Karen M. Ryle, MS, RPh, Elected NABP Treasurer at Association's 107th Annual Meeting

May 25, 2011 11:39 am

Karen M. Ryle, MS, RPh, was elected to serve as the 2011-2012 treasurer of the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy^® (NABP^®) during the Association’s 107th Annual Meeting, May 21-24, 2011, in San Antonio, TX. Ms Ryle served for four years, from 2006-2010, as an Executive Committee member representing District 1.

Ms Ryle is currently serving the first year of a five-year appointment as a member of the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Pharmacy. She also served as a member of the Massachusetts Board from 1998-2008, and during that time she served as chairperson of the Board’s Pharmacy Compounding Committee as well as on the Task Force on Pharmacy Technicians. Ms Ryle is an associate chief of pharmacy at Massachusetts General Hospital, and also serves as adjunct faculty at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences.

An active member of NABP, Ms Ryle has served on several Association committees including the Advisory Committee on Examinations, the Committee on Constitution and Bylaws, and the Committee on Law Enforcement/Legislation. She also served as chair of the Task Force to Develop Recommendations to Best Reduce Medication Errors in Community Pharmacy Practice and as a member of the Task Force on Transition of Pharmacy Regulation from the Dispensing Process to Outcomes.

Recipient of the 2010 Massachusetts Health-System Pharmacists Humanitarian Award and the 2010 Partners in Excellence Award for Community Service in Health Care, Ms Ryle has been actively involved as a leader in local pharmacy associations and community health organizations. Most recently, she was a member of the board of directors for the Massachusetts Pharmacists Association from 2008-2010. She also served as a member of the Massachusetts Board of Medicine’s Patient Care Assessment Committee from 2006-2010.

As part of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, Ms Ryle volunteered to serve at the American Refugee Committee Tent Camp Clinic in Fond Parisien, Haiti, in May 2010. She returned to assist in Port Au Prince, Haiti in August 2010 with a volunteer group coordinated through the University of Miami Global Institute. At home in Boston, Ms Ryle has delivered lectures on medication safety to senior groups and has helped to coordinate a drug disposal event through the Charlestown Substance Abuse Coalition.

In 2003, Ms Ryle was appointed for a five-year term to the United States Department of Homeland Security. During this appointment she served as a member of the National Pharmacist Response Team, and in November 2005 was deployed to Plaquemine’s Parish, LA, for two weeks in response to Hurricane Katrina. In 2011, she became a member of the Massachusetts Disaster Medical Assistance Team and is ready to be deployed in the event of a disaster.

Ms Ryle earned a bachelor of science degree in pharmacy and a master of science degree in drug regulatory affairs from Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences.