Faculty Spotlight Questionnaire: Mark Garofoli

What are your areas of focus/expertise?

Pain Management, Substances of Abuse, Substance-Use Disorder, Drug Diversion, and Experiential Learning

What drew you to this focus?

We live in a world of immediate gratification, one click and any material item is at your house within a day. I find that this mentality has migrated into my clinical and educational efforts in that, to help a person with pain and/or addiction, the effects are relatively immediate, unlike the prevention of a heart attack with appropriate blood pressure control. There’s irony here, because that sensation is exactly what drives on within drug use itself, the immediate euphoria.

How does being well-informed on your area of expertise help in the pharmacy/in your practice?

With great power comes great responsibility. I travel our country and the web sharing best practices in pain management, substance-use disorder, and what naturally comes with that is a distinct and powerful personal demand to be on the top of one’s game at all times in order to spread facts, as opposed to merely providing opinions.

Do you have any programs available on this topic?

Pain Management Specialty Pharmacists (PMSP) Certificate Program (21.5 Hours of CE)
*Substances of Abuse Specialty Pharmacist (SASP) Certificate Program (~15 Hours of CE)
*Hope, Healthcare, & Heroin: A Review of Opioid Addiction and Medication Assisted Treatments
Appalachian Diversion Aversion: Pain Management Pearls (3 Hour Online Monograph)
Spasticity vs. Spasms: An Island of Misfit Medications

* (Soon to be released)

Tell us a cool fact or two about you!

My family owns a vineyard in Italy and I’m the first American-born family member to actually visit the grapes! Two fellow FreeCE faculty were on the pilgrimage as well, as you may have guessed, my intelligent and beyond beautiful Wife Gretchen Garofoli and my amazing Father-in-Law, Professor Pete Kreckel.
I lost a 7th grade spelling bee for spelling relief as r-o-l-a-i-d-s. True Story. I believe I lost the battle, but won the war.

Home

What is your typical day?

Wake up, espresso, workout, cup of Joe, mold the minds of future healthcare professionals (faculty), safely maximize patients’ pain management treatments within an interprofessional team (clinical pain management pharmacist), field an interview or present a CE program, family dinner, playtime, bedtime routine, watch a show and chat with my wife, work on presentations/consults, bed.

Who are your role models?

My Father taught me that having two jobs was basically slacking, while three jobs was just about right. My Mom taught me that being 5 minutes early, was actually 10 minutes late. My in-laws (ironically also pharmacists) built upon that to invigorate me to find and follow my true passions in life. My beautiful and intelligent wife, Dr. Gretchen Garofoli, and my son Luke are my life, simply put.

What are your social media habits?

I personally post nothing to Facebook, but enjoy updates on the lives of friends/family. As far as twitter, I’ve tweeted the Pope, that’s about it. He seems to be a rather busy gentleman, so I understood his lack of reply. Instagram and Snapchat are for my young nieces. I do however frequently post on LinkedIn, and enjoy the professional interactions amongst colleagues across the globe.

What contributions have you made that you are most proud of?

Professionally speaking, the coordination of my state’s pain management guidelines (www.sempguidelines.org), developing double-digit hours continued education certificates with FreeCE, grabbing a microphone on numerous stages across the country, providing expert consults in civil and criminal cases, and impacting the lives and careers of student pharmacists within our school of pharmacy. However, nothing is as elevated as facilitating the personal growth of our son, together with my wife, Mrs. Dr. Garofoli.

What is your favorite book(s)?

Daily reads are dominated by such literary icons as Eric Carle with “The Hungry Caterpillar”, intermixed with pain articles and general best-sellers revolving around the “war on drugs”.

What is your favorite movie?

Rocky IV, hands down. As Luke says, Daddy’s favorite song is “No Easy Way Out”, and Luke’s favorite song is “Eye of the Tiger”.