College of Pharmacy Celebrates Lyman T. Johnson Award Winner Anisa Moore
The UK College of Pharmacy's very own Anisa Moore recently had the honor of accepting the 30th annual Lyman T. Johnson Torch Bearer Award.
The Lyman T. Johnson award is presented by the University of Kentucky Alumni Association’s Lyman T. Johnson African American Alumni Group and the University of Kentucky Office of Institutional Diversity. This award allows for the opportunity to come together and celebrate the great African American students and alumni from each college.
Moore is currently a fourth-year pharmacy student at the college, and she has definitely made the most out of her time here. From starting the organization Create Your Positivity, to creating the College of Pharmacy Fitness Challenge, she has wasted no time trying to make an impact on those around her.
Making a positive impact on others and striving for change within the pharmacy community is what made Moore such a good candidate for the award. A major part of her time at the college of pharmacy involved creating initiatives for student well-being. Moore said, “I saw a major need for these initiatives because, in pharmacy school, we can be really hard on ourselves and dedicate most of our time to school so we neglect our well-being, especially our mental and physical health.”
Create Your Positivity, one of her main initiatives, serves to teach wellness and self-care tools to pharmacy students as well as faculty and staff. The inspiration behind this was her realization that pharmacy burnout is a very real thing many struggle with. It’s hard to continue to care for yourself while also focusing on everything else going on in school, work, and life. Moore hopes to combat these issues and help save other pharmacists from burnout, even years after she has left the college.
Receiving this award has inspired Moore to become the greatest pharmacist she can be, and to hopefully inspire many other African-American girls to pursue the career as well. “I think diversity is important in healthcare because we are always going to be serving a diverse population. I think it’s very important for the healthcare team to represent the diversity of the population. This can create a lot of trust in patient care.”
Moving forward, Moore said she will forever be thankful for everything that the college of pharmacy has done for her. Receiving this award has not only grown her confidence but made her excited to see what she can do in the future.
“It just shows me that I can really do this, and I can make a difference.”
We wish to remember and honor those who inhabited this Commonwealth before the arrival of the Europeans. Briefly occupying these lands were the Osage, Wyndott tribe, and Miami peoples. The Adena and Hopewell peoples, who are recognized by the naming of the time period in which they resided here, were here more permanently. Some of their mounds remain in the Lexington area, including at UK’s Adena Park.
In more recent years, the Cherokee occupied southeast Kentucky, the Yuchi southwest Kentucky, the Chickasaw extreme western Kentucky and the Shawnee central Kentucky including what is now the city of Lexington. The Shawnee left when colonization pushed through the Appalachian Mountains. Lower Shawnee Town ceremonial grounds are still visible in Greenup County.
We honor the first inhabitants who were here, respect their culture, and acknowledge the presence of their descendants who are here today in all walks of life including fellow pharmacists and healthcare professionals.