Pharmacy Education Symposium 2009

Associate Professor Joe Saseen

Dr. Joe Saseen is a clinical pharmacy specialist at the University of Colorado A.F. Williams Family Medicine Center. This site is the clinical teaching site for the Family Medicine Residency Program at the University of Colorado Hospital. Clinical pharmacy services include: providing education for medical residents and other healthcare providers; performing medication reviews for patients; providing pharmacotherapy consultations; and evaluating prescribing. Joe’s specific areas of expertise include cardiovascular risk reduction pharmacotherapy, rheumatology and type 2 diabetes.

At the School of Pharmacy, Joe teaches components of the pharmacotherapy curriculum – preventive cardiology, rheumatolology, cardiovascular complications of diabetes, comprehensive patient care, and professional skills classes. He precepts students and postgraduate pharmacy residents in family medicine and is director of units within the Ambulatory Care/Family Medicine pharmacy residency program.

He embraces clinical pharmacy as the foundation of our profession, and identifies it as the key to a fulfilling career in pharmacy practice. His personal philosophy on pharmacy education is to focus on ‘need to know’ information for pharmacists to provide patient care, with emphasis on understanding/applying concepts, critical evaluation, and assimilating information in an accurate, succinct, and clinically relevant manner. He teaches with compassion and strives to be a positive role model.

Joe participates in research related to hypertension, dyslipidemia and rheumatoid arthritis pharmacotherapy. He has also published related review articles and book chapters, along with other contemporary pharmacotherapy and professional topics.

He is chair of the Curriculum Committee at the School of Pharmacy. He is on the Board of Regents for the American faculty of Clinical Pharmacy, and is on the Board of Directors of the Southwest Lipid Association (regional chapter of the National Lipid Association). His professional efforts are focused on national recognition of pharmacists as healthcare providers, postgraduate pharmacy residency training, and specialty board certification of pharmacists.