Margaret Chastain, pharmacy manager at Wellstar Douglas Hospital, was named 2005 Pharmacist of the Year by the Atlanta Academy of Institutional Pharmacy. "If everyone works well together, it’s a seamless operation that puts the patient first," she said. "I have a great staff and I'm proud of what we do."

If your image of a pharmacist is someone who stands behind a drugstore counter filling prescriptions, you haven't met Margaret Chastain, RPH. The pharmacy manager at WellStar Douglas Hospital in Douglasville was named Pharmacist of the Year by the Atlanta Academy of Institutional Pharmacy for 2005.

You might find her anywhere in the hospital, working with doctors, nurses and patients; overseeing a staff of seven in the hospital pharmacy; serving as a preceptor for third-year pharmacy students from Mercer University's Southern School of Pharmacy; or serving in leadership roles in several national and state professional organizations.

What you won't find her doing these days is carrying a gun as a special agent with the Georgia Drugs and Narcotics Agency, but she's done that, too.

"Pharmacy is not the easiest of careers, but I love it," Chastain said.

She owes her career direction to her father, who taught German at Auburn University. "I had an interest in science and math, so in ninth grade he researched careers and told me to look into pharmacy. He was right. I've never regretted it," she said.

After graduation, Chastain tried retail pharmacy because it paid better, but soon switched to hospital pharmacy.

"I think it's more clinical. You have to use what you know every day," she said. "Pharmacy is a field where you constantly keep learning, because there are so many advancements. Our reference books are 20 times thicker now than when I got out of school."

WellStar has replaced the traditional drug carts with COWS (computers on wheels) and bar codes to decrease medication errors.

Computer mapping of all the brands of a single drug formulary is a pharmacy duty she didn't learn in school.

Other challenges include pharmacokinetic dosing, which requires the pharmacist to measure the age, weight, body fluids, volume and distribution of blood levels, etc., to come up with a specialized dose for that patient.

"It takes higher math to make the calculation and there's a narrow therapeutic level, which is close to the toxic level. You can't afford to make a mistake," she said.

For some powerful antibiotics, pharmacists must monitor the patient's blood levels and renal function during therapy.

"Dosing patients who are on TPN (total perennial nutrition) is an art," Chastain said. "I have three pharmacists who do it and e
are cross-training the others."

In 1997, Chastain took a brief career detour, inspecting controlled substances and dangerous drugs for the Georgia Drugs and Narcotics Agency. "I got to talking to our drug inspector one day about what he did and I thought I could do that," she said.

What he didn't tell her was that she would have to graduate from the police academy. "I had three children, had never shot a weapon and had no police skills," she said.

"The day we started the physical training, I had to run around the building in a dress and high heels. I wondered what I had gotten myself into.

"When you're dealing with drug diversion, there are bound to be some scary situations, but the job was interesting and I'm glad I did it."

After three years, Chastain returned to managing a hospital pharmacy. "Being a manager is really hard and very different from being a pharmacist. You're working 80 hours a week and getting your feelings hurt in the beginning, but if you really want to do a good job, you have to put aside your pride and be ready to listen to information and change what you're doing when need be," Chastain said.

"I never wanted to compete with doctors and nurses," she added. "I didn't want there to be any barriers between us. If everyone works well together, it's a seamless operation that puts the patient first," she said. "I have a great staff and I'm proud of what we do."