Leslie Shimp, BSPharm’74, PharmD’76:
Reluctant Educator Becomes the 2004 Teaching Excellence Award Recipient
For a woman who never planned to be an educator, Leslie Shimp, BSPharm’74, PharmD’76, received the ultimate professional compliment last spring when her fellow faculty members made her the 2004 recipient of the College’s Teaching Excellence Award.
“When I began working at the College of Pharmacy 28 years ago, my main goal was to contribute to the advancement of ambulatory care practice,” Shimp observes. “Teaching was part of the package, but it was not a role I knew much about. Yet, once I accepted the responsibility of being an educator, I determined to be the best educator I could be. Looking back over my career, I realize that not only has teaching been a source of great personal satisfaction, it also has made me a better, all-around clinician. Working with enthusiastic young people who are our profession’s future infuses me with energy to improve patient care and ambulatory care practice.
“I consider teaching an essential part of who I am, professionally and personally. I feel very honored to be recognized for an activity at which I strive to do well.”
One inevitable frustration for every educator is “not knowing how the lessons you taught will play out in real life,” Shimp says.
“Teaching is a lot like putting in a garden but never getting to see what grows from the seeds you planted,” comments Shimp. “You know that students have mastered a certain body of knowledge or they would not have passed their courses. What you don’t know is the extent to which they have internalized the professional values and ethics we try to instill.
“Professional values are at the core of what I teach,” Shimp adds. “My abiding message to students is that you must care about the job you’re doing and always, always, put the patient first. You must consider the whole person when you are interacting with a patient. If you are caring for a patient with high blood pressure, consider all the factors that influence outcomes: the cost of medications; drug side effects that can affect compliance; lifestyle choices, such as diet, overweight, smoking, lack of exercise. Consider a patient’s age, gender, race. People are not just their disease or physical condition. They are a complex physical and psychological system.
“I remind students that a lot of the information they are learning today will become obsolete with time, or will be lost from lack of use. But the commitment you bring to your profession should be constant. Society has entrusted you with peoples’ lives, so make sure you are worthy of that trust.”
Shimp remarks that she began to truly understand how her professional decisions affected patients when she started working in ambulatory care in the mid-1970s. This exposure eventually led her to specialize in the health issues of the elderly. Although family medicine is the umbrella category under which practices, Shimp retains a keen interest in geriatric medicine and has received advanced training in this area through the U-M Institute of Gerontology.
“Geriatric medicine by its very nature forces you to consider the whole patient — not just who they are as patients, but also their health problems in the broader context of their lives,” Shimp explains. “That’s what I find so challenging and rewarding about this area of medicine. Because most of America’s elderly are on a fixed income, you always have to consider the economic impact of medications. Because many of the elderly take multiple medications, you need to be attuned to side effects and complex drug interactions. Elderly patients often have physical or cognitive limitations that affect their capacity to comply with a medication regimen.
“There’s also a practical limit to what pharmacists or any other health care professional can achieve in the care of elderly patients, so you need to balance the advice you give and the outcomes you can realistically expect to achieve.”
Shimp also has a strong clinical interest in women’s health issues and — dating back nearly 25 years — home remedies and alternative therapies. These interests are reflected in her practice, which she describes as integrative pharmaceutical therapy: a blend conventional prescription and nonprescription drug therapy, and use of complementary alternative therapies.
For relaxation, Shimp trains dogs — specifically, Bouvier des Flanders: a large (60 to 90 pound) working breed originally bred to herd cattle.
“I like large dogs and I like the working/herding group in particular because they are very trainable and learn very quickly,” Shimp says. “I find Bouvier des Flanders especially easy to work with. For me, dog training is a form of meditation. Even though it’s physically and mentally challenging, It’s relaxing: time away from the common stresses of life. In order to get results, you have to put complete concentration into every training interaction. In the process, all thoughts of work, family situations, a leaky basement, and everything else, vanishes.”