Taryn Newsome is a dedicated Certified Pharmacy Technician. Driven by her passion to share the value of the advancing role of the Pharmacy Technicians in oncology, she takes pride in providing additional resources, support, and guidance to Pharmacy Technicians nationwide. As the OPTA Coordinator, Taryn's goals include advocating for Oncology Pharmacy Technicians so that they can be an influential voice for patients with cancer care issues, and to maximize Pharmacy Technicians' professional development through training, collaboration and knowledge sharing of resources to all OPTA members.

In June of 2021, Taryn joined the National Community Oncology Dispensing Association (NCODA) as the Oncology Pharmacy Technician Association (OPTA) Coordinator. Prior to NCODA, Taryn worked as a Medical Assistant at the San Diego Cancer Center in 2004 until her move to Virginia is 2008. Taryn continued her journey as a Medical Assistant at the Virginia Cancer Institute for the next 10 years. In 2017, Virginia Cancer Institute incorporated Progressive Pharmacy Care as a medically integrated pharmacy. In 2018, Taryn was promoted to work in the pharmacy as a Pharmacy Technician. Taryn received her training on site along with an online training program and became a Certified Pharmacy Technician in 2019. She is profoundly grateful for this opportunity as she has found her passion in advocating for Pharmacy Technicians and the opportunity to improve patient cancer care. 

Taryn is a native Californian, but currently live in Richmond, Virginia. Her oldest son, Tyler is a sophomore at Old Dominion University, and her youngest son Timmy is a freshman in high school. When she is not trying to keep up with her two boys, you can find Taryn peacefully enjoying the home life reading a good book or watching her guilty pleasure of reality TV.

Hi, my name is Carol Hemersbach and I have been a pharmacy tech since the typewriter days, yes, that gives away my age.  I started as a volunteer with the Red Cross when I was 13 years old at the local base hospital pharmacy.  We had an assembly line, starting with the typing of the label, then would pass over to the fillers, and then to someone handing out the prescriptions.  On a busy day, we filled over 1,000 prescriptions.  I then worked in a couple of retail pharmacies, where I was fortunate enough to have met Paul McCartney, that was so amazing, he was such a nice guy.  My next venture was into the hospital pharmacy where I started as a clerk then worked up to technician (certification was not a requirement at that time) and then moved to Admix. 

I then moved from Arizona to South Carolina where I was recruited to a Home Infusion company to mix and run the company.  We also contracted with a local oncology office to make their chemotherapy admixtures, which is where I realized my love of Oncology. I moved back to Arizona and was hired by a large oncology office to mix chemo and was given the extra duty of taking care of all the Prior authorization and financial assistance for all oral oncolytics. We then opened our own MID and I was excited to be chosen to take care of our patients in a new way.  I also obtained my bachelor’s in health care administration in 2018. I then moved to a new company where I was asked to initiate the MID program from the ground up and opened our first store in September 2020, since then opening two other sites. I am currently the Supervisor for our MID.

I have also taken up a love of powerlifting and currently hold the state record for my age/weight class in deadlifts. I will be competing nationally in July in Vegas. 

NCODA has been a huge part of my career and I am so grateful to be part of such an amazing organization that truly cares about patients. I have learned so much from others and NCODA has helped shape me and provide me with the knowledge needed to run the MID successfully, but more importantly, take care of cancer patients with compassion and empathy.  OPTA is an amazing opportunity for growth as a technician within the oncology field.  With so many members, there is just so much knowledge for us to learn from each other and bounce off one another so that we, as oncology pharmacy techs, can further provide the highest quality of care to our patients. 

Vonda McClendon; a Senior Pharmacy Technician at Texas Oncology, is currently part of the Pharmacy Compliance team for Retail Services and has been instrumental in the development of their mail-order, retail services and achieving ACHC accreditation.  With her extensive experience in retail settings, she has engaged in high-impact patient-centered care by incorporating NCODA resources.  Vonda partners with Texas Oncology leadership to expand the ongoing development of patient education and adherence in their pharmacies.  She also serves as a member of Texas Oncology’s safety committee.  Prior to joining TxO, Vonda worked at CVS facilitating training at the corporate and retail pharmacy level.