SDSU pharmacist named pharmacist of year

Longtime South Dakota State University pharmacist Jodi Heins of Sioux Falls has been named pharmacist of the year by the South Dakota Pharmacists Association.

Heins, a professor in the College of Pharmacy and Allied Health Professions at SDSU, received the Hustead Award at the association’s annual gathering in Brookings Sept. 13.

She becomes the sixth SDSU pharmacy faculty member to receive the Hustead Award, which is named after Ted Hustead, founder of Wall Drug. The other SDSU faculty recipients are Bernard Hietbrink (1989), Gary Van Riper (1998), Brian Kaatz (2001), Dave Helgeland (2009) and Teresa Seefeldt (2023).

Heins, a Nebraska native, joined the SDSU faculty July 1, 1994, after completing a one-year postgraduate residency at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

She initially had a 50-50 position as an assistant professor of clinical pharmacy with the college and a clinical pharmacy specialist with the Sioux Falls VA Health Care System. Since 2012, Heins has worked full time with the college in addition to serving as a clinical professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at Sanford School of Medicine at the University of South Dakota.

In her 30-plus years as a pharmacy educator, Heins has had an “unprecedented” impact on the profession of pharmacy in South Dakota, according to her nominator for the Hustead Award.

Oversees experiential education

Heins has worked with pharmacy’s experiential education program since December 2010 and has been its director since February 2012. Depending on class size, Heins estimates she works with 150 to 200 pharmacy students a year. 

Pharmacy is a six-year program with the final four years spent in the professional program. During the first three years of the program, students must accumulate 300 hours of practice education. During the final year, students take five-week rotations in eight different areas, spending their entire year in practice settings.

Heins oversees that program, including working with preceptors at practice sites and 50-50 faculty members at hospitals and clinics around the state.

She is assisted by Scout Forbes-Hurd, a former student of Heins who works on the Brookings campus in a coordinator’s role.

Became a role model

Forbes-Hurd credits Heins for what she has been able to accomplish in her career.

Forbes-Hurd, who completed her Pharm.D. in 2011, recalls being in the third year of the professional program and struggling with lessons on electrolytes and fluids. “It was a hard concept for me to grasp. She took the extra time to explain it in a way I could understand.” Through Heins’ open-door policy, she not only learned the topic, she learned about Heins the person.

“When I was pursuing my Pharm.D., I was a mom. I saw how she really managed being a mom, teaching and being a pharmacist at the VA. I saw how she made all those things work, and it really excited me,” Forbes-Hurd said.

Her time with Heins “really opened my eyes toward clinical pharmacy and to becoming a hospital pharmacist.”

With a solid understanding of electrolytes and fluids, she able to apply her therapeutics knowledge during her hospital rotation and felt much more confident than she would have otherwise, Forbes-Hurd said. “Her topic was pretty much what I did as a hospital pharmacist at the Brookings hospital” after graduation, she said.

Satisfaction comes from student success

Heins said that example is a big part of the reason that she enjoys her job.

“Watching students be successful is really what makes this job so satisfying. Sometimes they end up at places they never thought they would go. They find an area that they’re really passionate about. It’s fun and exciting to see them succeed in places maybe they themselves never thought they would go.”

In Forbes-Hurd’s situation, that was clinical pharmacy and then pharmacy education.

Another great example of student success is Jessica Strobl, a 2004 Pharm.D. graduate who took a community-based residency at Liebe Drug in Milbank, later oversaw the residency program there and moved to Sioux Falls when the residency program moved there when Liebe was purchased by Lewis Drug.

Strobl advanced from chief pharmacist at Lewis, to clinical lead, to director of pharmacy services and now is vice president of professional services.

Heins said, “I have so many students who have done great things. Jess’s growth and watching her achieve all these things is exciting, too.”

‘Someone I can always call’

Forbes-Hurd said she didn’t realize Heins would be her supervisor when she applied for the full-time position at SDSU, but she said she couldn’t have a better supervisor.

“We work extremely close together. Even though she is my supervisor, I feel like we’re a team together. There is nothing that she asks me to do that she doesn’t do herself. She holds herself to the same standard as she does to the people around her.  

“She is someone I can always call, and she never assumes I know the answer to the question and really makes sure I am set up for the success every day.”

The relationship Heins and Forbes-Hurd have isn’t unique within the college, the women said.

Career highlight centers on people

Looking back on more than 30 years of service at SDSU, Heins said the highlight would be “the amazing students we have and the amazing people we have at the college; the faculty, staff and administration from the top down. In all facets, both groups have made SDSU an amazing place to work. I’m blessed to be working with great faculty and students.”

In turn, Forbes-Hurd said she is thankful to be mentored by someone like Heins.

“A lot of the same work ethic, dedication to students and dedication to the profession that she has, I have. What she does is something I always looked up to and now I get to work alongside that,” Forbes-Hurd said.

The Hustead Award is considered a lifetime achievement honor, but in Heins’ case it is not a harbinger of retirement. At 55, she said she has no eminent plans for retirement.

“It’s still gratifying to have students come back excited to tell me about their career and their family, and I know there will be more examples like that coming from the next graduating class,” Heins said.