As cancer patients sat in the infusion center one summer day in 2018 waiting for the chemotherapy meds that are often a lifeline, Shawn Weber was in the back learning how to mix them.

Each medicine is tailored to the patient’s cancer, and its mixing requires strict controls, total concentration, and double-checking by the chief pharmacist. There is no room for error. “Make the medication as if it’s for someone you love,” Shawn's trainer told him. “You’re going to do it right for them and right for everybody.”

Bringing that love and devotion to each med makes a difference every single time. But this philosophy is more than a training experience for Shawn; it’s one he's followed all his working life, first in retail pharmacy and now for U of U Health. Shawn has one priority: “It's about the patients and what they need. It's my duty to make sure my brothers and sisters are taken care of.”

What drove him as a child and youth was achieving his father's approval. His father worked long days from 5:30 am to 7 pm pouring slabs of concrete to put food on the table. He was also a disciplinarian who held his son to a higher standard than his three daughters. “If your mother asks you to jump,” he told Shawn, “your response is ‘How high?’”

Those high standards infuse Shawn’s attitude toward his work, which has won the approval and praise of colleagues for his never-ending initiative to make sure patients have what they need. Shawn’s pharmacist colleague Nathan Blackman says Shawn is “constantly trying to find ways to help and serve others. He truly cares.” 

Right medication, right place, right time: part of Shawn’s job is making sure there’s enough medication for patients’ needs. Take surgery. He ensures that the surgical department has drugs like Rocuronium, a muscle relaxant used as part of general anesthesia, or Bridion, which reverses its effect. Then there are life-saving meds like epinephrine or phenylephrine to revive someone who’s crashed while under sedation.

It's standard practice to look ahead one week for what medications patients may require. Shawn looks ahead three months.

He's painfully conscious that a mistake or a clerical error means a patient’s costs climb quickly. The minute they sit in the infusion chair and get their labs drawn, the insurance clock is ticking. “If they come in and I do not have a medication they need and I have to get it couriered over, it's on their dime,” Shawn says. “They pay for my mistake. And that hurts.”

And so this is his mantra: every patient gets what they need, when they need, and as cheaply as possible.

Shawn’s drive and determination are evident inside the clinic and out. When he started running last year with his boss Eric McDowell, who used to run marathons, “I ran until I couldn’t see color anymore,” Eric says. “He ran me into the dirt.” Afterwards, they met Shawn’s parents on an ATV. “I’m really proud of your son,” Eric told Shawn’s father. “He’s a really great guy to work with.”

Shawn rarely gets to see how his work impacts patients and their families outside the clinic. He’s too busy running as hard as he can to make sure they all get what they need. Until his wife, Alanna, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2023. When he learned she would need chemotherapy, he swore he would never make her infusion. “She’s my everything,” he thought. He could not live with himself if he made a mistake.

Come one Saturday, the one day he does infusions if he's working, she needed immunotherapy.

“I trust you,” Alanna said. Getting that vote of faith from the love of his life meant everything. He took a deep breath, mixed the infusion, and walked it down to her seat. She saw him afterwards to tell him she was fine. Relief swept over him. As nervous as he was, what he learned making infusions was true that day as it was when he started—every infusion is for a loved one, his or someone else’s.