Michele Simmons, Pharm.D., BCOP
Michele Simmons, Pharm.D., BCOP, is a board-certified Oncology Pharmacist with a healthcare career spanning more than a decade, focused primarily on oncology pharmacy practice and patient-centered cancer care. Her journey into healthcare began after her first breast cancer diagnosis in 2004, which inspired her to pursue a career dedicated to helping other cancer patients. She has worked in healthcare in various capacities since 2013, including roles as a high school chemistry teacher, pharmaceutical sales representative, and clinical pharmacy professional. After earning her undergraduate degree in Biochemistry and Genetics from North Carolina State University, she taught high school chemistry for four years before returning to pharmacy school at age 38. She earned her Doctor of Pharmacy degree from Campbell University in 2013, graduating with honors, and later completed a PGY1 pharmacy residency at The Nebraska Medical Center to further expand her clinical knowledge and expertise. Throughout her career, Michele has accumulated extensive oncology clinical experience, including six to seven years working as a clinical pharmacist in outpatient infusion centers. In that role, she collaborated with multidisciplinary oncology teams and served on tumor boards reviewing complex breast cancer cases, helping guide treatment decisions for patients with solid tumors, lymphomas, multiple myeloma, and chronic leukemias. She also spent more than ten years in pharmaceutical and specialty hospital sales, where she strengthened her ability to engage in scientific dialogue with healthcare providers and support compliant, evidence-based communication about advanced therapies used in oncology and infectious disease treatment. Her clinical and industry experience has strengthened her ability to assess complex medication regimens, prevent adverse events, and help optimize patient outcomes through evidence-based pharmacotherapy. Currently, Michele serves as an Oncology Pharmacist on the Cancer Guidance Program Team with Optum, where she has worked remotely for nearly five years reviewing prior authorization requests for chemotherapy and supportive care medications for Medicare patients. In this role, she evaluates clinical documentation on a case-by-case basis to determine whether treatment requests meet national guidelines, including NCCN standards, and payer policy criteria. When requests do not initially meet approval criteria, she communicates directly with oncology providers to discuss treatment options and help determine the most appropriate regimen for the patient. As a board-certified oncology pharmacist, Michele has become a trusted resource within her organization, particularly for complex breast cancer cases. She is passionate about improving cancer care delivery, supporting patients through challenging diagnoses, and advancing oncology pharmacy practice through clinical expertise, communication, and compassionate care.
• Board Certified Oncology Pharmacist (BCOP)
• Pharm.D.
• Campbell University - PharmD
• North Carolina State University - BS, Biochemistry
• Presbyterian Women
• Zeta Tau Alpha
• Presbyterian Women - Congregational
• Presbytery
• Zeta Tau Alpha - Collegiate and Alumni Relations Chair for UNC
• Field Tester,
ASHP
• Research Triangle Alumni Group
What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to perseverance. I was not a spring chicken when I went to pharmacy school - in fact, I could have been the mother to half of my classmates. It's about being able to go back and do things and stick to what your goals are. I've had setbacks along the way. I wanted to do a second year of residency in oncology, but I didn't get any of those positions, so I went straight from my first year of residency to a position as a clinical pharmacist. But the experience that afforded me was just instrumental in making me the pharmacist that I am today, and I'm able to use that daily. So I guess it's just perseverance and being able to make the most of every opportunity, whether it be one that you feel like is a closed door in one place that becomes an open door somewhere else.
What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice I ever received came from a Duke faculty member who was a pharmacist. I originally applied to pharmacy school in 2001 when I was a pharmaceutical sales rep, thinking it would help me advance in my company. I had a speaker dinner where this pharmacist from Duke came in, and afterwards I sat down and talked to him about everything. He looked at me and told me, 'You're not ready to go to pharmacy school yet.' I was applying to the very school where he was faculty, and he told me not to go. So I actually did not go at that point and deferred for two years. Then I got my breast cancer diagnosis, and it was upon that diagnosis that I decided to reapply and go back. He ended up being my professor my third year in pharmacy school, and he did not remember telling me that, but he certainly did, and that was probably the best advice. It was a kind of 'not now, you're not ready' message, and I'm glad I waited because I had the diagnosis and had a better perspective. I also went from community pharmaceutical sales to hospital sales, so I had a much broader scope of experience going into pharmacy school than if I had gone earlier with Plan A instead of Plan B.
What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
There are a lot of women pharmacists in pharmacy today - that was because of a push for that probably in the late 90s and early 2000s, so it's kind of trended to where there are a lot of females. However, there are not a lot of females in leadership. So I would give them the advice that if you get a leadership position, if you get the opportunity to go into leadership, do that to have more female voices in leadership. We're not just out there as pharmacists, but we need to have a voice in leadership making decisions, whether it be at hospitals or in organizations like mine. So just go after those leadership opportunities when they present themselves.
What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
I think the opportunities are that it's starting to be a bigger field for pharmacists to be involved in, as basically our title is medical director as we review these cases for prior authorization. It's kind of an up-and-coming field. It's not a quote-unquote traditional pharmacist role, and the non-traditional pharmacist roles are becoming more prevalent, and this is one of them. The obstacle is that, like I mentioned, people are not used to it because it's an up-and-coming field. There's not that many people that are used to pharmacists in this role, so getting the education to others of being able to have this as an opportunity and overcoming some of those obstacles, like I mentioned before with peer-to-peers, where some oncologists will push back when they hear it's a pharmacist versus another oncologist. But then just to explain from an education perspective, there's nobody that knows the drugs like we do as pharmacists. So that's kind of both an obstacle and an opportunity at the same time.
What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
The values most important to me are definitely integrity and trust, because if providers cannot trust you and you don't display integrity in what you do, then you pretty much don't have much credibility. When providers are talking to me, and I'm also a board-certified oncology pharmacist which is not an easy feat, I need them to trust my expertise. I've had medical oncologists who were hesitant at the beginning of a conversation with me, but by the end they commended the professionalism and the knowledge that I had about their particular patient, the case, and the disease state, and were very thankful and appreciative. But you have to earn that trust from them with compassion and empathy and be upfront with them. So integrity and trustworthiness and just mutual respect are very key, especially when you're working collaboratively to make sure patients are treated most appropriately.