Marley Young ’21 bound for independent pharmacy

Marley Young was very young when she started on her path to pharmacy. When she was three, her grandfather’s lung collapsed, leading to a number of health problems culminating with terminal lung cancer by the time Marley was in eighth grade.

“My entire life, my papa was pretty sick and it taught me that I liked taking care of people,” said the fourth-year student, who has served as the student coordinator for the “We are MUSC Pharmacy” campaign in celebration of American Pharmacists Month. “When I was in eighth grade, they sent him home and said there was nothing they could do, so I ended up giving him his medications every day and basically being his home health care.”

It was a natural inclination for someone who had already decided she was going to be a pharmacist. The previous year, while she was thinking about a career in health care but undecided on what kind, an independent pharmacist spoke to her class and the chord was struck.

She went to Francis Marion University to earn a bachelor’s of science in pharmaceutical studies and then came to MUSC, where she enrolled in the concurrent Pharm.D./MBA program. Each step of the way, she has confirmed her choice of pharmacy career.

“At one point I wanted to be a clinical pharmacist,” Marley said. “But the longer I worked in independent and retail, that was where I could make the most difference and have the biggest impact. We see the people in the community every day who don’t see a physician the way they should. People come in for their over-the-counter drugs and that’s a chance to counsel them and see how they are.”

She’s even been able to pinpoint what kind of community pharmacy she wants to practice, having done internships at CVS, Walgreen’s and Stuckey Pharmacy in Hemingway, S.C. She’s sticking with Stuckey.

A typical day for a Stuckey pharmacist may call for filling 350-500 prescriptions. Her experience at the chains was more like 700-1,000. Since the chains have more pharmacists on duty, the requirements are about the same but Marley still found she has more opportunities for counseling and interacting with patients. 

“Our job is to keep them healthy and to keep them loyal,” she said. She’s worked at Stuckey since 2017 and they have already offered her a job when she graduates. “My long-term goal is to own my own pharmacy, but I don’t want to go too far from home; I want to be in a pharmacy where people know me and trust me.”