Brookie Best believes she has found the right prescription for happiness: A great husband, William, two wonderful sons, Noah and A.J., and a career helping others as a member of the UCSD faculty.

When she was a UCSD chemistry undergrad, Best thought her life would take her into the classroom teaching children. “One day my stepfather called and told me I should become a pharmacist,” the San Gabriel Valley native recalls.

It was good advice. Best applied and was accepted by the School of Pharmacy at UC San Francisco. Although UCSD didn’t yet have a pharmacy program, Best was able to move back and do her fourth year in a clinical satellite program, and then she did a yearlong fellowship.

Now Best, 33, is on the UCSD faculty, splitting her time between the new Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences and the School of Medicine where she conducts research, serves on faculty committees and teaches.

Best is most satisfied by her research with pharmacokinetics (working with drug doses) and pregnancy. “It’s a double-whammy, keeping the mom healthy and the baby virus-free,” Best says. “You know it’s vital work that you’re doing.”

She also finds rewarding her work with the UCSD student-run Free Medical Clinic Project, which she started to participate in during her clinical year. And she was instrumental in opening a new clinic at Baker Elementary School, which has had to expand its hours to meet the demand for services.

Her biggest challenge this year is to “get the work/life balance in order,” she says. “Everything altogether is exhausting.”