College of Pharmacy Faculty Spotlight: Dr. Terri Wong

Wong graduated was part of Touro University's third pharmacy class, then joined the College as a Fellow and finally as a faculty member in 2013. In that same year, the Pharmacy Practice Center was made possible by a donation from the Joseph and Vera Long Foundation. As such, Wong was able to leverage that facility into what the Patient Care Skills Lab is today.

Curriculum, Professional Focus

Wong has developed an innovative Patient Care Skills Lab curriculum that includes simulations of patient care scenarios in Community, Ambulatory Care, and Acute Care. In addition to training students in critical thinking and clinical decision-making, the curriculum provides training in professionalism, empathy, communication, and team-collaboration skills. Students also learn hands-on skills such as injection technique, physical assessments, sterile- and non-sterile compounding.

For her practice site, Wong is an ambulatory care pharmacist with Kaiser Permanente and works with patients and their families to help patients manage their diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. Wong teaches patient classes in a wide variety of topics, including lifestyle interventions to manage chronic diseases, injection technique, and how to use point-of-care devices for home monitoring of labs such as cholesterol, blood sugars, hemoglobin A1C, and blood clotting time.

Love of the Outdoors

In her spare time, Wong enjoys hiking, camping, backpacking, and bouldering with her young son and her husband, Dr. Khai Pham, who is also a clinical pharmacist and Touro University California alumnus.

Wong enjoys introducing students to the outdoors by organizing group camping and backpacking trips to the Shasta Trinity National Forest during the summer. Wong and her husband have also provided pharmacy and medical students with group sessions on the basics of bouldering at various Bay Area bouldering gyms and outdoor rock-climbing sites in Vacaville, Mount Tamalpais, Berkeley, and Lake Tahoe.