At a Glance

Place of Influence: Gillette Children's Hospital

Role: Inpatient Clinical Pharmacist

Defining Moment: I didn't know I wanted to go into pediatrics until I did a rotation at Children's Colorado. While there, I had an experience in the ER with a five-year-old who needed immediate medication administration. Watching the team successfully treat that patient in a timely manner solidified my desire to pursue pediatric pharmacy practice.

Biggest MA Takeaway: I learned to value my relationships. Even today the people I went to elementary school with are some of my closest friends.

Advice to Current Students: Find something that brings you joy, and then whatever that is, find a way to balance it among all the other things that bring you joy. Be willing to rebalance with each new season.

Balancing Passion and Purpose

Gillette Children's Hospital Inpatient pharmacist Rita Hammer isn't a stranger to tough career choices. 

An accomplished student who received the Granberg Student Excellence Scholarship Award while at Drake University, Hammer's vision for herself was clear: to become a pediatric clinical pharmacist, helping treat acutely ill patients.

 

 

"A pharmacist's role is quite different in pediatrics because everything is weight based. The math behind dosing a medication for an infant is drastically different than for a teenager. The nature of pediatric medicine creates space for us to use our pharmacokinetic expertise, something I knew I wanted to be a part of," says Hammer. 

At a very young age, Hammer landed her dream job. She returned to the Twin Cities to help treat children in the intensive care setting at Children's Minnesota. 

While her job felt fulfilling and meaningful, it was intense. Working evenings, weekends, and holidays gave her little mental space to decompress and tend to her own health. Even as she served others at work, she struggled to show up for the people in her personal life to the degree that she desired. 

By her third year in the role she faced some difficult questions. Could she do this job well? Yes. Could she do this job well and experience wellness in the other arenas of her life? That answer came less quickly. 

"I was missing out on things that felt too important," she says in reference to her relationships outside of work. 

She wondered: Does giving up all of these things that bring me joy equal the joy I get from my job? 

Does giving up all of these things that bring me joy equal the joy I get from my job?

"Young people feel a lot of pressure to pursue a dream job: something that challenges you, engages you, and fulfills you at the same time for 40 years. I've learned this concept can be inflated. What isn't often talked about are the sacrifices that you make to pursue said dream job." 

And so she decided to pivot. 

What she did not do was leave the pharmaceutical sciences (big passion) or inpatient pediatric pharmacy (big passion #2). Instead, she considered what she loves about her job and looked for a position that would still provide challenge and patient interaction while leaving space for other things that she values. 

Today, for Hammer, that means working with less acute patients—a job with a little less prestige, but a little more joy. 

 

 

"To current students I would say this: find something that brings you joy, and then whatever that is, find a way to balance it among all the other things that bring you joy. You may need to rebalance as you walk through different seasons of life, because new things will bring you happiness as life changes." Wise words for one so young.

Find something that brings you joy, and then whatever that is, find a way to balance it among all the other things that bring you joy.

One of those things, for Hammer, is family. Hammer married Kris Egan on November 16, 2024 at The Basilica of St. Mary. They now live in Eagan, MN with their Bernadoodle, Cleo and Hammer continues to work at Gillette Children's.