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Pharmacy grad flies high with doctorate by Mary Helen Yarborough Public Relations Krissa Crawford will have two distinguished titles to represent her soaring career. The US Air Force major now holds a Doctor of Pharmacy, a degree she earned in just two years while being named to the Rho Chi pharmacy honor society.   In addition, Crawford was awarded the Mylan Pharmaceutical Award for Excellence in Pharmacy for her “high professional motivation.”   Maj. Krissa Crawford Her life began in a very small town in Indiana—Warsaw, to be exact. The red-haired Hoosier graduated from Butler University with a degree in pharmacy. In 1994, she entered the Air Force and worked as a pharmacist.   But while stationed at San Antonio, Crawford sought to expand her knowledge of pharmacology and sought a doctoral program. Through the Air Force Institute of Technology, which is a postgraduate engineering school, the Air Force allowed her to find an institution through which she could get her doctorate outside of the Air Force’s institute. She found such a program at MUSC, which she entered and studied while on active duty, all made possible by the Air Force and Crawford’s determination for excellence. “One of the best benefits the military has to officer is education,” she said, adding that she won’t have to sweat student loans. “I’ve done that already, and I don’t want to do that again.”   For a person to get a doctorate degree in just two years is quite uncommon. “Most people now have to have a pharmacy doctorate. A bachelor’s of pharmacy degree is not licensable,” Crawford explains. “The fact that I had a four-year degree [in pharmacy] is the reason why I was able to enter MUSC’s program in the third year.”   While at MUSC, Crawford did rotations in home health care pharmacy and hospital planning. It’s more than just dispensing pills.   “A lot of it is using my drug knowledge to try to improve care,” Crawford explained. “I would look at the list of meds to see whether they were dosed appropriately. I also would look at the whole patient to make their therapy better.”   Crawford now is headed to Hurlburt Field located near Fort Walton Beach, Fla.   This Air Force base has a small clinic staffed with about 20 health care providers. Patients are active duty and their families, as well as retirees.   Crawford will serve as the officer in charge of the pharmacy, lab and radiology.   “The office will have very specialized individuals, and everybody who works in those three sections will report to me,” she said. “I’ll be in charge of the budget and day-to-day operations of the three sections. I’m their officer oversight.”     Friday, May 19, 2006 Catalyst Online is published weekly, updated as needed and improved from time to time by the MUSC Office of Public Relations for the faculty, employees and students of the Medical University of South Carolina. Catalyst Online editor, Kim Draughn, can be reached at 792-4107 or by email, catalyst@musc.edu. Editorial copy can be submitted to Catalyst Online and to The Catalyst in print by fax, 792-6723, or by email to catalyst@musc.edu. To place an ad in The Catalyst hardcopy, call Island Publication at 849-1778, ext. 201.