Photo by Mic Smith
Kira Adkins
Age: 17.
Life ambition: To be a Doctor of Pharmacy by age 21.
Hometown: Goose Creek native—moved to North Charleston with her family before ninth grade to attend Academic Magnet High School.
Spiritual home: Canaan Missionary Baptist Church, where her great-grandfather serves as pastor and many family members belong.
When she’s not studying: Enjoys crossword puzzles and Waffle House visits with friends.
Inspiration: Her mom, Sherlonda Adkins, who became a physician’s assistant after graduating from MUSC in 2014.
Kira Adkins has always worked ahead.
She started kindergarten a year early after wowing the school director with her reading abilities. Now, as the 17-year-old graduates from high school, she leapfrogs to Medical University of South Carolina, where she will be the youngest Pharm.D. student in the school’s history.
The news surprised her classmates at Academic Magnet High School in North Charleston, where she met every challenge of a rigorous academic program and played on the varsity basketball team—all while quietly completing her pharmacy school prereqs through night and summer classes at Trident Technical College. Only a few friends knew of her plan to skip the usual undergrad experience.
Her interest in pharmacy was piqued during middle school by SCRUBS career programs at a local hospital, where she remembers packaging Skittles candy like medicine and a fascination for the pharmacy carousel. For her thesis project at Academic Magnet, she lobbied law enforcement officials in four counties to provide community drop boxes for leftover medications as part of a drug-abuse prevention program.
She’s fueled by an excitement for her future profession, in which “there’s always so much to learn.” And while her power move to MUSC requires a unique maturity, she has always made time for friends and fun.
Commencement will be “bittersweet,” she admits. “I’m not sure I’m ready to say goodbye to these people, but at the same time, I’m ready to graduate and start the next chapter of my life.”
Just expect her to turn the pages faster than most.