Garden Park Medical Center welcomes Vikki Steward Huggins as the new Director of Pharmacy. Huggins is a Board Certified Pharmacotherapy Specialist and is licensed as a registered pharmacist in Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee. In 2015, Huggins joined HCA Healthcare as a pharmacy clinical coordinator at TriStar StoneCrest Medical Center, and was later promoted to pharmacy clinical manger. She led the clinical team to perform among the top 25% of the TriStar Division by designing, implementing and managing pharmacy clinical programs such as drug consults, nutrition support, pharmacokinetics, anticoagulant monitoring, pain management, IV to PO conversions, renal dosing and other programs as determined appropriate based on patient population and literature guidelines.
Most recently, she served as a HCA Healthcare corporate pharmacy residency preceptor for the clinical practice experience rotation, as well as affiliate faculty member for Lipscomb College of Pharmacy.
A native of Moss Point, Mississippi, Huggins started her pharmacy career in 2010 after completing her doctorate of pharmacy degree from the University of Mississippi and a post-graduate year-one residency in pharmacy practice at DCH Regional Medical Center in Tuscaloosa, AL.
During her residency, Huggins took interest in the oncology/hematology service-line and focused her research in the specialty. Her research entitled "Evaluation of Pharmacists' Interventions in Altering the Prescribing Patterns for the Treatment of VTE in Patients with Cancer" was published in the December 2012 issue of the Journal of Hematology Oncology Pharmacy. After residency, Huggins became the first decentralized clinical pharmacy specialist in oncology/hematology at Anderson Regional Medical Center in Meridian, MS, where she was instrumental in helping build the hospital's clinical pharmacy program during her four year tenure.
Huggins believes the words of Colin Powell that "There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure."