didn't cover the hospitals, basically, their program. So I was transferred out to the system that I was covered underneath. But what I didn't know at the time, and now, again, hindsight is crystal clear, is that the healthcare system was going through a lot of transitions. It was, I think, the one, the health system I was part of, they were merging. And so what happens in a merger is a lot of patients fall through the cracks, and a lot of turnover happens with the providers. And so I was one of those people. I was one of those patients who got lost in the cracks. And I still remember how crazy that was. Like, just, first of all, how hard it is as that patient type. Second of all, how just the design of our healthcare system doesn't match the needs of a patient that complex. And just. I remember this person named Molly called me on the phone. I think she was like a coordinator. But it was so confusing because I didn't understand what that was. And I think that really speaks to how sometimes people who are making health decisions don't think about it from the patient point of view or the type of patient. And it's like you're also calling someone who just had a severe traumatic brain injury and you want them to take in all this information when literally the treatment at the time is basically, don't use your brain. I couldn't sleep too much. I couldn't watch tv. There's so many things I was so limited by. It was strange to me that the system puts so much pressure on the patients to do so much work. And I hate to say, even now, nearly ten years later, it's kind of like sort of the same where a lot is still on the patients. Like, there have maybe been some improvements in some portions, but unfortunately, at least in my experience, it wasn't that case. But then how does that. I'm glossing over a lot. How does that get us, to us in this conversation in pharmacy? Well, I happen to have my accident between the summer of when I graduated from my undergrad and before I was supposed to start pharmacy school. So I already got into pharmacy school before my accident, which is kind of wild, right? Like, I don't think if I tried to apply for pharmacy school right after, there's probably no way that I would have got into school. But because I already did and because my parents didn't know better what to do, I didn't know what to do. No one was really guiding us. I guess I just went on with my old life plan. Like, I just simply didn't know. But in a weird way, because I didn't know. That also didn't deter me, right? Like, no one was putting that thought on my brain. Like, oh, you couldn't. So I was like, okay, I guess I'll go. And luckily, because I went to the same university that I did my undergrad, I actually did some credits in my undergrad that transferred into my first semester, so I technically could take a lighter load. But even now, again, this is like, almost like a perfect storm, right? Like, all these things that happened is that even with the lighter load, I mean, healing from a brain injury and going straight to doctorate school is kind of insane. Like, now that I think about it, historically, I'm like, that is literally insane. But again, then again, the context is, like, if you don't know, you know what you know and you don't know what you don't know, but you did that.

[15:00] AMINA JONES: And, like, I feel like we should commend you for that because I don't know if anybody knows. Pharmacy school is not easy. Getting into pharmacy school is not easy. And you did it with a traumatic brain injury. So, like, give yourself some grace. You did something extraordinary, and you did it without, honestly, without a second thought. You were just like, well, I guess I'll just keep going. So can you kind of talk, like, how your pharmacy school journey was for you, healing from that traumatic brain injury and, like, navigating, like, this new program? Because I know it was not easy. So how was it for you?

[15:38] JING WU: I mean, again, this is actually a short period of time to go over such an in depth topic, but you're absolutely right, I think, when now that you all kind of have, like, a bit of background about the disabilities I had, it's like I'm learning about myself at the same time that I'm learning in school. School, but also in a weird way. And this was a huge advantage, now that I think about it, is that basically pharmacy school was my rehab. You know, like a normal person might go into, like, a hospital system and spend thousands of dollars. Oh, my gosh, so costly rehabilitation. But I was instead kind of doing the same thing, but getting a doctorate degree instead. But because I had a memory condition going into a program where I had to memorize intensively, like, every single day, it actually probably was really good for me because neuroplasticity, it's this whole concept about your neurons regenerating in your mind. I was going through that alongside other people who are also committed to the same thing. So it's sort of like I was kind of a cohort, I had a support group because we were all doing kind of the same objective. But for me, it had a double layer where it's like, this actually is me healing as a patient, not just learning how to be a provider, but then also as a patient. Learning how to be a provider is a huge advantage in itself, because now I know both sides. Like, I'm going through it as someone who's a complex patient, but now I'm learning, like, what technically I should be receiving on the other side, and not just me, but other people. So I often, like, in the beginning, pharmacy was my personality, right? Because I'm new to the world again, my life has restarted right about that time. So I even remember my ethics class. They talked about personal values versus professional values, yada, yada. And I'm like, hmm, for me, it's the same because I'm starting my life over again. So it's like, basically, I was raised to be a doctor in this lifetime, like, starting over. And it also was really fascinating for me to think about, like, hmm, had I grown up in a different environment, had I been in a different practice, I could have been a very different person. But because I was, quote unquote, raised in healthcare, it just seems so natural to me to care for other people, to want to make sure that they're healing. And everyone around me was kind of in that same mindset. So in a weird way, being in a health profession at the get go. I feel like now was just a ginormous value. Just, you see it, different professions kind of have different attitudes, and healthcare, like, generally caring. Like, most people enter into healthcare because, you know, they care about other people. So I'm like, lucky me, most. Most of my peers care, but people are still people. I mean, I had to learn. Like, I remember the first person who lied to me, and I was just astounded. I was like, what? Why are you doing this? This is horrible. Or just, like, some of these other social behaviors that I had to relearn. I just found it so bizarre. And so I think for me, thinking about this historically, I'm like, wow, that's so crazy to kind of have, like, this hybrid mind of someone who just has an adult processing system but a viewpoint of, like, almost like a child. Like, you see the world like, brand new, but when you mesh that together, that's where you can, like, see things and hear things and understand things from a different point of view. And so going through pharmacy school, it's like, yeah, I was. That was suffering. I'm not gonna lie. If there's a definition of, like, torture, I would say the first five years of my second life here were very hard. And I do kind of want to put, like, a baby moment. I guess, here for mental health is that I just. I think when anyone does anything challenging, mental health is going to be compromised. But when you are a TBI survivor, it's just part of it. It's like, I mean, you literally broke your brain. So, like, your whole mental situation is going to be challenging. But I know one thing that's really hard for people to talk about sometimes is the concept of suicide. And, you know, something that was really relieving for me, I think, in my healing journey, which happened during school, is I started encountering patients like me. I started. First, I couldn't find patients like me because I realized how stigmatized having this identity is. I remember, sorry, this is a sidebar. But, like, getting a disability pass. Ugh, that was awful. I hate it so much. I don't know if it was because of culture and, like, the individualism that, I guess, context. I'm chinese american people. You know that, but maybe nothing. People listening. I'm chinese american, and I'm second generation. My parents are immigrants. And so maybe some of that pride or, you know, saving face and the fact that, unfortunately, mental health is not acknowledged so much inside that culture that it was a huge struggle for me to want to engage in getting a disability pass. But the reason I had to get a disability pass is because pharmacy school is overwhelming. And there were instances, particularly where, like, I needed to rest. Like, I'm using my brain so intensively that I would need to, like, sleep. Or sometimes in the brain injury community, we call it going down because we might be experiencing a lot of pain. And, like, sometimes the only way to get over it is to just, like, literally, like, sleep it off, honestly. And older people will say this, too, like, if we work with, like, the aging population, like, yes, we have so much in common, but, yeah, so that impacted my coursework. And so, like, a professor, like, was like, you know, you legitimately have a condition that qualifies and you should be getting this. You don't have to use it. But, like, you know, for whatever reason, you know, when you're on the screen and it's challenging for you to go back and forth, you know, on the screen as you're transitioning to computerized tests versus, like, paper tests, it's like, we can administer you a paper test or we can give you, like, you know, 20 or 30 more minutes so you can, like, take a pause if you need to. So, like, I don't know if people really understand, like, disability within school and stuff like that, but that was just one thing I had to engage in. And I guess my biggest lesson, even from that is sort of humility and stigma. That's how I was saying the stigma. Stigma is so strong, it baffles me how strong stigma can be and pride and ego and how all of that can be wrapped up in each other. But that kind of relates, again, to what I was saying before meeting patients like me, is I found them. This is, again, how this happens, I guess. Hopefully it's not this way anymore, but unfortunately, I do stay in contact with my patient population. And, yeah, I found them in a hospital basement. They met once a month, and they come from all over, like, Wisconsin, which is a rural state. And so some of them are driving hours just to have this one moment once a month to just interact with people who understand them where they don't have to feel like they need to have a barrier, blame themselves like, they're just understood. And I actually remember my first. My first support group. I remember saying, like, hi, my name is Jing, and I'm a severe triadic brain injury survivor, and I'm traumatized. And then I had a panic attack for the whole hour and 15 minutes. Oh, gosh, it was so bad. But I remember my peers be like, it's okay. Like, you know, this happens. Like, we've all been there, and now, like, ten years later, I can't even count the number of support groups I've been to. And I'm like, this has never happened. I've literally never seen another brain injury survivor have, like, a full blown hour and 15 minutes long, like, you know, just moment. But I also do remember from that first one, like, up here talking about, like, suicide. And it was so normal because it is normal. It's actually technically very common in this patient population. But, like, a lot of people who don't understand the experience of being in chronic pain and, like, chronic suffering wouldn't realize, like, that. Literally, something that drives you, that's, like, a risk factor for suicide, and it's embedded in the patient experience. And so, like, even one patient saying, like, oh, my family just thinks I'm just gonna wanna, like, go off and, like, you know, like, cut off my life. And it's just like, wow. To, like, speak so frankly about it. But she's like, yeah, I don't. It's just that I just, like, underdeveloped, like, ideation and the difference between ideation and action. Yeah. So I just, like, I just want people to feel okay about the fact that, like, it's okay to think about it as an option, but also realizing that, you know, there's things you can do in your life to build protection around your mind and recognizing, like, sometimes those deep moments of, you know, like, I can't do this. The hopelessness. It's temporary.

[25:04] AMINA JONES: Yeah.

[25:05] JING WU: It truly is temporary. But when you're in that moment, it's so hard to feel that way. And so, yeah, I mean, when you're talking about pharmacy school, it was so stinking hard.

[25:17] AMINA JONES: I'm so glad you brought that up, because for me, my pharmacy school journey was nowhere near as traumatic as yours. But I find it, for myself, was very traumatic. Like, I remember the summer before I actually saw the neurologist because I was having such bad headaches. Like, I would go to bed with a headache, I would wake up with a headache. Like, I didn't know what was going on, like, anything. And then I was diagnosed with stress induced migraine. So they put me on propanolol, which definitely helped. And then I had, you know, breakthrough medication and stuff like that. But really, for me, like, pharmacy school was definitely, like, a turning point for, at least for me, mentally, because that. I think pharmacy school for me was mentally my lowest point because there's so much expectations for you. There's so much pressure you put on yourself. You know, memorizing, learning all these materials. And then at the time, my mom was going through her bouts of treatment. So my mom is a three time cancer survival second two times for breast cancer, one time for lung cancer. And I believe the. The spring semester of my second year of pharmacy school. So maybe late 2020. So right before the pandemic started, she told me, hey, my breast cancer is back, and it's stage four. And I remember because I had gone home to Harvard county at this time, and I remember just standing there, and I was just like, what? And I looked at her, and I looked at the paper she gave me, and I looked back at her, and then I thought about, like, all the things I had to do, and I just broke down. I was just like, I don't know if I can do this. Like, you know, it's. It's like, I was there the first time she got it, but I was three. So, like, I was there, but I wasn't. But now I'm here, and, like, we just learned about cancer. I just learned about all the cancer treatments. I didn't do well on that section, and I had so many questions, and I. And I could see my mom could sense that I was not okay with this information. So she framed it as to me, like, well, finish school. You know, I'm gonna be here. I'll make it through treatment. Don't worry about it. You focus on school. And for me, I'm an only child. My mom is the only one I really had growing up. So I was like, okay, I'll focus on school. I think that that year, I ended up on antidepressants because, like you mentioned before, like, suicide, it's something. It's really prevalent now, I don't think just in pharmacy school, but I think anybody that's pursuing any kind of higher education, I think. I think it's just something that everybody thinks about. And for me, I remember it was like a Halloween party. I was supposed to be, you know, enjoying my little breakaway from school. School. But instead, I was worried about my mom. I was worried about, you know, school. I was worried about so many other things, and I just remember it wouldn't be so bad. And I was like, ooh, that's not a good. That's not a good thought. Let me go see somebody about that. So, that's when I started antidepressants. And, you know. You know, you know, pharmacists, they'll say it all the time. Pharmacists are not the best medication takers. So I've been off and on antidepressants for the past, you know, a couple years now. But during this time in pharmacy school, you know, my mom had several hospitalizations. You know, they put her on a new, I think it was a chemo treatment. Even I hadn't even heard of it at the time. It had her blood counts down so bad that, you know, she was bleeding.

[29:04] JING WU: Oh, my goodness.

[29:05] AMINA JONES: She was so sick. Like, and with COVID her immune system was just so compromised, so I would be afraid if I caught something that I would pass it on to her. So it was a very stressful situation for me between my 3rd, third, and fourth year because that's really where my mom's health took a big turn. But luckily, we found great oncologists that were able to really work with my mom and really find something, a treatment option for her. So she's a done with chemo, I'm safe to say. Since January of this year, she's done. She's finished her chemo. Now she's just on lifelong immunotherapy, which has just suppressed her immune system so the cancer doesn't come back. But that also means it suppresses her immune system, so she just feels overall weaker.

[29:58] JING WU: Yeah.

[29:58] AMINA JONES: And, you know, working in geriatrics, it's giving me a lot of tools to be a lot more empathetic and just to. Just to listen more. So, you know, I remember having a conversation with my mom, and I was telling her, I was like, you know, mom, you did amazing things. Like, you know, you know, you, you, jane, have also done amazing things. And I was like, well, mom, let me give you your flowers, because you fought three cancers. You know, you're still fighting one. I was like, you're still here. You're like, you're here. And I'm thankful that you're here. And I'm so glad that you're here. And, you know, she'll tell me, well, it's hard. And I. And I see it. I see, I see it in her eyes. I hear it in her voice, and I'm like, I know. And for me, it's so heartbreaking because I really couldn't be there for her. And, like, you know, we talk about our health system, our broken health system. I, you know, one of the things she had, like, a double mastectomy. They sent her home with tylenol.

[30:55] JING WU: Oh, my God.

[30:56] AMINA JONES: Tylenol. Like, once you get over the counter, they sent her home with that. And I was like, wait. I immediately ran to my notes, and I was like, that's not right. There's just no way. And I was like, okay, mom, well, when's the next time you see your doctor? Do you want me to give them a call? She's like, no, no, I'm just gonna write them a message and let them know that I'm just in a lot of pain. I was like, yeah, you should let them know your pain is, like, a ten out of ten. Like, you can't do anything. Eventually, she got the medication that she needed, but it was a whole thing. And they kept telling. They kept bringing up the opioid crisis. And I'm like, this does. I was like, you can't bring that up for cancer patients. You can't bring that up for patients that are experiencing.

[31:46] JING WU: Well, they're talking about in a public health kind of way and not in a patient centric part of what. And I think people need to be able to make that differentiation. I know that, like, our time here is shorter, so I'm gonna kind of bring us, you know, to kind of even another topic that you've woven really well, which is just sort of our experiences personally. But what brought us here today and some of the work that you do with me, which is injustice, equity, diversity, and inclusion, that's kind of the arm of ASCP that I've been pushing forward. And a lot of what inspired me, and this is something I really know that we have in common, is my own mother, too, like, who is a chinese immigrant living in the midwest. And post Covid, she was very lonely. She was by herself. And I don't want to say post Covid, but when, you know, the world was opening up again, when I went and visited her, her speech was so delayed, her self care was so poor, her hair was coming out. You know, when I took her around, old friends, like, she could hardly speak to them, it was just really distressing. And I even realized, you know, as a pharmacist and someone who knows as much about healthcare as I do, I did nothing. I felt. Did not feel like I knew as much as I could about aging care. So at least in my circumstance, I'm very fortunate that, you know, in my exploration to, I guess, caregiving and recognizing that, oh, my gosh, in a traditional sense. You know, there's a period of our lives where our parents take care of us. Then there's a moment where we're both independent, and then there's that flip we've talked about. It's like either you show up and you're there for your patient or your parents, and then, or you can explain, explore other options. And so I think, you know, I think that's a big gap for a lot of people who are younger, is thinking about preparing for the future of caring for their parents and how complex it is, how expensive it is and how impactful it can be towards their lives. And so that's kind of the journey to even my, I guess, occupation at ASCP and driving this equity work is thinking about, wow, my mom. The way things are right now, the system is not going to be there. Her, we lightly touched on it. Mental health doesn't exist in her mind, but that's her challenge. She's isolated. So it's her emotional and social well being that I was, you know, trying to address. And again, I know we're kind of speeding this last part, but long story short, she is a lot better now. My intervention involved building a social system around her. It involved bringing her into a setting that was asian predominant. So I took her to Hawaii so she could see what it's like. You know, there's american place that a lot of Asians are, and it's also paradise. So her experiencing so much love, just infusing love into her life, almost building like, a mindset for her to adopt, that was the hardest part, probably, was the adoption of you are not alone, the adoption of I love you. And, like, I'm trying to play to my strengths as someone who's in healthcare to help you live the best life that you possibly can have for the rest of life that you have. And so I know that's kind of what, you know, spurred on why I work for an association focused on aging care and why I'm so grateful to do equity work and then to bring in, you know, a resident like yourself with a lens very similar where. And I don't even think we have the time to touch on this, but, like, you know, when you are in a minority population and a female, that role you take on caregiving for your parent and, like, you know, the motion sometimes, as you've shared with me and what you know in the science as someone who's clinically trained, but then also the culture and what's around it. And something that pains me in the story that you tell about your mother is that there's evidence and data that demonstrates that black women are not taken as seriously when it comes to pain. And then when you live it, then it's kind of like you. You're. I don't want to say hate, but you're. It's disturbing.

[35:57] AMINA JONES: It's like, anger. Like, it was an anger. And, like, I have nothing but utmost respect for oncologists. Like, I truly. I could not do what they did. Like, oncology, for me was a very tough section of my school, but, like, just to hear my mom just in pain, like, she came home, she had, like, the drains. Like, I can see that she's in pain, and all they could potentially offer her is 500 milligrams of tylenol. I was bad. I was livid. And I was, like, I was reaching out to some of my faculty members, like, how do I get something for this pain? You know, eventually, you know, it all worked out. She was able to get the medication. She's doing so much better now. Like, she's getting ready, she's planning trips. She's like, she's living her best life, you know? You know, there's a happy ending to that, but it's just. It always goes down to, so what can I do? You know, as a pharmacist? So, no, in my clinic, in my space, I'm definitely a patient advocate. Whenever they tell me they're in pain, I'm like, where is it? How bad is it? Give me a rating so I can go and tell the physician so I can get you something, you know?

[37:10] JING WU: Yeah. And I guess, you know, I'm so glad to hear that. And as we're kind of wrapping up here, is that I just, I guess, you know, to the broader public and even just our healthcare professional peers, it's like pharmacy, pharmacists, everyone, we're trying to explore how culture really impacts the care that people receive and the outcomes that they're having. But it's something that we have to do together. And I guess all the voices really do matter. It's something you can conclude from this. I think this could have been, like seven different, but at least we touched on a number of different things. And I'm grateful, Amina, to have had you as one of my residents while rotating in this journey and for your vulnerability in sharing your experience and touching on some of these very stigmatized and challenging topics. So I'm just really proud, I guess that's all I have to say. Thank you, preceptors, and for joining me here today.

[38:05] AMINA JONES: No, thank you for having me. It's been a very blessed year for me from many different aspects, but definitely, I definitely look to you as a mentor to your leadership, to your place in public health and just health equity. So I definitely. I try to take as many notes as I can, but really, Jing, is really the pioneer for a lot of this stuff and helping get pharmacists footing in health equity. So I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Jing.

[38:39] JING WU: Aw, yeah. Woohoo. Good time.