The reluctant pharmacist: Tripp Logan seeks to make health care accessible 

CHARLESTON, Mo. – Ask Richard “Tripp” Logan, the Independent Pharmacist of the Year, how he got into pharmacy, and he’ll tell you “reluctantly.” 

“I grew up in the (family) practice, but I had plans to do other things when I left,” said Logan, a second-generation pharmacist with L&S Pharmacy in Charleston, Mo. “I gradually got kind of roped back into coming home and I ended up with a degree in pharmaceuticals and came back to our practice with my dad.” 

Logan was recently named the 2024 NCPA Willard B. Simmons Independent Pharmacist of the Year by the National Community Pharmacists Association.  

Despite his initial reluctance to become a pharmacist, Logan has embraced the profession: He’s a member of several industry organizations, including the NCPA Innovation Center Board, and a member of the Community Pharmacy Foundation Board. 

“My father, myself and my colleagues are just trying to find places where we can help improve not only opportunities for independent pharmacies in all forms, but all these patients and communities and accessibility to health care,” he said. “We’re just trying to see where we could possibly make an impact.” 

As a community pharmacist with three pharmacy locations in three of the poorest counties in the state in the Mississippi Delta region, Logan sees his role as much bigger than filling prescriptions. 

“We've got nine technicians that are cross trained as community health workers, so we have the ability to meet people where they are and help them get through what they need to do,” he said. “A lot of times that's clinical or medication related and sometimes it's not. You get somebody that's having trouble with getting their insulin, and then you realize that they don't have transportation to dialysis or refrigeration.” 

Logan is also one of the operators of SemoRx Care Coordination, an outcomes-based care coordination and medication optimization center that seeks to help close those care gaps. 

“There's a lot of disruption and there's opportunity and it's just trying to figure out how to capture that opportunity so that you're relevant,” he said. “Community pharmacies are in a good spot to be the local coordination of communities – urban, rural – all across the country.”