Region 7 Stats
An insight into what Region 7 is doing well and what could use improvement - By Sydney Root
Hello Region 7!
I asked the Region 7 Chapter Presidents about what organizations have been going well, and what, well... could use some improvement. Here are the stats:
What Your Chapter Presidents Believed Were The MOST Successful APhA-ASP Organizations At Their Chapters:
APhA-ASP Organizations that Region 7 is best at:
1. Operation Immunization
2. Operation Diabetes
3. Operation Heart / IPSF
4. Generation Rx
5. Operation Self Care / National Patient Counseling Competition
I received a lot of great feedback about the amazing things that Region 7 has been accomplishing! Idaho State University and University of Washington recently had their Legislative Days at their State Capitols, where they raised awareness about pharmacy's role in patient care and encouraged legislators to support provider status for pharmacy in their state. University of Washington, University of Utah, and Oregon State University have been encouraging student health through events such as UW's 'Ride In The Rain Challenge,' which encouraged students to ride their bikes to school for a month, Oregon State had 'Breaking Down the MU,' which encouraged 'dancing toward personal health,' and University of Utah is planning a 5k that they will participate in this spring. Region 7 has also been having a lot of success with outreach events such as Idaho State's Spaghetti Feed/Make A Wish Fundraiser, and University of Montana's Mr. Pharmacy Competition. Great work, Region 7!
What Your Chapter Presidents Believed Were APhA-ASP Organizations That Could Use Improvement At Their Chapters:
APhA Organizations that Region 7 is could improve upon:
1. Operation Self Care
2. IPSF
3. Generation Rx
4. Operation Diabetes / National Patient Counseling Competition
5. Operation Heart
Of the feedback I received, the biggest thing Region 7 has seemed to be struggling with across the board is receiving enough student involvement. Involvement in student organizations and outreach events is not only great for learning more about the field, getting hands on opportunities and making a difference in the community, but it also is a great way to remember why we pursued pharmacy in the first place. It can be hard to remember this when the stress of exams and the tediousness of studying begin to take their toll.
So I am asking you, Region 7, what makes you want to be involved? What are some positive things that you have experienced from attending outreach events? In what ways can we be creative to receive more student outreach?! Comment below to give your ideas!
It's Not Too Late: Ward Off Your Ruts By Attending APhA Annual Meeting & Exposition
Megan Carroll, APhA-ASP Region 7 Delegate, gives some tips for attending APhA Annual Meeting & Exposition.
It is about half way, maybe three quarters of the way through
the year depending on your school, and for many of us this means it’s THAT
time of year. That time of the year
when you’re in a slump, school may have you down, the weather is dreary,
and those New Year’s resolutions you made just a couple of months ago have long
been deserted. For some of us this could
also mean being stuck in a rut with our attitude towards pharmacy. Have you lost sight of that passion, drive,
inspiration, or even just the reason you decided pharmacy was for you in the
first place? Maybe you haven’t decided
where you even want to head in the career field. No matter your attitude this time of year,
positive, negative, or indifferent, we could all use a little pick-me-up.
APhA Annual Meeting and Exposition could be just that for you!
An opportunity to be surrounded by many successful people who
all have something in common with you is a rare experience. Access to our field's inspirational leaders,
experienced practitioners with undeniable insight, and a huge group of your
peers is what this meeting can offer you.
Everyone who attends has the ability to decide what they would like to
glean from the meeting whether it be awesome workshops and learning
opportunities, finding out just where our profession is headed and what new
topics are coming up on the horizon, or it may be as simple as just meeting as
many new people as possible. APhA Annual
Meeting and Exposition has an amazing student section designed specifically to make your
experience the best it can be. A recent graduate, Amanda Meeker PharmD, from Oregon State University College of Pharmacy, shared some wonderful
insight after attending four annual meetings!
1 1. Go to the meeting to be at the meeting. Don't go because it is close
to Disneyworld or because you want a vacation. Go early for that (it is spring
break).
2. Definitely do not miss the opening student session. They always
have an amazing motivational speaker who will inspire you to go out and do
great things.
3. Go to the House of Delegates sessions, learn what is going on in
the profession, and support our chapter delegate. This process was created for
a reason, and the power of the student voice is amazing. You can make an
impact on your profession that will change it for the better.
4. Try to stay for the closing session (Closing Celebration on Sunday night and final APhA-ASP House of Delegates session on Monday morning). It is tempting to leave earlier on Monday so you don't miss too much class, but class will always be there, and
you are paying a lot of money to go there, so get the most out of it!
5. Have fun and NETWORK! That is the most exciting part of APhA
Annual Meeting and Exposition; you get to meet tons of new people. Don't be afraid to talk to
pharmacists. They are people, after all.
No matter what reason grabs your attention, take the
opportunity, renew those resolutions and find what you've been missing! Hope to
see you all in Orlando!
For more information on APhA Annual, visit http://www.aphameeting.org
The World At Your Fingertips
Start at home.
Invite an exchange student
to come see your hometown, your school, and your profession. Ask them everything you can think of--about
their hometown, their school, and their profession.
Ponder and smile at the similarities, be stirred and challenged by the
differences. Then share a meal, a laugh,
an adventure. Hug when it is time for
them to go. One day in the future, meet them
for coffee on the other side of the globe.
Start at home.
Look around you and find a
local immigrant community.
Volunteer. Organize a health
fair. Find resources they may be able to
use to develop their health literacy.
Find resources to educate yourself and your fellow professionals about
their culture. Listen. Ask open-ended questions. Keep your heart and mind open. Meet them where they are. Learn their traditions. Share food, laughter, a cultural experience. Realize that you learned as much as you
taught, if not more.
Start at home.
Advocate for your
profession. Become involved in your local, state, and national
organizations. See how much we can
accomplish together as student pharmacists.
Meet a student pharmacist from another country, and be amazed and grateful
for the progressive clinical practice we have in the USA. Help this student develop public health
projects, professional development competitions, or advocacy programs for their
school, or perhaps their entire national student organization. Watch as your advocacy spreads into something
bigger than either of you ever imagined.
Start at home, but you'll
never believe where you will go...
IPSF gives you all of these
opportunities, to work in your local area and in our global community, and
shake the foundations of what you know, as well as to travel and explore the
world of pharmacy.
Possibly you're most
interested in the SEP, a global exchange program run entirely by student pharmacists--providing your local community not only with an opportunity to meet a
student pharmacist (or students!) from all over the world, but also a local
networking experience in organizing and establishing rotation sites for the
visiting student.
Or maybe the Public Health
Projects, organized by IPSF, will not only fit in nicely with many of your
APhA-ASP Patient Care Projects, but also provide you with new ways to expand
your outreach into new directions. You
can use this new focus to to meet the unmet needs of a local immigrant and
refugee community center, work with a local Native American Nation and IHS to
share culture and health knowledge, or to develop a patient care project in
HIV/AIDS or TB.
IPSF and our more local
Pan-American Regional Assembly also provide incredible opportunities to
advocate for the pharmacy profession.
Either through connecting and developing friendships with student pharmacists around the world by attending World Congress or a Regional symposia,
or through a number of opportunities to visit the WHO, World Health Student
Symposium (WHSS), or United Nations (Check out the current application!)--you
can expand your advocacy to a global level.
Our
local IPSF chapter at the University of Washington has grown over the last few
years to start at home, here in Seattle, not only on all of these
opportunities, but also to take full advantage of the city and university
around us. Every year our IPSF officers
take it upon ourselves to promote programs to travel through the UW Study
Abroad office--hopefully sending up to 10 student pharmacists and 2 faculty
members to India this summer on a pharmacy-specific extension of a nursing
program. Even more locally, IPSF chapter
meetings are held as an international health journal club, at different local
ethnic restaurants, entitled "Eat Around the World." We also
joined forces with other organizations on campus: SNPhA, LKS, PhReSH, and IHI,
to host a week of HIV/AIDS awareness activities in early December.
The opportunities are
endless. So let's start at home Region
7. How is your IPSF chapter getting
involved?
Adrian Hughes is a third year student pharmacist at the University of Washington, and is an active member and enthusiast of IPSF. Adrian serves as the IPSF Liaison for the University of Washington's APhA-ASP chapter. Through IPSF, she has had the opportunities to travel to travel throughout India, and last summer she attended World Congress in Utrecht, and ventured through the Netherlands and Eastern Europe. She will be attending IPSF World Congress in Puerto, Portugal this summer.
Idaho State University Pharmacy Day at the State Capitol
By Lindsey Hunt & Andrea Winterswyk
Student pharmacists at Idaho State started their semester
with a busy week preparing for “Pharmacy Day at the Capitol”. This event was
planned and implemented in collaboration with the Idaho State Pharmacy
Association, and was the first pharmacy legislative event held at the Idaho State Capitol
in over eight years. More than 40 students and 14 pharmacists gathered on the 1st
floor of the Idaho State Capitol Building on January 20th to showcase pharmacy
in Idaho.
There were six different posters about various areas of
pharmacy presented to legislators and the community by pharmacists and
student pharmacists. A total of 40 flu shots were given, 57 blood glucose test performed,
42 blood pressures measured and 20 blood cholesterols checked through our
various APhA-ASP Patient Care Projects. In addition, student pharmacists provided educational
information about prescription drug abuse, smoking cessation, poison prevention, over-the-counter and natural drug safety, and meth awareness. It
was estimated that over 250 people attended the health fair, including many
legislators.
Keys to the success of this legislative event included the
following:
-120+ letters were sent by student pharmacists to 105
legislators requesting their attendance at the event
- Pharmacist involvement and attendance from all
corners of the state.
- Student pharmacists used social media and posted flyers all
over downtown Boise to promote the health screening portion of the event.
- Presentation of previous advocacy efforts,
including Pharmacy Week Coffee Sleeves and Postcards to Legislators.
- Students worked closely with the leaders of Idaho State Pharmacy Association to make this event successful.
- All four classes of student pharmacists were
represented at the event.
- Organizers of the event personally asked
PGY1/PGY2 Pharmacy Residents in the area to help students create and present
the posters about their specific professions.
By working with the state associations and student pharmacist leaders,
Idaho State University was able to raise awareness and advocate for our
profession on Pharmacy Day 2014. The
success of this event was due to the great support from student pharmacists and
pharmacists in Idaho. Later in February, student pharmacists from ISU will be speaking
with members of the House and Senate Health and Welfare Committees to discuss
pharmacy school, postgraduate options, and the significant and potential role
of the pharmacist in Idaho’s changing health care system.
Ideas Looking Forward To MRM 2014
APhA-ASP Region 7 MRMC, Melanie Sheldon, wants your feedback and ideas for MRM 2014!
Hello Region 7!
I am excited to plan an amazing
meeting this year and would really love to hear from you about your experience
last year. What can I do to improve the meeting? Did you like the theme(s) of
last year’s social? Do you have any ideas for this year? Are there ways that
you would prefer to increase networking among your colleagues? Was there a
company at the exposition that you would like to see again or maybe someone
that you would like to see that was not present? I want to make this a meeting
to remember and I need your help to do it. Please email me with any suggestions
or comments at mrmc2014ms@gmail.com.
I hope everyone is planning to
attend APhA2014 in Orlando, March 28-31! It is a great opportunity to network
with colleagues from all over the country, vote on important policies that
affect our future career, attend educational sessions, obtain national
recognition via the APhA-ASP Awards Celebration, and so much more. There is
still time to get involved! To get the best rate for the APhA Annual Meeting and Exposition, register by March 3rd
and if you have any questions please visit www.aphameeting.org.
IPSF Student Pharmacist Spotlight: Whitney Johnston
Whitney
Johnston, a second year student pharmacist & the APhA-ASP Chapter President at Roseman University of Health Sciences College of Pharmacy, shares her experiences from her trip to Armenia.
This past summer, after 24 hours of travel, I arrived in Armenia with
a team of 15 student researchers. We didn’t speak the language and we were unfamiliar
with the culture, but we were determined to make a difference. Our research
team was composed primarily of graduate students from various universities
throughout the country. We had each joined a study abroad program through the
University of Utah’s Division of Public Health. Prior to departing for Armenia,
we spent countless hours designing a research study and survey to assess
diabetes knowledge in Armenia. In addition to research, our goal was to educate
the general population and providers there.
The need for diabetes education in Armenia is very prevalent.
According to the World Health Organization 2011 report, 8 percent of all deaths
in Armenia were due to diabetes. Over the past 25 years, Armenia has undergone
a great deal of change accompanied by public health and developmental problems.
Some of these health changes include an increase in sedentary lifestyles,
excessive alcohol and tobacco use, and unhealthy food consumption. Many
Armenians cannot afford medical care and only seek help for chronic diseases
after they have progressed to life-threatening stages. Our goal as student
researchers was to discover what the Armenian population and providers
understood about Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM). Our educating efforts were
focused on teaching Armenians how to prevent acquiring the disease and how to
treat it through healthy lifestyle changes.
In order to complete our research we visited four hospitals throughout
the country and provided T2DM education at each location. In order to find
enough people to fill out our surveys we received permission to enter
individual patient rooms. I was very humbled by my surroundings—these rooms
were lined with blank walls and four run-down beds. There was no medical
equipment and several family members were gathered around each patient to feed
and care for them throughout their stay. My desire to help the Armenian people
increased immensely as I entered each patient’s room. I observed as a nurse
entered a room with a dirty cart carrying a few open jars with crusted liquids
lining the sides. This was used for disinfecting a patients wound.
I didn’t speak the language and felt helpless when I didn’t have a
translator at my side. I was later given the opportunity to share my knowledge.
On June 25, three days into
our trip, I found myself standing in front of a crowd of Armenians to give a population
presentation about Type 2 Diabetes. I was provided a translator and given an
hour to present everything I knew. Following the presentation the crowd made
their way to the front of the room with several questions. I am only a student
pharmacist but was treated like an expert. I will never forget the sincere
thanks I received as their individual questions were answered. They seemed to
leave my presentation with a new sense of hope for a healthier lifestyle. These
experiences have changed my perspective on the impact I can make as a single
student pharmacist, and as a pharmacist when I graduate. I truly felt that I had
made a difference.
There
was one particular element of Armenian culture that personally impacted me while
in the country—it was their unique sense of hope. While touring different parts
of the country we were introduced daily to numerous ways Armenians make wishes.
They climb through a small hole in a rock, tie cloth on the branches of trees,
sit between two people with the same name, get rocks to stick to stone walls,
and the list goes on. These customs are an intricate part of the Armenian
culture; they are constantly wishing and praying for something better. This
aspect of the culture instilled in me a feeling of hope. As I adopted some of
their traditions and made wishes on several occasions, my thoughts began to
center on the positive things I wanted in my future, and I was constantly
hoping for positive change.
Sometimes it is easy
to get caught up in studying, trying to pass assessments, and graduate from the
Doctor of Pharmacy program. This experience helped me to step out of my role as
a full-time student and understand how beneficial pharmacy knowledge can be in
helping to improve the lives of people in our own communities, and throughout
the world. I look forward to applying this knowledge and this experience as I
continue in my studies, and eventually as I become a Roseman pharmacy graduate.
For more information about traveling abroad with IPSF, or facilitating IPSF in your chapter:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
