NDEAM Profile: Christine Choe and the Pursuit of a Fulfilling Pharmacist Career

The college world vs. the real world are very different places and Christine “Gina” Choe, 39 from Los Angeles County, California, discovered this firsthand. Living with a T7 spinal cord injury since she was a young girl, she was accustomed to life with a disability, but what she encountered upon entering the professional world as a pharmacist wasn’t something she was ready for. Fortunately, with help from SPINALpedia, she has come out ahead. Read on for her story.

From Social Work to Pharmacy School

It’s not all that common for a young child to become paralyzed. Unfortunately that was what occurred to Choe. “I am a paraplegic, spinal cord injury level T7 complete, from a hit and run accident when I was 2.5 years old. Thus my wheelchair and disability is pretty much all I have ever known. However, that does not make it any easier to navigate the working world that caters towards able-bodied individuals.”

After high school, Choe went on to receive her undergraduate degree at UCSB in sociology. “I was planning to become a social worker/therapist and even went to USC to get my masters in social work. However, while at my internship during my first semester I realized I was tied up by a lot of red tape, which I found to be frustrating,” she says.

One of the most frustrating of these “red tape” situations was the medication process. “All my clients were on medications,” she explains, “half of which only wanted medication and not the therapy, and that is what got me interested in pharmacy. So I left the social work program and transitioned to pharmacy. I went to Western University of Health Sciences to complete my PharmD, which is a four year doctorate program.”

Implicit Biases Hinder Employment

After receiving her Ph.D. Pharmacology, Choe entered the working world and wasn’t thrilled with what she encountered. “I found out the hard way that while schools may be more accommodating for their disabled students, the ‘real’ working world is an entirely different arena,” she says.

“Although I was lucky enough to transition from an intern to a contract worker at my place of internship upon becoming a licensed pharmacist, it is still a struggle as employers tend to only schedule me shifts based on their implicit biases, and this often leads to inequity, limiting my growth as a pharmacist.” Not surprisingly, this has led to Choe struggling to find permanent employment in the pharmacy world.

“Employers can’t help but focus on what I can’t do rather than what I can do and tend to be resistant to change,” she says. “In the beginning I struggled to find my voice but after reaching out to my disabled community and being connected to SPINALpedia, I became more empowered to speak up on the inequity, especially knowing that I am not alone in this struggle. Although finding permanent work is still a work in progress, I have finally found my voice that will hopefully lead to positive change.”

If you find yourself in a similar employment situation, she has this to share. “Don’t give up hope and do not limit yourself. You can do anything as long as you set your mind to it! Don’t let others bring you down, and if others tell you that you cannot do something, prove to them that you can.”

As for what can be done to fix the implicit biases that remain in the pharmacy industry, Choe is a believer in education. “Employment for disability is unfortunately still difficult as we still face stigma and implicit biases. A lot of education and training is needed but I hope one day the disability community can have more ease when applying for jobs.”