‘Healthcare is Where I Belong’: Manchester Pharmacy Student Turns Setbacks into Success

With experience in research, clinical rotations, and community service, Sean Posner is preparing to make his mark in the pharmacy profession.

When Sean Posner was 11, he organized a donation drive to support the animal shelter where his aunt worked in honor of his dog, Moose, who had recently died. He spread the word to family and friends, asking them to bring toys and food to the family’s annual Halloween party. Unfortunately, the results weren’t what he expected.

“I only got about three cans of dog food and a single 12-pound bag. I’ll always remember how mad I was. My stepdad was giving out awards—best costume, all that stuff—and I took the microphone from him and just went to town, telling everyone, ‘You stink!’” Posner recalled, laughing.

Posner took matters into his own hands by going door-to-door to solicit donations from neighbors. That successful endeavor in 2011 resulted in “several Jeep Grand Cherokees’ worth” of goods and was the beginning of Kids Adopt a Shelter, Posner’s nonprofit charity. Fourteen years later, the charity is active in multiple states and mobilizes hundreds of young volunteers. 

Today Posner is a PharmD and MBA candidate at Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences (MCPHS), studying on the Manchester campus and set to graduate in May. He has kept up the same proactive attitude toward the things that matter to him.

“I am someone who constantly needs to have something to do, to focus on details. I can't just sit idle-thumbed,” he said.

True to his words, Posner has a lot on his plate, even without taking his studies into account. He’s a competitive practitioner of Brazilian jiu-jitsu, an avid traveler, and has a solo skydiving license. His original career choice reflected his more daring tendencies, but his dream of becoming an Air Force pilot couldn’t come to fruition because of his less-than-perfect eyesight. But that setback became his motivation to study health sciences as an undergraduate before moving on to pharmacy. 

“Pharmacy was the best path for me because I loved chemistry, but I didn't like the idea of just being a chemist,” he said. “It was more interesting for me to also be able to interact with people.” 

At MCPHS, Posner served as Student Government President on the Manchester campus, helped to engage prospective students as an Admissions Ambassador, and has worked on several research projects with Dr. Amanda Morill, including one that investigated business models of community pharmacies. He also stayed busy as a clinician, completing rotations in internal medicine, ambulatory care, and the intensive care unit. He said these experiences have taught him about patient interaction.

“I once had a patient during my VA rotation who was noted as being ‘difficult,’ so I went in kind of cautiously, like, are they going to respond well to me?” Posner recalled. “But I decided to put my preconceptions to the side and just start talking to them.”

At first, the patient was reluctant to say much. But eventually, they shared they’d recently had knee surgery, a procedure that Posner has also undergone. It was a perfect entry point for conversation, and the two of them established a rapport.

“By the end of that appointment, I was able to get them to agree to some medication changes, and they gave us helpful information that allowed them to buy into their own healthcare program,” he said. “You can’t always find common ground with someone in that way, but you can always listen and communicate.”

That experience taught Posner how important it is to meet patients where they're at. 

“Sometimes in healthcare we're so busy chasing numbers and outcomes that we're not thinking about what the patient really needs,” he said. “It doesn't matter what my credentials are, or my background, or how smart I am. What matters is how I can get through to people.” 

Posner is on his last pharmacy rotation in the global clinical supply chain industry at Pfizer. With graduation approaching, he’s still deciding which path he wants to take in the pharmacy world. But he sees the abundance of options as an opportunity.

“I’m still trying to figure it out, but that's the beauty of pharmacy,” he said. “There are too many things to do.”