Show Notes
Dr. Alexander Oladele is a graduate of the Howard University School of Pharmacy’s BS/Pharm.D program. He joins us on The Black Doctors Podcast to talk about his incredible career as a Pharmacist and some of the different practice models the career has to offer. He shares some of the challenges he faced as a young graduate student (who also pledged in grad school).
Dr. Oladele is a passionate entrepreneur and he repurposes skills he learned in the pharmaceutical industry to run his businesses smoothly and efficiently. He shares how he started Reseau Docteur , the largest instagram page for minority healthcare professionals. He also talks about starting Jet Black Travel, a company that builds upon the community Dr. Oladele started with Reseau Docteur.
If you or someone you know is interested in a career in the pharmaceutical industry, please listen to and share this episode. If you receive value from the show, please share, subscribe and leave a comment.
TBDP is a volunteer passion project with the goal of inspiring all who listen. In-house music and audio production, so any ideas for improvements or suggestions for future guests are welcome. Visit www.StevenBradleyMD.com to learn more about our host. He is available for consultations or speaking engagements regarding health equity and medical ethics.
Transcription
Black actors podcast: i like the stories of minority professionals with the goal of inspiring others. If you like, we hear he subscribe and share with the teas. The next generation can’t be with you, don’t see in every monday to hear our stories elon welcome back to black doctor’s podcast this week, i’m so excited to be speaking with dr alexander aladel. He is a pharmacist currently practicing in georgia. He is a graduate of the howard university college of pharmacy, so excited to hear his story, dr a ladelle. Thank you. So much rejoining is on the show. Thank you thank you for having me. So it’s been a while. What did you finish at howard yeah? Yes, i actually, i finished a pharmacy codiad in two thousand and fourteen yeah. I know we were there the same time. I didn’t know if you were here ahead of me or or behind me, but yeah, two thousand and fourteen was must have been a good year. That’s when i graduated as well ha for sure absolutely cool. So where did you go to undergrad yeah, so i started undergrad in two thousand and eight eight. So i started in to top of em in a and you know i was actually very fortunate because i was part of this celebrated pharmacy program, so i finished undergrad in two thousand and ten and that’s when i started pharmacy school. So it really just took two years of just a very very heavy course load before starting professional school and i’m thousand ten is when i started pharmacy school and the after that you i graduate and did my residency in fellowship wow, so that program was a six year is at howard. It was yeah. I think it’s a beautiful program. In fact, there are some schools that have five year programs to you, know historically professional quales pharmacy in i’m not sure about betterton. But you know you have four years of undergrad for years a pharmacy school and then you can choose to do a residence if you want, but at howard at least the option that was provided for me was two years of undergrad, which is very intense for years of pharmacy school. And then you know you finish, and then you have. I think it’s a university of maryland. That offers a five year program, so these are all really programs to take advantage of, especially when you want to lower the cost, but they are pretty intense yeah. That’s huge, i obviously didn’t know those programs existed, so you went in knowing that you want to become a pharmacist. No, no! So it’s interesting, you know my career, pathes or pharmacies, which i love. You know farmers today because of what i’m able to do, and i do think that is falls within the scope of my skill says. However, i did not want to be a pharmacist initially, so i actually grew up in nigeria. West africa, not jeran parents, and i came to america when i was six and my father is a registered nurse and literally all my life. I you know i wanted to be a registered nurse because of seeing how he took care of the family, that’s kind of all i do and prior to pie to undergrad you know my parents knew i wanted to go to howard. My dad literally told me the only way that i will pay for you to go to harage universities. If you switch or major pharmacy, which doesn’t really make sense because you’re a registered ers, how you going to tell me to wish the pharmacy you know, but i didn’t realize that i guess he seen something in me that i didn’t really see myself. So i ultimately just because i wanted to go to howard, switch the pharmacy and that opened up a whole cascade, and i i mean today’s day i respect and love the nursing profession, because it was kind of my first, my first interest. You know i actually took a lot of nursing courses. I also to another thing to i actually had a staff in agency during my residence. What i had i was you know i employed like sixteen nurses at once, and it was because of the background of nursing that i had you know. So it was never to pharmacy. It was actually it was actually nursing. First and then my father gave me the push to pursue pharmacy. What you said you rent a staffing agency, yeah yeah, so yeah staff, an agency during my fellowship. Essentially, what that is is a company, whatever an lfc, where you employ nurses and you you provide staff and services to institutions go, it was called nevew loc at that time it was in two thousand and fifteen and we had a contract with a rehabilitation center in new jersey, hammon, hemmington, new jersey and whenever they needed nurses, we provided a nurse is to them. Wow, that’s impressive! Thank you. Thank you. It was a great experience ran. It was a yeah yeah. So what did you think farm receive is going to be like when you first started down this pathway yeah, i thought it was going to be magical. I thought it was going to be amazing, because every pharmacist that i knew at that point where they were doing really well in life. You know they were making a lot of money. They had great quality of life, so i kind of looked at pharmacy as this. This dream world that i ultimately wanted to be in. You know so yeah. That’s that’s really all the thoughts that i have in pharmacy in terms of just everything else related to the field. I didn’t really have a knowledge about because i wasn’t inverse in it, but from the outside. Looking in, i move a pharmacist who worked for a drug company who i literally just had an amazing life, and i knew that’s what i wanted. Yeah it’s cool. I know for a lot of people, they think about wall, greens and cbs. That’s your first impression of a pharmacist, but there’s so much more to the field than just retail yeah. Oh my gosh pharmacies, pharmacies and incredible field. You know i i actually finished pharmacies got, i got hired by wall games and you know i actually took a very different route to my career now and i don’t i mean i don’t remember the last time i work in the hospital or wall greens and those areas are not bad. You know, because there are the you know: pharmacies are needed in those areas and i know quite a few people who love and joy being a community pharmacies or clinical pharmacies they’re very important. It’s just a matter of finding your own nation, which you ultimately want to do yeah. So so, let’s go back to pharmacy school. What were some of the difficult things that you had to overcome in pharmacy school wow? That’s a great questions. Go. I would say that my age, surprisingly was. It was a little bit challenging because i started pharmacies go at the age twenty and i started with individuals who had kids. You know these people were in their es and forty year you know they were thirty, forty years old and they came in there with priorities. You know i’m pledging alpha in pharmacy school. You know the one can argue like get. This guy is extremely immature like what is he don’t win? You know i was always in the punch out who are always throwing parties. I wouldn’t change that experience for the world because ultimately, it kind of it distracted me from the rigor of pharmacy school. You know for professional school, so that was very, very challenging for me you know, but i think just a didactic. The curriculum overall, you know when you start taking pharmaceutical chemistry. The ways that i’ll brain think it’s not. I mean it’s kind of just counter intuitive to how we, like, i think, about the world. You know like kind of just thinking, about a regulation down regulation, so that was very, very challenging and you know, thankfully, i had a group of really really good friends who held me down during my pharmacy program and he ultimately succeeded yeah that that’s awesome coming out of pharmacy school. You went to work at walgreens, or did you start fellowship? Where did you go after that yeah? So at the pharmacy school? I did a very i guess, unconventional route, so i did a pharmacy practice residency, which you know many pharmacists do. So i think i forgot what the numbers are. I think is like seventy percent of pharmacist or seventy five percent of farmers that come out of school go stop rectly the community so will mar the cbs wall green. I think the other, like twenty t like t, o thousand and twenty something percent go into clinical pharmacy, very, very small percentage going to regulatory like the food and drug administration and a very, very small percentage go into the pharmaceutical industries to the flies ers, an the burks and the johnson and johnson. You know so. For me, i i completed pharmacy school and i knew i did not want to go into retail because the some of the experiences that i got in pharmacy school. So what i did was did py one pharmacy practice residency, which is cool, but then i did something i did my two year, pharmaceutical fellowship and medical research and strategy, and this was at the second largest japanese pharmaceutical company at that time, and that’s actually what put me into the the drug companies- and you know the drug companies are very, very different than you know clinical pharmacy than you know, retail pharmacy. It’s a different, different workspace. You know it’s more project management, you know. So that’s that’s! You know the face that i’ve been since i finished my fellow ship, so it really took three years for me to be able to get to this position, and now i really wouldn’t change it for the world. Yeah, that’s interesting. I know i’ve honestly never heard of that program. So can you give us an overview of that two year, fellowship that you did yeah so the two year fellowship was. You know it was from two thousand and fifteen to two thousand and seventeen, and it was at a japanese pharmacopy. Essentially what you learned at least my fellowship was in medical rescission strategy right. So the way i don’t, i don’t think people really understand how true companies were so drug companies have a variety of different divisions. The division that i was in it was, i called medical affairs, and you know i have a medical background. You know you as a physician. If you work for a drug company, you would have, you would probably be in medical affairs or you know clinical development. So you know my role. There was really just helping to support the medical franchise, developing slide, decks and developing. You know a whole bunch of training tools working with a vice president of medical affairs, because there are there are these specialists in the pharmacopolist ry called medical scientifically as at and that’s what i am now. Medical science leeson and the role of medical science lies as is really just to meet with providers like yourself other types of doctors and educate them about our drug product, so they they’re well informed about the use and things of that a nature. No so my cellars ip was in medical strategy, so really just helping to support the medical science leasons helping to support medical information. So when somebody sends information to a drug company about a particular drug, you know we can provide that support. We know how to effectively answer those questions you know. So it’s really just working on the corporate side versus the community or the retail thought. Excuse me the clinical thought, so that’s pretty cool. So what’s a typical day or week life in your current job man. That’s that’s a interesting lead. It’s not the same! At all like it, and it would never be the same just because the nature of the job so this morning i get up. You know interview with with you, dr brawest. You know at eleven this morning, i’m actually a meeting with the executive in a l director who is my manager and we’re talking about the training tools, because we’re trying to hire more medical scientifically, as on tomorrow, we’re actually you know talking about and creating girl and the crin tumors. You know i have the presentation on that then the next day i have to meet with you know the sales rep, and you know the vice president of sales outline how i want to proceede, provide them training and things of that nature. So it’s interesting, it really does fluctuate, which is what i really like about this drop job or roll. I don’t want to call that job. I really do feel. As you know, my life long profession, you know so there’s no there’s. No, it’s not monotonous in nature. It’s a variety of different things that you’re doing you know that’s awesome, and does it involve a lot of travel? Yes, it does and yeah so you’re, starting to see the parallels there involved with line travel as supposed to put in context i’m based in atlanta, georgia right now, and so with medical scientifically a sons we have territories til. My territory is florida, georgia, south carolina north carolina parts of alabama and tennessee, and my rules to meet with medical oncologist. So so my therapeutics focus is, you know, anchoy. My last role, i supported prostate cancer bladder cancer. Lung cancer right now in my euro is the por pancreatic cancer and colorito canters. So any doctors that treat those disease days within this geographic area, i would meet with them and help to do just be a scientific resource to them. That’s really the core of the rolls, so it involves a lot of traveling, especially you know, with covin nineteen kind of just goring to taper off now we’re going to start traveling more with the medical and colleges on college in nurse educators and really just you know, share some knowledge and yeah we’re definitely going to get into this travel because, in addition to your job as a pharmacist and all the years of training that you’ve done, you clearly have this passion for entrepreneurship, starting the staffing agency and then some of the other endeavors that you started back in two thousand and fifteen you launched what today is the largest social media page for black healthcare professionals. Can you tell us about that? Yeah yeah, so we’re so doctor is you know it’s become a very. It’s become an organization that i’m really proud of. You know we. You know it keeps the core of what it was intended for. You know in two thousand and fifteen. The goal was really for us to flood the market with black professionals, who are doing great things, and the reason is because you know at that point. We had a very good understanding of what social media was. You know it’s like it’s all about perception. You know. So if we can actually change the narrative right, then constantly putting back content out there, let’s just flood it with good content. Let’s just show people out there that there’s good things happening in the world, so you know i taly spent the text message to two of my buddies. Like hey, you know, let’s start this doctor’s network, we’re so that toward the actual name it means doctors. Network literally, is doctors network in french. You know. So it’s been that way ever since, and we put on twitter in the buddy of mine max, he actually stated he’s like hey yal should switch that from you know dr rosseau, my buddy, dr trevor, thomas he’s the one who coined the name doctor resell and then max ultimately give us the suggesting suggestion to switch it to resolder, because it was more correct because it was french and then we just ran with that. And then you know that started in august, two thousand and fifteen that spring. You know it was like april. Twenty sixteen started a mentorship program and now it’s garten to have wheels. You know we were featuring. You know black professionals and then we just started like bringing on board individuals who were interested in the medical sciences who were interested in medical school, pharmacy, school donald school and that man of ship program started to take off, and i mean they grew to what it what it is now it’s funny, because i don’t even you know, i personally don’t even run the page anymore. It’s actually on leave your directors, and i mean they have a very good and sound understanding about visions. What we want to achieve at least what we ain to achieve and they keep the keep everything going yeah. So, let’s see i know trevor, he was a dentist right at howard. Yes, yes, but he wants to dentis squad hoard. Can you yeah? Who did you partner with to start that page me? Shout those those guys out and tell tell the listener what they’re up to yeah they’re, both doing great things but r travel thomas he’s? Actually, a cosmetic dentist in los angeles, california, i mean tremor trevor is very, very know now he’s kind of taking a career path which i think he’s a literally bit surprised. You know with everything but he’s truly blessed and he’s done really really well and the other is dr isaac or neil. I’m not sure. If you know isaac, a isa is a yeah, so he’s there, the co founders. You know they’re the guys that i actually gave the vision twin. Really you know, can we actually make this happen? You know what are your thoughts on this and you know it really just took off from this and, like i always rave on the show, because you know the folks that come from h bc us do something about the network that you build there at that grows into so much more yeah, it’s powerful man, it’s a powerful intin. In fact it’s you know we’re very fortunate to have attendant harror university to calloway, say and if it wasn’t for howard, the only reason why all all of this is possible is because i had the opportunity to continuously see black professionals. You know like, and that’s you know that’s what makes you know- risotto re so powerful, because people an not just doctors, there are so many students, there’s so many young kids who see these black people who have lab cots on and it’s like. This call goes back to you know what happened at howard university. You know i walked around camps and i see professors you know in their life because i see black dentist walking around. I see black nurses and it’s like man like this is actually possible. You know so kind of an extension of that pushed it out to the media and continued that pipeline of excellence. Yeah, that’s powerful and- and i wonder, as you built this social media dynamo, it’s been around for six years. How did that progress from you, gentlemen, putting up post to having people run the site having a whole team, yeah yeah? So that’s the their interesting questions. So you know the thing is because i work in corporate and because the corps of my actual profession pharmacy is project management base. I i’ve really developed a very sound understanding of you know how to develop. How to manage like our different entities, you know at once. You know i always i’ve away. I had this weird thing that i’ve always said. I was, i always say that all my businesses at some point i will run them like pharmaceuticas. I’ve always said that my goal is to always run all my businesses like pharmacy companies, and it sounds weird, but the reason why i say that is because the way that farms who companies, if you actually see them turn of structure, is very, very efficient. There’s. So many different divisions and everybody’s working collaboratively under one function to essentially achieve a certain outcome, and i said that so many of my friends years ago, my both to run jet li travel was so doctor. Even my personal management company, like a former suica company, i’ve been doing that you know, and for so doctor in particular, it’s worked because of the trust. To be honest with you guess kind of the reason, because if i, if the community did not trust the company, then i would not work you know. So you know it went from post and mentorship program letata, while they’re actually really here for the people from mentorship program. They turned into you, know other things, and then you know from the students that actually applied to the mentorship program and we were able to shepherd through the curriculum. After that, we open up the opportunity who wants to be a media director. We had so many applications to going through that. It’s like okay. So, let’s see you know who’s going to be our first media direct and we brought a young lady in from from miami florida and she’s doing really well today, and then you know that was for a year and then we bought two more people on board and you know i put together a curriculum where i essentially you know trained them. How i wanted the social media page to run, and i don’t know if you notice, but there’s actually a very big difference from the way that it was ran like two and a half years ago to now, because now there’s a lot of people there’s a lot of, i don’t want to say complaints, but there’s a lot of we try to keep people laughing throughout the day yeah. You know, and that was also a changing strategy, because you know you don’t you know you don’t want to be the thing entity forever. You know, especially when there’s so many different other organizations that function like you. Don’t you know, what’s the difference between you as somebody else, so always looking for areas and differentiation, a lot of that knowledge came from my pharmaceutical career, you know. So. Ultimately, i kind of just use what my skill sets and my medical career is to an extrapolated that into my businesses, yeah, it’s good. Sometimes yal, post du be wiling yeah, now i’ll be cracking up a literal. Sometimes i take my i direct as like. You guys are taxi, but it’s funny, though especially you know. I think about guys, like you, you know, i think about you, know: nurses, i think about pharmacis. You know lawyers engineers and these these professions are not easy. You know the last thing you want to see. You want to go on social media and you want to it’s something very, very serious right that it’s like come on. Bro, you know, and the thing is there’s also a marketing component to it to you know, because the thing is, if you can, if you can diversify your content, where it has a lot of engagement, it actually increases the likelihood of conversion for the next post, because the goal is always to make people see positive, positive post. If we want to post dr bradley tomorrow, and all we’ve been doing, is posting a lot of stream of doctors. The likelier people seeing dr bradleys is low because for some reason people don’t engage with positive content as much you know. So if we can, like you, know plug other types of content, increase the engagement of the page, at least i not you know not this successful professional funny content people engage with the and then we post, r, brandley or mean thousands of people are seeing it so that that also went into our strategy to kind of just like cut the way that we actually were posting previously. Actually, as you know, this is this is a big because you know i mean how you’ve built everything and structured. It is speaking to me because i’m just out here winging it with this podcast post and random stuff, so i’m definitely taking away some learning points for talking with you, i’m glad man, i’m glad you know, and i love the podcast. I actually you know, i think the podcast game is a really really. You know great face to be in and you can contain. I mean there’s so many professionals that you can come to you. So just just keep going and then it’s gonna, it’s gonna. It’s going to blow up yeah and and on top of anything you do. You mentioned it earlier. This jet black travel talk to me about that. That seems so incredible and the videos that you posed and the pictures of of black people just out in the world back when the world was open and now it’s starting to reopen enjoying themselves talk to us about jep black travel. Yes, so jetlike travel, you know, ard started in two thousand and fifteen japa travel started in. You know the fall of two thousand and eighteen that that’s when it was incorporated and that actually it was actually a buddy of mine nicoean we went to hour together. He was actually a couple of years. Is the seasoning guy? The seasoning got next church seasonings you to check out dick nick season? Yeah he’s a he’s a i mean this guys, he’s really really a chef. You know he’s really very, very good and in what he does, and i mean even the his story in terms of the season is also very very inspiring. So you know nick, i travel a lot, but before i entered the travel space nick was already traveling, so you know i knew that i had this network of black doctors like man there’s so many die professionals that i have you now my finger tips right now. It’s like you know, let’s all go to another country and nick at you know he knew someone in cuba. You know he had connections in cuba, so we contact that him. We put together in our ten and literally you know. We took fifty two po professionals to cuba and it was interesting because out of the fifty two professionals i be probably i would say like sixty to seventy percent of them were dentists and positions and a ton of nurses. So what they were. It was really we so doc. Tor, like you, know, aristarete group, you know so it was it was. It was a great experience and you know we came back, got posted on the shave room and then five months later we took forty five people to metis columbia and that’s kind of where it hit me like whoa. So this is the there’s something here you know turned it into an lc and then start to build that program now as well jeez. Your first trip was fifty two people, yeah man yeah, that was september. Twenty ten, that’s incredible! So what’s the back end of that look like how do you go about with the organization and and setting all that stuff up? Okay, so back when we’re getting started, it was a little. So essentially we just leverage young relationships. You know really just seeing who we know in different countries. You know i have travel background. Nick has travel back round, so we leborge relationship. So you know at that time we went to columbia. Nick also knew a lady by the name of drea whose colombian- and you know she was born in columbia- has family in columbia and she went to howard and she helped facilitate that process for us to you know. So what it was back, then, is very, i would say, vastly different than what it is today, because what it is today, it’s really like there’s so many different movement parts. You know it looks like just pictures and itineraries, but there’s so much going on. You know so and that’s kind of just you know symbolic of growth. You know so you know, i would say that you know, like every other organization you you be, can think. If you know one thing about the travel industry, but then it ultimately expands it to something else. Yeah, that’s incredible! As we start to wrap up dr ladelle, what would you say to pre health profession, students so folks that are come out of high school and college looking at becoming pharmacists? What would you say to them? Then? I would say i would say is very simple: you can do it. You know you can do it. I wasn’t supposed to be a pharmacist. I wasn’t supposed to be here, but you can do it. You know i remember when i was you know my parents had a barber shop and i was i was really. I was sitting in the barber shop at that time and there’s a guy that came in a foot barber shop. His name is chined. He was a medical science lies on what i ultimately want to do, at least what i am now- and i remember he told me: why are you going to you know? Why are you going into a certain profession because of fear there’s nothing wrong with that profession, but don’t do it out of fear. You know if you want to do something really go into it. So you know my charge to everyone. Is that you can do it? I think the most important element, your career path is knowing that it’s it’s often time is that it’s damn there impossible to do it by yourself. Don’t ever go into situations thinking. I can do this by myself, your one person, you know so for me, i’m very grateful for so many people. My friend do class charles, dr charles who’s. A farmer is today and he’s also doing a great thing. You know he i mean duke was literally, you know the impetus to a lot of you know you need becoming an alpha. You know he’s the one that total myles. Let’s do this together. You know dupers the one who held me down in pharmacy school and i have a lot of different friends in pharmacist who helped me do the caricter, like my boy, you know getting it and it’s to be honest with you. If it wasn’t, because of so many different people around me, it actually would not have happened, so i think the biggest thing for those who are interested in in pharmacy medicine denise, please find or try, because not saying you won’t get to through it by yourself. But let me tell you something: it’s going to be: it’s going to be very, very difficult, because these these are these programs are not easy. You know, so you got to really find people who have your best. Interest are and are willing to really look out for you yeah. I think, as you told your story, the number of different names that you threw out and the people which you spoke about, speaks to your sense of community that you definitely got to where you are today, because of your tribe and from that position. You’ve built at even bigger tribe, through rousseau doctor through jet black travel, where you’re helping people get to where you are and build as sense a community as well. It’s a beautiful thing, yeah! Thank you! So much now we we, we literally are all we got literally, you know so we got it. We got to continue to to rise and look back and pull pull one another up, all right, doc! Ao. Where can people reach you? Where can they find out more about you about your different business ventures? Absolutely ill can reach me on instagram. That is the i mean we’re all on incident now right. So it’s a alchemist is my name. Fill at a l, underscore chemist, one thousand nine hundred and oh six awesome and and that’s a doe pandal. I’ve always been been envious of that instagram handle you. It took a lot of it like a lot of dog like man. My name is alexis chemist, i obsnit about it deeply, but it works and then and then, as we wrap up what is one or two things that you wish people knew about. Pharmacist m wow! That’s a great question: parnass, a very, very knowledgeable man. Farms is a very, very smart. I don’t think people really understand or appreciate what we is not even like. What we learned in professional school you know is the pharmacal qinetiq and the cronica dynamics and the pharmacy of chemistry. We really do have a sound understanding of what happens in the body when you know you take a subtance when you take a drug, you know when you eat food, you know, so i really want to bug pharmacist than is a profession that i that i truly love, because it it allows you to think differently and- and i hope that in the future the health care system, i can maximize the poses a pharmacist a little bit more now. So that’s something! I know that pharmacist that right now we’re fighting for the opportunity to be termed providers, no medical providers. You know- and you know it to fight that- is a appeal. Battori people better to tuition, but you know, farmes are very very knowledge. Bite not can do lovers at a very horn part of the altcar system. So we, dr lately, thank you so much for joining us in the black oners podcast make in for the incredible work you’re doing bekinning to do for our community. Appreciate you doctor braley, thank you and keep going than i’m in full support. Black doctors. Podcast is not profit volunteer, passion project, the wolf inspiring holom week for another episode lack is for steven frendly, your friendly neighbor, an