DI’s Julie Lawrence doing her part in battle against opioids

Pharmacist earns 2019 Humanitarian Award from Roper St. Francis

About every three days, a person in Charleston County dies from a drug overdose.

To Daniel Island resident Julie Lawrence, a clinical pharmacist with Roper St. Francis Healthcare, it is a sobering statistic.

“We lost 121 lives (in 2018),” said Lawrence, who described the numbers as “shocking.”

According to the website www.justplainkillers.com, 100 of those deaths were opioid-related. Lawrence not only wants to raise awareness about the problem, but put an end to it altogether, or at least try.

She got involved in the opioid battle when it literally hit close to home about three years ago. The family’s former neighbor, Nanci Shipman, lost her son Creighton to a drug overdose. His addiction resulted from being prescribed opioid pain killers after a lacrosse injury. Creighton was the same age as Lawrence’s son, Sam.

“They lived down the street and our kids played together,” said Lawrence. “Their birthdays were close together. That really touched me.”

Lawrence began talking with her friends and peers to learn more about opioid addiction and abuse.

“That’s when I realized this has been going on for a really long time — and we just didn’t know it.”

A short time later, Lawrence was invited to a screening of “Generation Found” — a movie documenting efforts to create a sober high school in Texas for recovering addicts. Jason Sandoval, then agent-in-charge of the Charleston DEA office, attended the gathering and spoke candidly to those in attendance about the raging local opioid crisis. He shared disturbing information about the growing number of deaths attributed to the drugs.

“He started putting it all into context,” recalled Lawrence, who decided then and there that she could no longer sit on the sidelines. “With my pharmacy background, I said I’d like to help. That’s where the coordination began.”

She helped formed the group Wake Up Carolina — along with Nanci Shipman, Sandoval and other concerned community members — to raise awareness about the dangers of opioid use.

“Our next step was to let people know,” she said. “That’s where the education, awareness, prevention focus went … We had to let our neighbors and our communities know this is going on, because they’re at risk and don’t even know it.”

They began taking educational programs into schools and sharing their message with anyone who would listen. Lawrence also turned her attention to her workplace at Roper St. Francis Healthcare (RSFH).

“I kept thinking about every access point in our health care system as an opportunity,” she said. “Every time they come in our door — whether it’s through the emergency room, our hospital, our physical practices, any kind of service — creates an opportunity for us to do the right thing, and to make an intervention.”

Lawrence and a few of her colleagues started brainstorming about ways they could be better stewards of treating pain when patients are hospitalized. They started a RSFH Opioid Reduction Task Force, consisting in the beginning of just Lawrence and two nurses. Today, it has grown to what Lawrence calls “a fully mature committee with a whole organizational structure that involves surgery, anesthesiology, and outpatient doctors.”

Their work is making a difference. Since the task force came into existence, RSFH has added a medication disposal packet for certain prescriptions so patients can safely discard unused drugs. They are also treating pain differently now, added Lawrence, and have come up with new protocols. In 2018, they were able to reduce the morphine prescribed to patients by 35%, she said.

“We kept the pain scores the same, so nobody was in worse pain, but we gave a third less (morphine). It works.”

According to a RSFH press release, the hospital has been “lauded statewide for its efforts to prescribe fewer opioids than before, translating into fewer patients being exposed to and going home with opioids.”

Dr. Jeffrey Frohock, one of the physicians who helped spearhead RSFH’s opioid reduction effort, noted that the task force’s work “took off the day Lawrence stood up and boldly shared her personal connections” to the crisis.

“When you look at the statistics, it’s insane to think someone in a room does not have a personal connection,” he said. “Her words empowered us.”

Roper St. Francis took notice of her efforts and last November Lawrence was presented with its highest honor — the 2019 Humanitarian Award. The prestigious award is given to a team member who carries out the hospital’s mission in their personal lives — with an undeniable passion for serving others. Lawrence easily fit the bill. Staff members surprised her with the award, inviting her husband, Bart, and their three children to be present for the announcement.

“It was definitely a surprise having my family there!” said Lawrence, especially seeing her daughter, Emma, who drove down from Clemson to take part in the ceremony. “I had no idea! It wasn’t even in my realm of possibilities (to be considered for such an honor) … I thought people that get that do really great things! All of the things that I do are a team effort.”

Not only did her work at RSFH contribute to her selection, but also her tireless efforts on behalf of The Edge Drug Prevention Alliance, a community-based nonprofit organization she helped create. The group targets drug prevention before “first use” and encourages youth to find activities that fill their lives with natural highs, instead of drugs. Through her work with RSFH, The Edge and other organizations, Lawrence has been instrumental in collecting some 700 pounds of drugs through “Take Back” programs throughout the community, such as the one at Delta Pharmacy on Daniel Island.

“Julie Lawrence wants to help our community and our country free itself from the stranglehold of opioid addiction,” stated Pennie Peralta, chief nursing officer and senior nurse executive at RSFH. “It’s impossible to quantify how many lives she’s touched from these drug take back events, but she’s clearly making a difference by removing these dangerous and addictive drugs from the homes of our friends and neighbors.”

But even with such great strides in the opioid battle, “there is still so much more to be done,” added Lawrence. Much of her motivation stems not only from the alarming statistics about lives lost, but from what Agent Sandoval told her from the very beginning.

“I envision a greater community effort,” she continued, echoing Sandoval’s words. “…The government is not going to fix this for us. The state is not going to fix this for us. It’s going to take our own community helping ourselves. Everyone has to step up and do their part.”

And Lawrence likes to think “big picture” in terms of what’s possible.

“Look what we’ve been able to accomplish by thinking big,” she said. “To my surprise, no one has told me no. So I just keep going!”

OPIOID AWARENESS

The Daniel Island Speaker Series will be held Wednesday, Jan. 29, at 7 p.m. at Daniel Island Club and will feature guest speakers Nanci Shipman, whose son, Creighton, became addicted to opioids after an athletic injury and later died from a drug overdose; and Dr. Jay Demarco, an orthopedic surgeon with Roper St. Francis who has developed a non-prescription protocol for managing pain following surgery. RSVP at http://tiny.cc/dispeakersseries.

For more information, visit the The Edge Drug Prevention Alliance’s website at www.theedgedrugpreventionalliance.org.

Daniel Island Publishing

225 Seven Farms Drive
Unit 108
Daniel Island, SC 29492 

Office Number: 843-856-1999
Fax Number: 843-856-8555

 

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