The two friends were chatting, as they’ve been doing nearly daily for six years, since their first meeting on campus. Just bantering back and forth, on their phones in different places this time instead of in the dorm, at the end of a long day of clinical rotations in their final year of their pharmacy doctoral program. Sharing what their rotations were like, the things they were prepared for – and the things they were not.
And the idea hits Austin Lewerk, who says to his buddy Dylan Knapp: “Hey Dyl, it would be really great to be able to share our journey. I want to do a podcast.”
“I paused for a second,” Knapp said in a recent interview. “I was like, okay, tell me more. And then, he sold me. I’m on board.”
That’s how PharmZ was born. In the podcast launched in August 2023, Lewerk (pictured above, left) and Knapp (above, right) chat about life as Gen-Zers going through pharmacy school and contemplating their next steps. They speak candidly about their experiences and the things that have surprised them, things that fell short or exceeded their expectations – or were just plain unexpected.
It's the kind of thing they would have listened to, they said, if someone had produced it when they started college.
“When you come into pharmacy school, you're 17, 18 years old. It's scary,” Knapp said. “We wanted to be that voice to tell people, hey, it's gonna be okay.”
Knapp and Lewerk do that by complementing each other’s personalities and skill sets. In an episode titled “Midyear, Mickey, Madness!!!”, about attending the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists’ Midyear Conference in Anaheim, Calif., Knapp talks about the high-energy atmosphere of the massive annual event.
“I didn’t find it intimidating. I almost found it exciting,” Knapp says in the December 2023 episode. “I got to meet people from all across the country.”
“You were in your element. I’m quite the opposite,” Lewerk responds. “It was draining at first, but I loved every second of it.”
That difference in their approach has been a key to their friendship – Knapp is more drawn to the limelight, and never worries that Lewerk will want to grab it, for instance. And it is something that makes them good podcast partners too, they said. Lewerk is more the behind-the-scenes analytical problem-solver, taking on such technical work as monitoring PharmZ’s audience reach. Knapp, whom Lewerk describes as the “go-getter,” is more likely to be talking up the podcast and encouraging people to listen.
“We’re kind of yin and yang,” Knapp said.
The pair believe PharmZ may be unique in its space. Sure, there are podcasts about pharmacy, but none they could find about the adventures of pharmacy students.
“I really got into listening to podcasts over the summer,” Lewerk said. “And I was like, this might be a gap that we could potentially fill.”
Perhaps it’s no surprise that two members of Generation Z thought of a podcast as a way to share their experience. Today’s college students grew up on the medium. According to Spotify, a major podcast platform, Gen-Zers turn to podcasts as “a safe space to work through life’s most complex issues.” They look to the medium for entertainment, of course, but also to learn and to escape.
Knapp and Lewerk said a podcast seemed natural to them. They simply recorded what they are prone to do naturally – banter affably.
The PharmZ partners conceded their rotation schedules got in the way of regular programming in the fall. But they are committed to producing more regular episodes this semester, now that they have the rhythm of rotations down. Listeners can expect episodes on preparing for graduation and the variety of career options in pharmacy – something they are learning in their rotations. Lewerk, for instance, is just completing a rotation in nuclear pharmacy, which he had not previously known about.
They intend to continue PharmZ after graduation. They both hope to be accepted to residency programs and to share what those are like. Why not? They’re going to be chatting about it anyway.
“This kind of allows us to stay in touch,” Lewerk said.
You can find the PharmZ podcast on Spotify.