2026 Wellspring Award: advancing rural hospital pharmacy

The Canadian Foundation for Pharmacy is pleased to announce that Mishka Danchuk-Lauzon, Manager of Pharmacy Services at the Collingwood General and Marine Hospital (CGMH), is the 2026 recipient of the Wellspring Pharmacy Leadership Award.

The $10,000 grant will help cover Danchuk-Lauzon’s costs in completing the Ivey Business School’s pathway program that begins with the Graduate Diploma in Management (GDM) for individuals with no business training, followed by the Accelerated Master of Business Administration (AMBA). The program is offered at Western University in London, Ontario.

The four-month, part-time GDM will provide foundational education in areas including leadership, accounting, finance, marketing, operations and strategy. Danchuk-Lauzon will then undertake the 14-month, while-you-work AMBA program. Her three main areas of focus are to develop skills for financial decision-making, strategic thinking and change management.

“I would like to learn skills for implementing transformational change, especially in organizations with multiple departments with competing priorities and complex interdependencies,” stated Danchuk-Lauzon in her application for the grant.

Her goal is to demonstrate what is possible for pharmacy practice in rural hospital settings, which can face persistent challenges related to staffing, resources and access to experienced pharmacy leadership. Danchuk-Lauzon hopes to challenge the assumption that smaller hospitals cannot provide the same depth and quality of pharmacy services available in urban academic centres.

At CGMH, several initiatives are already being explored, including preceptorship and experiential education models designed for smaller hospitals, strategies to recruit pharmacists to rural practice, a potential rural residency rotation developed in partnership with a larger centre, and clinical programs such as antimicrobial stewardship.

“The leadership skills and knowledge I develop…will strengthen my ability to make the case for new clinical programs, navigate the complexity of implementing them, and sustain them over time,” wrote Danchuk-Lauzon.

She will share the knowledge and experience gained through the program with the broader pharmacy community through formal presentations, mentoring staff and students, documenting the journey through her blog and contributing to professional pharmacy publications. “What really excites me is the potential to demonstrate what is truly possible for rural hospital pharmacy, and to share that story with the profession.”

Danchuk-Lauzon is already actively involved in the profession beyond CGMH. She is a mentor for pharmacy students, a participant in the Ontario Hospital Pharmacy Management Seminar planning committee and the Ontario Hospital Pharmacy Director’s Forum, and a member of the Ontario College of Pharmacists’ quality assurance committee and HealthPRO’s Pharmacy Advisory Council.

See past winners and learn more about the Wellspring Pharmacy Leadership Award.