About Me
Hello! My name is Mary Borovicka, and I am delighted to serve as the next AAPP Foundation President. I have been in psychiatric pharmacy for 27 years and a licensed pharmacist for 33 years. I earned my Bachelor of Science and Doctor of Pharmacy at the University of Toledo College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences and completed a psychiatric pharmacy practice residency at the Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center. I began my career on the faculty at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy and then moved on to the University of Toledo College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences where I was on the faculty for 20 years. Three years ago, I had the opportunity to join MetroHealth in Cleveland, Ohio as they planned to open a new behavioral health hospital. After much planning and preparation, the brand new MetroHealth Behavioral Health Hospital (BHH) opened last fall! This facility was greatly needed in a region where the numbers of psychiatric inpatient beds has decreased. I oversee all aspects of inpatient and outpatient pharmacy services for the BHH. In addition, MetroHealth now provides all healthcare services for the Cuyahoga County Corrections Center, and that includes pharmacy services, too. It has definitely been a challenging time to open a new hospital in this era of serious healthcare staff shortages.
My Involvement in AAPP and the Foundation
I have been involved in AAPP throughout my career in psychiatric pharmacy, and it has provided me endless opportunities for learning, growing, and networking with my colleagues. I have made lifelong friends through AAPP! I chose to join and become involved in AAPP because continuous learning is important to me, and AAPP provided me the opportunity to continue to advance my knowledge and expertise so that I could provide the best care for my patients.
My Why
I am serving the Foundation in order to help AAPP continue to do what is does so very well – helping psychiatric pharmacists advance their reach and practice. As the philanthropic arm of AAPP, the Foundation is in a unique position to assist the parent organization by financially supporting these endeavors, through research, scholarship, and new practitioner development. But doing that work is costly, and I am hopeful that together we will continue to financially support the AAPF projects. As President-Elect of AAPF, I hope to continue to shed light on the importance of the foundation in securing the future of psychiatric pharmacist development. We, and our patients, benefit when students and residents are able to develop into psychiatric pharmacists to continue the work of caring for the vulnerable populations we serve.
Why You Should Care About AAPP Foundation
AAPP members should care about the foundation because it can finance the initiatives that showcase all the great work psychiatric pharmacists are doing and it supports students, residents, and new practitioners as they begin their careers. To continue to do this work, the foundation needs your financial support. As we enter into the Giving Season, I ask that you please remember the AAPP Foundation as you are considering organizations you would like to support.
What is on the Horizon for the Foundation
I am most excited about the upcoming Outcomes Initiative research project! With this project, AAPP and the Foundation will have data to show what we already know, that psychiatric pharmacists have a significant impact on patient outcomes. I am also looking forward to seeing all the projects that our students, residents, and student chapters bring to the Annual Meeting in 2024 as part of the Defining the Future Research Grants and the Student Chapter Impact Grant projects.
In addition to multiple grant offerings, we are currently fundraising to support continued student grants for the AAPP 2024 Annual Meeting in Orlando, Florida. Students are incredibly grateful for the support of these grants which provide them with a look into a future as psychiatric pharmacists.
In the future, I would like to see psychiatric pharmacists imbedded in greater numbers in inpatient and outpatient psychiatric and SUD settings, as well as more integration in other practice areas, like family medicine and other non-psychiatric settings. The work of AAPP and AAPP Foundation is intended to help us get there!
We encourage you to give today to continue to support the future of the profession, especially as we kick-off our Annual Giving campaign. Donating and sharing our messages with other supporters all make a difference. The Foundation is supporting more high-level initiatives than ever before, and we appreciate your continued support to do so.