In today's fast-paced job market, one degree takes the spotlight for its impressive 多功能性:沟通. 这一研究领域对毕业生的要求很高 几乎适用于所有行业的技能. 

06届的卢克·奥弗米尔 通讯专业 with two minors in biology and Spanish, recently shared his story as a successful 联合国的企业主和发言人.

从十大赌博正规平台在线毕业后,卢克在 Omnicell for 10 years and watched that company grow from 500 employees to over 3,500. 而 working there, he completed his master’s in Health Communication program at Boston 大学. 

2016年,他离开Omnicell,成立了 分流专家有限责任公司 和他的商业伙伴.

路加在马丘比丘

打击毒品转移 

Through Diversion Specialists, Luke works with hospitals, healthcare systems and all kinds of care providers to minimize drug diversion, the transfer of medication from 有需要的人给另一个人非法使用. 

“我们关注的是药物在系统中的流动. 我们寻找人们可能存在的空白 exploit the process to steal medication,” Luke explains. “最初,我们在寻找 at doing gap analyses and risk assessments but have grown into other areas related 以分流预防、发现和应对. 我们的许多发现都是关于操作的 risk assessments are based on historical cases that have come to light. 例如, if a hospital has settled with DEA (United States Drug Enforcement Administration), 我们可能会帮助他们保持顺从. 现在,我在纽瓦的一家医院工作 Hampshire that recently settled with DEA/DOJ (Department of Justice) and their state board of pharmacy, and some interesting things have come up in that case that I can 用来帮助其他人发展他们的程序. 其他机构也在那里:出版 literature with some best practices, gold standard type stuff. 我利用这一点和我的经验 作为审查的一部分.” 

Luke’s biggest goal with his work is to help healthcare professionals build a culture 意识和责任. He explains that when direct care providers 是转移, 它通常是供个人使用的. This means that patients aren’t receiving the meds they’re supposed to be, and they may even be receiving care from a provider who’s under the 影响. 

“Everyone wants to have a safe place to receive care,” Luke states. “对于供应商, 一个给予关怀的安全的地方. 为员工提供一个安全的工作场所. 在更高的层面上,如果 someone sees something that doesn’t seem right, they need to feel comfortable being 能够报告吗?. They need to have a way to report it and know that someone will 采取适当的行动.”

He explains that in the environments where diversion happens, it’s common for workers and providers to overlook concerns because they either don’t feel comfortable reporting them or don’t have enough training to know what to look for. 

Luke states, “It’s not that the current culture caused it. 而是它允许这样做.”  卢克在悉尼

从被忽视的电子邮件到国际影响力

Around June of 2023, Luke was contacted by someone claiming they were from the United 国家. He admitted, “I kind of ignored it because I was like, that’s kind of weird. 为什么会有人联系我?”

然而,有一天,他确实做出了回应. 他送了几张有空的照片过来,结果 为会议打了几个准备电话. 他说"原来那个人 who contacted me was from the United 国家 Office of Drugs and Crime. 他们中的一个 main missions is to ensure people have appropriate access to controlled medicines. As a part of increasing access to legitimate use, they want to make sure they’re doing 他们尽力帮助防止转移. 他们想让我谈谈这种风险 diversion because that’s my area of expertise: the whole diversion risk and how people 是转移. It goes hand-in-hand with people having appropriate access.” 

Eventually, Luke went to Vienna for a meeting to discuss improving access to controlled 国际层面的药物治疗. 来自大多数美国的代表.N. 国家 at this meeting, and Luke explained that hearing these representatives speak was eye-opening 考虑到其他国家的现实. 他了解到,在这些国家,有 significant concern about access issues and the risk of theft or tampering if they 我们会收到更多的产品吗.

“In many cases, countries outside of the US simply don’t have any drugs,” Luke explained. To put it in context, if they have to do a neonatal intubation, they were talking 他们是怎么把管子插进去的. 他们没有任何东西可以作为镇静剂. 这让人大开眼界,这是个大问题. 一些政治问题也是如此 幕后故事. I learned that countries are allocated supplies through the International 麻醉品管制委员会是美国缉毒局下属的一个机构.N. 但这都是基于历史的用法. 所以,如果美国.S. 用了80%,猜猜下次会是什么. 80%.” 

“Somewhat naively, I expected to go there and talk about how much we’re wasting in this country and how that amount of waste presents a huge opportunity for someone 谁有意转移. 当我去那里的时候,我了解了所有这些国家 一开始什么都没有. 我说,我不能谈论我们是如何浪费的 more than half of what we do have when all these places don’t have anything. 所以,我 我不得不改变我的策略,”他分享道. “我学到了很多,我要传达的信息是 really trying to get across this year (when I return to the UN) is how to create a 意识和责任文化.” 

今年10月,又有一场美国总统大选.N. 会议将在维也纳举行. “整个会议都会 be focused on ways to look into diversion prevention, detection, and response and 如何解决这个问题. 根据我们在美国的经验,我们知道.S.,我们有 the most access, that we have significant problems with people abusing and people 对管制药物产生依赖. 所以,走在前面是其中之一 my goals for these countries that hope to gain more access to medications. 如果我们建造 the awareness now, when they do have access to controlled substances, they’ll be ahead 游戏的.”  

AQ是如何影响Luke的职业生涯的

When asked about how his academic journey at AQ shaped his career path, Luke shared 关于参加高级公共演讲课程的记忆 戴夫Weinandy. 他说:“我知道戴夫可以证明这一点. 坦白地说,我不是历史上的那种人 一个非常自信的公众演说家. 当然,这是一个巨大的因素 高级演讲. 我只记得戴夫有一堆敌人. 他把 每袋装M&女士,你会被授予不同的奖项. 我相信我的 “进步最大吗?.” That boosted my self-esteem quite a bit, and I think that set 前方几英里.” 

At AQ, Luke discovered that he needs to feel comfortable and confident presenting the material itself before he can comfortably and confidently present. 他解释说 “当你去这些美国学校的时候.N. 就像你在电视上看到的那样. 你 have to push the button on your individual microphone, wait for the light to illuminate, and then the cameras zoom in on you and you show up on the screen in the room and 世界各地. It’s a little bit intimidating, but I certainly do think that my experience at Aquinas – through the communication program and the capstone project courses taught by Dave and Penny Avery, where the final requirement was to present our research project to all of our professors and peers – prepared me for this type of engagement, even though the content is certainly different.” 

“Obviously, what I’m doing now has nothing directly to do with communication, but I would argue that there’s communication involved with anything you go into. 我的工作 不是在传统的通信中. 我不是做市场营销或公关之类的, 但我想说我每天都在使用我的技能.”卢克在克罗地亚