Our Profiles in Personalized Medicine highlights Greg Roberts, RPh, and Steve Trimble, RPh, of Harbin Pharmacy in Birmingham, Alabama. Greg shares what “Compounding: It’s Personal” means in their pharmacy, what motivated him to become a compounding pharmacist, as well as shares a personal patient success story and more. Harbin Pharmacy has been a proud PCCA member since 2004.

Compounding: It’s Personal

To me, it means every patient, physician and prescriber is treated as if they were a part of my family. In a sense, a lot of my patients become close friends. We take the extra time to get to know our patients and others we come in contact with on a daily basis. It’s a personal relationship — a lot of my patients have my cell number. I want the best outcomes for my patients and I want physicians and prescribers to know that when they send us a patient, we are going to provide the best care and treatment possible.

Drawn to Compounding and PCCA

I started working in an independent pharmacy in 1978 when I was 13 years old. After graduating pharmacy school, I continued to work for the pharmacy. I went to an NCPA management seminar in Memphis in 1994 and everyone there was talking about BHRT compounding and PCCA. The more I talked to people about compounding, the more I wanted to compound. It was what I was missing in my profession: custom medications. The seminar was over on a Monday and during the drive back to Birmingham, I called PCCA and talked to Director of Recruiting at the time, Bob Plunkett. Three weeks later I was at PCCA for Primary Training with Kay Sparks, former Associate Director of Training, and my life was changed for the better.

There are many things that keep us with PCCA:

• API Quality — I know without a doubt the APIs I use for my patients are of the highest quality and potency available in the market.
• Education — PCCA offers the leading and most innovative compounding education. From functional medicine to the latest USP guidelines, I learn everything from PCCA.
• Partnership — Although we are member pharmacies, I have always felt like it’s a partnership with PCCA. I know that PCCA is always available to help me in every way possible.
• Innovation — I look forward to each International Seminar because I know that there will always be an innovative new base or service developed by PCCA I can incorporate into our pharmacy.
• Relationships — Over the past 29 years, I have met and become friends with so many compounding pharmacists throughout the U.S. I have developed lifelong friendships because I joined and got involved with PCCA. It’s not just about compounding, it’s about family.

Role of Compounders in Healthcare

Compounders are some of the most innovative and creative pharmacist in the world. Our role in healthcare is vital. We are the healthcare providers who think outside the box to solve the problems our patients have. We supply medications when there are shortages. We provide customized medications to our unique patients.

Patient Success Story: It Starts with Family

My wife, Janet, suffered with migraines for years and went to a neurologist, who put her on a couple of commercial medications that didn’t work. A few weeks later, I went to a PCCA HRT Symposium and learned about the connection between estrogen dominance and migraines in women. I promptly called my wife and told her we were going to do a saliva test when I got back home. The results showed she was estrogen-dominant and her progesterone was extremely low. So, I called her neurologist and relayed what we’d discovered. I suggested starting her on sustained-release progesterone capsules, using PCCA’s Special Micronized Progesterone USP, taken at bedtime, and recheck her hormones in three months. In the 15+ years since, she has not had another migraine.

Promoting Compounding in the Community

Up to this point, most of our promotion and marketing has been word of mouth. We recently hired a marketer and are starting to work on marketing our services. I’m bringing her to International Seminar this year to learn from the best marketers. I have also set up a couple of meetings for my marketer to meet with the marketers for PCCA members Steve Hoffart and Jim Hrncir, so she can learn from the best.

Cherished Patient “Thank You”

I received a phone call at home from a physician at a children's hospital late one Saturday afternoon, around 5:30 p.m.). They wanted to send a 5-year-old patient home but would only do it if they could find someone to compound an ursodiol suspension. I told the physician I would go in first thing Sunday morning, make the compound and deliver it to the patient by 8:30 a.m. This was a new patient for us and when I arrived at the house, the little girl met me at the door and gave me a drawing she made of a rainbow. Her drawing is still hanging in the pharmacy. It reminds me daily why we do what we do to help patients.

Favorite PCCA Base

I have a lot of favorite PCCA bases. One is LoxOral® — it goes in all my capsule formulas and makes compounding capsules, especially progesterone, a breeze. Another base I love is SuspendIt® Anhydrous. Being able to give suspensions a longer beyond-use date is a great thing for the patient and it’s a great marketing tool to use when you are talking with prescribers.