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SCCP student urges women to get involved The following articles are the first in a series dedicated to National Women’s History Month and this year’s theme, “Generations of Women Moving History Forward,” which seeks to recognize the wisdom and tenacity of generations of women who have come before and those who will follow in celebrating the equality, courage, determination and steadfastness of women in American culture. by Heather Woolwine Public Relations A common thread linking many of MUSC’s successful and involved women is an early home environment that promoted a sense of achievement, in addition to growing up gender-blind. For Brie Dunn, South Carolina College of Pharmacy (SCCP) student, it was this environment and strong role models that fashioned her into a young woman unencumbered by the barriers faced by women before her.   “My mom is a very independent person who had to work very hard, owned her own business and was a single mother for several years,” Dunn said. “She was an incredible role model for showing me how to balance things in life. She worked long hours to be successful, but she was always there when I needed her. She’s taught me so much about hard work, perseverance and balance.”   Brie Dunn Raised in Spartanburg, Dunn earned her under-graduate degree in chemistry from Wofford College. It was there that she encountered another mentor. “Dr. [Dawn] Castillo took me in and helped me see opportunities related to chemistry, and went out of his way to find scholarship opportunities for me,” Dunn said. “He introduced me to Milliken.”   Milliken & Company is one of the largest textile and chemical manufacturers located in Greenville, holding more than 2,000 patents and the largest textile research center in the world. After receiving her undergraduate degree, Dunn worked for the company during the next few years as a lab manager. “They provided a lot of great leadership training opportunities, and I gained invaluable experience,” she said.   Since youth, Dunn has enjoyed helping people. In her adult life, she sought how to parlay her chemistry degree into a career that would bring her face to face with the people she aided on a daily basis. The answer was found in applying and gaining acceptance at the MUSC College of Pharmacy, now called the South Carolina College of Pharmacy. “The need for pharmacists in this state is so great, and I knew that I could make a difference,” Dunn said. “The interaction with patients was something that I was looking for, and the idea of giving them real and factual information about medical therapies and treatments was very appealing to me. Pharmacy can sometimes have a negative connotation, but it’s so much more than counting pills. There are lots of opportunities for growth, like medication therapy management and patient counseling. I like to think I’m well-suited for the profession, because I feel like patients can trust me.”   Women’s movements and strong professional women cracked the door decades before her, and Dunn said she felt able to do anything because that door now stands wide open. “It’s different now because it’s OK to be a woman and successful, whereas it wasn’t always OK for women to focus on their career or have high expectations. I guess you have to keep that in mind and consider it a personal and professional responsibility to represent yourself well in whatever you do.”   And representing herself well is something Dunn seems to have mastered. Aside from her heavy student load, Dunn stays involved in school-related outreach and leadership activities, including her roles as the vice president of programs for the MUSC Student Government Association (SGA) and president of Phi Lambda Sigma (PLS) Pharmacy Leadership Society, membership in other professional organizations, and community volunteer work at Harvest Free Medical Clinic or during World AIDS Day. It’s through some of this work that Dunn discovered the real challenge for young women today—achieving balance. “Finding a balance between work and play is what keeps me sane, and staying involved has also helped me develop relationships with other disciplines,” Dunn said. “It’s a challenge finding that balance among all of your responsibilities, but for men or women, I think it’s important that you lead by example. You have to encourage others to get involved, even in small ways, so that as an individual you can become a well-rounded person.”   In a profession that has seen dramatic increases in the number of women pharmacists and pharmacy students in the last several years, Dunn still sees opportunities for those of her gender by following the road to more leadership roles. “I find it a little interesting that there has still never been a female  dean at the College of Pharmacy,” she said. “But I don’t see this as something that won’t happen. Working in an independent pharmacy environment now with three male pharmacists, I do notice sometimes that some of our older customers are not as receptive to information coming from me, maybe because I’m a woman, maybe because I’m young. That’s really been my only kind of negative experience possibly related to my gender. More than anything, I think a huge challenge facing the health care system is the culture shift to interdisciplinary teams caring for patients and how some of the older, more experienced physicians will handle it.”   With mounting evidence regarding the efficiency and safety resulting from multidisciplinary team approaches to patient care, future pharmacists like Dunn seem poised to enter a new era of health care where team members work together to solve problems and employ a heightened awareness of one another’s skill sets for the betterment of patient care. “I really believe that in order to have the most positive patient outcomes, we all need to work as a team, with my role being the monitoring of patients and making recommendations. I may encounter physicians who don’t care what gender I am, but instead are having a hard time with the culture shift and who are not used to everyone having a view and a role to play in important patient decisions.”   To prepare herself for this new arena of health care and the role that health care professionals must play in legislative decisions that affect their profession and patients, Dunn watches her current employers and mentors closely. “Dr.  [Cathy] Worrall is the chapter advisory of PLS and is a great example of a leader in every role, truly dedicated to her profession, leadership and service. Dr. [Mel] Rawton [Jr.] has provided me with a different perspective than the pharmacy retail chains, and as president of the South Carolina Pharmacy Association, has shown me that you have to stand up for what you believe in. You can’t complain if you don’t get involved. You may not always be liked by everyone, but his example has shown me the importance of taking the time to get involved.”   It wasn’t always easy for Dunn to immerse herself in all these activities. According to her, she had to dig deep to step outside her personal bubble.   “It was hard to step out of my comfort zone and get involved when I didn’t know where to start, but I’m becoming the person I’ve always wanted to be,” she said. “Dr. Alex Whitley (former MUSC student and SGA president) saw my potential for SGA and really pushed me to get involved. I feel like I’m doing important things and that is very satisfying. I’d been defeated before and it’s hard to come back out from that comfort zone, but you have to realize that meeting people, personal growth and developing relationships are key in keeping a positive outlook and the energy and enthusiasm needed to move forward. There will always be frustrations, bad grades, and people who will think you can’t do it, but you have to trust yourself and balance everything you do for your career and service with some time for yourself.” Finding balance in lab science by Heather Woolwine Public Relations Peko Tsuji would have made a great lawyer. Her quick wit, sharp intellect and rhetorical presence would have made her a formidable opponent, but a love of nature and its role in human health care will keep her this side of a courtroom and immersed in a laboratory setting for years to come.   Tsuji, a former law student and now a College of Graduate Studies student, will complete her STAR fellowship and graduate inMay. Undoubtedly she will recall leaving law school to pursue a study of nature and health as one of the best decisions of her life. “Learning about animals, the environment, and the human relationship to nature is what works for me. It doesn’t matter on what level- molecular or a whole system—there’s so much to discover. The federal government may have cut funding, and this has discouraged some people from joining the field, but to me, it’s only more of a challenge,” Tsuji said.   Peko Tsuji, center, spends time with mom, Ariko Kauppert, left, and sister, Yasuko Kauppert.   Born and raised near Frankfurt, Germany, Tsuji grew up in what she describes as a non-traditional household that emphasized the importance of education, realistic expectations and tact. “My mother said never to be pushy and to exercise compassion. Her own mother was a teacher, and her father a professor and sculptor, so it came natural for her to let me pursue whatever my heart desired,” she said.   Tsuji received an undergraduate degree in biology and masters in zoology from Johann-Wolfgang-von-Goethe University in Frankfurt. In 2002, she completed her master’s degree in marine biology from the College of Charleston, all while enrolled in MUSC’s marine biomedicine program in the College of Graduate Studies. While pursuing her doctorate, Tsuji won a competitive award presented to promising masters and doctoral candidates pursuing degrees in environmental studies and related programs. Using fish and human models, Tsuji is studying the effects of dietary flavonoids on the carcinogen Benzo[a]pyrene, found in creosote, oil, and tobacco smoke, and the flavonoids’ potential for preventing lung cancer in humans. “Like my grandmother always said, ‘You do what?’” Tsuji said with a laugh. “The easiest way to think about it is that I look at natural substances, like the components found in green tea, and try to determine if any of those things can fend off cancer.”   Like many women of recent generations, Tsuji has never felt limited by her gender, but she is aware that some remnants of yesteryears’ barriers still exist in the scientific world. “Science is still a male-dominated environment and I have seen mainly two major types of women working in this field,” Tsuji said. “There are the ones who get trampled on, who have no voice, and are not as proactive as they should be. Then there’s another group that tends to be overly aggressive, so they are not overlooked by their male peers. I want to be somewhere in the middle. Times are changing, and it used to be that you had to fall in one of the two groups; you were either overlooked or obnoxious. I think with younger generations, more women see the need for a better combination of the two behaviors.”   Not one to mince words, Tsuji recalled one of her first impressions of women in America when she arrived years prior, “When I came from Germany, I did notice some issues with women. I don’t know if it’s an American or a Southeastern thing, but women seem to be typecast into certain roles or expectations. I can remember talking to girls in their early 20s who seemed to be on the verge of a breakdown, because they weren’t married yet. It’s like they were disregarding education or any other life goals, which was a completely foreign concept to me.”   During those first few years here, Tsuji worked at Charles Towne Landing as the curator of education, teaching natural and cultural history for visitors and students. She developed personal leadership skills by working with the Boy Scouts of America as a co-ed group leader, and earned her Wood Badge, one of the organization’s highest achievement awards. While at the College of Charleston, Tsuji began to understand the importance of professional mentors, as she watched Pam Jutte, Ph.D., show her ways to navigate a male-dominated science field.   “It’s important in science to find a laboratory mentor who you connect with because you are going to be with that person eight to 12 hours per day for years, and you have to mold your schedule to theirs to maximize interaction,” Tsuji said. “A mentor is so important, because if you end up with one who is completely uninvolved or who is a micromanager, either way it translates into all the makings of a cranky scientist who no longer likes the work they are in. I’ve had the pleasure of a wonderful lab mentor at MUSC, Dr. Thomas Walle (Department of Cell and Molecular Pharmacology), who pushes all the right buttons at the right times. Through the Presidential Scholars Program, I was able to observe another great mentor, Dr. Valerie West. I’ve learned so much about professional development from her by watching her represent student needs with such enthusiasm. She is a great role model for females in academia.”   And its medical and scientific academia where Tsuji sees room for female growth and opportunity. Citing her mother’s wisdom that you can only complain if you’ve become involved, she envisions leadership roles as a chance for women to prove what many already know.   “Academia allows an environment where women can contribute to the field of science and publish findings on paper that demonstrate what we all know-that women scientists are just as smart and good at what they do as male scientists,” she said.   Not one to become so engulfed by her work that nothing exists outside the lab, Tsuji has been active throughout the MUSC campus in her roles as the previous MUSC Student Government Association secretary and the International Student Association president.   “You have to get involved in things other than science, like salsa dancing,” Tsuji said with a smile. “And it’s important to find ways and people that keep you grounded when you’re working so hard. My girlfriends, Severine and Colleen, have kept me sane, all while continuing to challenge me spiritually and academically. It’s about balancing it all to achieve whatever it is that you want.”   Upon graduation, Tsuji will move to Washington, D.C., where she will begin a cancer prevention post-doctoral fellowship program with the National Cancer Institute.     Friday, March 9, 2007 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 Publications at 849-1778, ext. 201.