Board Members
I first got involved in the single payer movement shortly after transitioning from an inpatient to an outpatient pharmacy role. While I had noticed some of the issues with our broken healthcare system in the inpatient setting, these were front and center in my day-to-day work in the outpatient setting. A friend encouraged me to join a state-based organization, Illinois Single Payer Coalition (ISPC) and Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), both fantastic organizations. I realized working with these groups, however, that pharmacists have unique perspectives and insights on the shortcomings of our current health insurance system. I co-founded Pharmacists For Single Payer after meeting a few other like-minded pharmacists in order to give pharmacists a space to discuss some of these complexities we understand best related to prescription drugs, and to help others get educated about involved in this type of advocacy.
Shannon Rotolo, PharmD, BCPS
Shannon Rotolo, PharmD, BCPS is a clinical pharmacy specialist at the University of Chicago Medicine. She completed her PharmD at the University at Buffalo School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, and her post-graduate training at the Golisano Children's Hospital at University of Rochester Medical Center.
Dr. Rotolo is a specialty pharmacist working with pediatric and adult patients who require complex or high-cost therapies. Her clinical expertise is in the management of cystic fibrosis, asthma, and pediatric lupus. She received a Cystic Fibrosis Foundation pharmacist grant award in 2016 for expansion of clinical pharmacy services in the outpatient setting, and the Illinois Council of Health-System Pharmacists Best Practice Award in 2020 for designing a pharmacist role in a pediatric lupus clinic, and is passionate about expanding pharmacy services to patients across various practice settings.
Dr. Rotolo also is a single-payer advocate. She is one of the co-founders of Pharmacists for Single Payer (PSP), a board member, the current secretary for Illinois Single Payer Coalition, and a steering committee member of the Physicians for a National Health Program IL chapter.
She lives in Chicago with her husband, who is also a pharmacist, and their retired rescue greyhound, Radar.