Dr. Michal Mingura, Assistant Professor of Pharmacy Practice at MBKU’s College of Pharmacy, believes pharmacists face an increasingly diverse scope of practice, so she has developed an eclectic educational curriculum to meet that reality.
Michal Mingura, PharmD, FSVHP, specializes in ambulatory care, but has developed subspecialties in veterinary pharmacy and transgender health. She also teaches medical Spanish at MBKU’s College of Pharmacy.
“Veterinary prescriptions are showing up at regular community pharmacies,” says Dr. Mingura. “I feel very strongly that pharmacists should know what to do when these prescriptions come in.”
Pharmacists also are increasingly seeing prescriptions for transgender health, she says.
“It’s becoming more common,” says Dr. Mingura.
Transgender health is part of the core curriculum for second year students at the College of Pharmacy and is taught as part of men and women’s health module. All pharmacy students also take veterinary pharmacology.
“This is something Ketchum does that is unique,” she says.
Dr. Mingura presents at conferences on the subjects. Presentations include: “When Your Patient has Fur: A Primer on Veterinary Patients” and “He/She/They/Xie: Beyond the Pronoun – A Pharmacist’s Guide to Transgender Health.”
An Eclectic Career
Dr. Mingura took a circuitous route to pharmacology. After earning her bachelor’s degree at UC Berkeley in stage production and management, she worked in that field for several years. She switched gears and decided to become a veterinarian, and worked as a vet tech while she took the science prerequisites. Allergies kept her from a vet career, but her work as a vet tech exposed her to pharmacology and she decided to pursue that career.
She earned her PharmD at the University of Southern California and completed a PGY-1 Pharmacy Practice Residency at Oregon State University. As part of her residency program, she served the underserved in rural Oregon.
Dr. Mingura expected to enjoy a long career as a community pharmacist, thinking she would teach in retirement. After teaching a few classes in addition to her day job, however, she realized she loved teaching and applied to join the MBKU faculty.
“I enjoyed it so much, I decided to teach right away,” she says. “I like helping people understand things.”
A Passionate Environment at MBKU
Dr. Mingura says she had quite a few teaching job offers, but chose MBKU because she felt “very welcome” at the University during her visits.
“Everyone seems to enjoy what they are doing and are very passionate about it,” she says. “It comes across.”
Dr. Mingura says that because the MBKU College of Pharmacy is relatively new, professors are not constrained by long-standing traditions and feel free to innovate and suggest unique course offerings or public service projects. The school’s emphasis on medical Spanish is particularly important in a diverse state such as California.
“We live in California. I am going to give students as much medical Spanish as I can,” she says.
Living in a “Construction Zone” at Home
Married to a contractor, Dr. Mingura jokes that she often lives in a construction zone with so many projects underway. To relax, Dr. Mingura enjoys crafting, knitting, pottery and baking. The couple shares their home with two adopted “white fluffy dogs,” she says.
Dr. Mingura considers herself fortunate in many ways, not the least of which is her job at MBKU’s College of Pharmacy.
“At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter so much what you do, but who you do it with,” she says. “Everyone is really supportive and passionate here.”