Alum Brings Different Brand of Patient Care to Foster and Critically Ill Children Through Baking

In her family of medical professionals, the expectation was that Rachelle Reyles-Derry, PharmD ’05, would become a nurse. Instead, she was drawn to pharmacy by her curiosity while growing up to understand the medications prescribed for her father’s chronic conditions.

Today, she is a clinical pharmacist in managed care at Prime Therapeutics. While pharmacy is her full-time job, Reyles-Derry has found a second way to deliver patient care from the heart: baking cakes.

Reyles-Derry is part of a community of bakers who create and deliver birthday cakes to foster and critically ill children. Her experience working with the nonprofit Cake4Kids has been deeply meaningful, she said, given how the basics of a positive childhood are often beyond reach for foster youth who have so little to call their own.

"There’s just so much need there,” she said. “I wish I could bake every day for them.”

Evolving through pharmacy

After graduating from the UCSF School of Pharmacy, Reyles-Derry first found a job as a pharmacy clerk, then as a pharmacy technician while completing her undergraduate degree at UC Irvine. She worked as an intern, then a graduate intern, and then as a pharmacist after becoming licensed. She began her career in both inpatient and outpatient pharmacy, eventually working her way into ambulatory care. She always envisioned having more one-on-one interactions with patients.

“It’s come full circle, from working on prior authorizations to working on clinical details,” she said. “Now that I have to compare drug regimens, I can see why some drugs are preferred over others. The most challenging part is reading the clinical literature and trying to understand everything and tie everything together.”

Precision and passion: The pharmacy-baking connection

Reyles-Derry’s “obsession” with cake-baking culminated in her competing on — and winning — season six of the Food Network's Holiday Wars in 2024.

The ability to learn quickly and stay organized, said Reyles-Derry, is something pharmacy shares with baking, especially at a competitive level.

The satisfaction she gets from researching new techniques to build gravity-defying cakes, or from trying new materials like wafer paper or edible images printed on frosting sheets, wasn’t surprising to her given that she has always been creatively inclined. What has been unexpected, she said, is the amount of time, storage, and stress involved in her “second job” as a baker.

“Being a contestant on Holiday Wars was an incredible experience that taught me so much about myself and my limits. I learned how to push through even when I was sleep-deprived and had a crazy filming schedule over a total of eight episodes,” she said. “It was an amazing journey and I met great people along the way, including my teammates. I love that I can craft this elaborate cake, and then people can eat it, too. Sharing with community is what I love most about baking.”

Giving back and looking ahead

One of the most memorable creative cakes she has showcased on her social media was when she baked, through the organization Icing Smiles, for 2-year-old twin boys, one of whom had cancer.

While speaking with the twins’ mom, she learned that their mom also was fighting cancer.

She delivered a Baby Sharks cake to Stanford Medical, where the entire family had gathered to support simultaneous treatments for their loved ones.

“Seeing everyone there and how grateful they all were was very emotional,” she said.

Reyles-Derry continues to seek out donation and competition opportunities, and is considering applying for a license to run a Cottage Food Operation, to possibly launch a home business in the future (she also dabbles in cookies and bread).

Her advice for pharmacists with a creative side? “If you have even an inkling for a hobby or a creative outlet,” she said. “Just go for it!”