The Passing of Laura Hall
Associate Professor Laura Hall, PharmD '97, BS Pharmacy '84, BCPS, passed away on Friday, July 25.
Throughout her career, Dr. Hall worked to develop new roles for pharmacist involvement with interdisciplinary teams. She began her pharmacy career as a hospital generalist, rounding in the medical intensive care unit and working with infectious disease physicians to develop once-daily aminoglycoside dosing protocols. Dr. Hall provided pharmacist expertise on Patient Education and Infection Control committees, and participated in the Collaborative Home Care Project, a multi-disciplinary group that addressed the clinical needs of HIV patients early in the HIV/AIDS pandemic. She also co-developed a shared practice with Family Medicine, rounding inpatient with the residents, and providing practical pharmacy education during their clinical rotations. This early acceptance of innovative roles for the pharmacist allowed Dr. Hall to expose pharmacy students and residents to unique practice opportunities.
Dr. Hall’s first practice at Ohio State in 2000 was with the Columbus Neighborhood Health Center, a group of seven Federally Qualified Health Centers that provide medical services to the underserved. As one of the first pharmacists at the clinic, she worked to improve medication access and developed protocols to reach chronic disease state goals for her patients. Dr. Hall was a dedicated preceptor for our pharmacy students and residents, serving as the primary preceptor for 10 PGY1 residents and 61 OSU pharmacy students over her 11 years of practice at this site.
In 2011, Dr. Hall transitioned to practice at CarePoint East, a new practice site for Ohio State General Internal Medicine that served a similar low-income multi-cultural population. She has worked as an ambulatory care pharmacist at additional GIM sites, including her most recent work at Martha Morehouse where she worked in transitional care management after hospital discharge. In her ambulatory care roles, Dr. Hall worked alongside attending physicians to educate medical residents and precepted pharmacy residents and students. From 2014-2020, Dr. Hall served as Residency Program Director of the PGY1 ambulatory care program.
One particular theme that permeated Dr. Hall’s practice was drawn from an inspirational quote by Frederick Buechner – “Vocation is the place where your deep gladness meets the world’s deep need.” With this mantra in mind, she used her pharmacist training to serve on medical teams on short-term mission trips, treating both hospital and community underserved patient populations in countries around the world.
In addition to her dedicated pharmacy practice and precepting, Dr. Hall has also contributed to the PharmD curriculum. In the college's i3 curriculum, she championed the Drug Information thread and contributed to the Concepts in Patient Care series.
Faculty and staff can reach out to the STAR program (Stress, Trauma and Resilience Program) at 614-293-7827 for support.
You can find Laura's obituary here.