Inside a Pharmacist Recovery Network
Inside a Pharmacist Recovery Network

Drug Diversion Insights with Terri Vidals

Terri Vidals talks with pharmacist and PRO leader Brad Schwartz about Ohio’s peer recovery network for pharmacy professionals, outlining how it supports treatment, accountability and return to practice. Their conversation touches on self-referral options, mandatory reporting, workplace stigma and the practical realities of rebuilding a career after substance use disorder.

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48:28•23 Sept 2026

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Inside PRO: How Pharmacists Help Pharmacists Back from Substance Use Disorder

Episode Overview

PRO offers pharmacy-focused peer support, monitoring and advocacy to help pharmacists, technicians and students address substance use disorder and return to safe practice.
Participants follow structured agreements that may include treatment, self-help meetings, monthly PRO meetings, drug screening and weekly contact with an advocate over five to seven years.
Pharmacists can sometimes self-refer to PRO without automatic board involvement, but illegal activity or diversion may trigger mandatory reporting requirements.
PRO supports clients with practical career issues such as preparing for board hearings, explaining employment gaps and assessing whether a prospective employer is a healthy fit for someone in recovery.
Brad highlights how stigma and bias often shape employer responses to impairment and diversion, and stresses viewing substance use disorder as a disease rather than a moral failing.

“We are not the people to assess and work up a treatment, so we ask people to adhere to whatever their assessor is asking them to do.”

What drives someone to seek a life without alcohol or other substances when their entire career is on the line? This episode lifts the lid on that question by stepping inside Ohio’s Pharmacists Rehabilitation Organization (PRO), a peer recovery network dedicated to pharmacy professionals.

Host Terri Vidals chats with Brad Schwartz, Director of Pharmacy Services at Avita Health System and long‑time PRO leader, who first came to the programme as a frightened new graduate “intervened upon” just two weeks after getting his licence. Brad explains that PRO’s mission is to “help pharmacists or pharmacy professionals, or even pharmacy students, kind of get back to where they need to be” after substance use disorder disrupts both life and career.

You’ll hear how PRO combines peer support, structured monitoring and practical guidance. Participants attend pharmacy‑focused meetings, undergo drug screening, connect with advocates who check in weekly for five to seven years, and get help with practicalities like finding sponsors, safe medications for everyday ailments, and even how to explain CV gaps in interviews. Brad walks through tricky questions many professionals fear asking: Can you self‑refer without automatically triggering board involvement? What happens if diversion or illegal behaviour is involved?

How do mandatory reporting rules work in practice? His answers stay firmly grounded in real cases, stressing assessment by qualified clinicians and case‑by‑case decisions. There’s also frank discussion about stigma in workplaces, employers who rush to sack people, and the difference between how colleagues react to impairment versus diversion. Brad shares the emotional payoff too: supporting pharmacists who regain their licence, land new roles, and sometimes step into careers they never thought possible.

If you work in pharmacy, manage clinical staff, or care about how healthcare systems respond when professionals struggle with substance use, this conversation offers a rare, honest look at what peer recovery can actually look like in daily life. Who in your organisation would know where to send a pharmacist the moment they say, “I need help?”

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