Pharmacy is a family affair
Three generations of the Easterday family have chosen pharmacy as a career,
although none of them are following exactly the same career path.
Robert “Bob” Easterday began the journey first. In 1957 he graduated
from the University of Iowa. After working for a small community pharmacy
in Iowa, in 1962 he moved to Fort Lupton, Colo. where he went to work for
Bill Deason at Deason Drug. They incorporated the drug store a year and a
half later with each of them owning part of the corporation. When Deason retired
in 1965, Easterday bought all the stock and changed the name to Easterday
Drug. The business stayed in the family until it was sold in 1996 to Bill
Dale. It’s now Dale Pharmacy.
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| Amy Easterday and father Ken Easterday share a mutual passion for pharmacy work. It's a family affair. |
Easterday Drug was a typical small town pharmacy where vanilla cokes and
milk shakes were dispensed along with prescription medicine and advice. The
local pharmacy was a neighborhood gathering spot and Bob Easterday knew by
name most of the customers who came through the door.
Early on, Easterday Drug was open seven days a week and had 13 employees.
It truly was a family business. His wife, Alice, took care of the bookkeeping
duties and their four children took turns working after school.
“Owning my own business was always my goal when I was in pharmacy school,”
he said. “It was quite rewarding.”
Bob eventually adapted to a changing business climate by reducing hours and
replacing the soda fountain with a coffee bar and a gift area. Although he
retired when he sold the business, Bob soon missed the personal contact with
people and began working as a relief pharmacist in nearby towns. He now works
part time at a clinic in Greeley, Colo.
“I’ve decided that I’m not that interested in retiring,”
he said. “I know one of these years I’ll have to give it up, but
I enjoy working with patients too much to stop now.”
As a youngster, Kenneth “Ken” Easterday worked in the family pharmacy
stocking shelves, helping clean the store and serving customers at the cash
register. He recalls the store as being a “typical Norman Rockwell small
town pharmacy.”
“My dad was very successful and well respected,” he said. “He
enjoyed his role as a pharmacist in the community. I think he would have liked
it if I had taken over the store, but I found another area of pharmacy more
interesting.”
After graduating from CU-Boulder in 1980 with a BS degree, Ken began working
at the University of Colorado Hospital Department of Pharmacy and has held
various positions over the years. Today, he is coordinating the investigational
research protocols the pharmacy manages for investigators at the Health Sciences
Center and the hospital. He also co-chairs one of the adult panels for the
Colorado Multiple Institutional Review Board.
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| Robert "Bob" Easterday hard at work in the pharmacy at a clinic in Greeley, Colo. |
As explained by Ken, federal regulations require that research using humans
be reviewed by a local institutional review board (IRB) before the research
can begin at the institution. An IRB’s charge is to assure that human
subjects are protected by making sure research risks are minimized; that the
benefits outweigh the risks and that the consent process is appropriate.
Ken is involved in setting up drug-related protocols, training the pharmacists
and facilitating investigational drug despensing for clinical trials.
“There are so many areas of pharmacy to go into,” he said. “My
job is in a fairly narrow niche; it’s fascinating.”
Like her father and grandfather, Amy Easterday has chosen to become a pharmacist.
She is following in their footsteps, but wants to find her own niche in the
profession. She enrolled in pharmacy school this past August and after getting
her PharmD in 2008, Amy is considering working in an inpatient hospital setting.
She is currently working as an intern in the same department as her father,
although she is gaining exposure to a different facet of the practice and
developing a different set of skills.
Amy always knew she wanted a career in a health care field. After careful
consideration of her options, she chose pharmacy because, “pharmacy
seemed to fit me the best,” she said.
Since Amy grew up observing the lifestyles and roles of two pharmacists, she
had a good understanding of how much the community relies on pharmacists and
that the profession follows them out of the workplace. Amy recalls family
members calling her father to ask about the medications they were taking.
She decided on pharmacy because many people rely on their pharmacists for
advice.
The three Easterdays are proof of the variety of options that the pharmacy
profession can offer. Their paths may be divergent, but they all agree that
pharmacy makes a satisfying career.
Ken summed it up saying, “A pharmacist is well-respected and someone
who can be trusted to give the straight scoop.”
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