More than 20 SIUE School of Pharmacy Students Impress with Problem-solving and Research Skills at National Meeting, including Team Who Reached the Top 10
Two Southern Illinois University Edwardsville School of Pharmacy (SOP) students earned national recognition by placing in the top 10 in the ASHP Clinical Skills Competition as part of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) Midyear Clinical Meeting held from December 3-7 in Anaheim, CA. The last time SIUE SOP had representation in the top 10 was in 2016 when the team earned a third-place finish.
This year’s ASHP Midyear Clinical Meeting hosted two-person teams, each from more than 140 pharmacy schools from across the country. Student teams are challenged with a patient case and given two hours to assess the patient’s drug therapy problems and make written pharmacotherapy recommendations. From the more than 140 entries, the top 10 teams are invited to give an oral presentation on their recommendations. Khushali Sarnot and Jillian Thro, both fourth year students at the SOP, made it to the top 10 and presented their case to audience members and a panel of judges.
“It was such a cool experience to be able to represent SIUE on a national level,” said Jillian Thro. “Khushali and I put in a lot of hard work with practice cases and figuring out how we work best as a team. I think both of us were really surprised and honored when we found out that we made the top 10; it felt like all of our hard work had paid off!”
Beth Cady, current co-advisor for Student Societies of Health-System Pharmacists (SSHP), the student organization associated with the competition, said, “It’s wonderful to see our students achieve this top 10 status. It’s a direct reflection of their hard work throughout their pharmacy school experience and is also an excellent representation of how well we as a school of pharmacy prepare our pharmacy students for a variety of challenging patient experiences.”
ASHP’s annual Midyear Meeting hosts more than 20,000 attendees for their clinical meeting.
In addition to the national accolades for the P4 students above, 21 students from the school of pharmacy were also nationally recognized for their ImPaCT (research) projects at the same Midyear Clinical Meeting during the student poster presentation session. The SOP’s ImPaCT Program (Improving Patient Care for Tomorrow) is a scholarly project where students will identify both a problem in pharmacy and potential solutions in an academic and objective manner. Projects range from research-based to problem-solving or innovation in nature. The ImPaCT Program is designed to prepare professionals to thrive in changing healthcare environments, cultivate the development of innovation, and collaborate with the broader community.
“These project topics include PharmD student experiences, optimizing drug therapies, assessing protocols in health care systems, and utilizing informatics to name a few,” said Tessa Keys, SIUE SOP ImPaCT Coordinator.
Students are encouraged to share their research through posters, manuscripts, and other presentation opportunities at the local and national level. The twenty-one SIUE SOP students represented a total of 17 posters at the meeting. Compared to other schools in the Illinois/Missouri area, SIUE tied for the largest number of posters presented with 17.
SOP students often travel to pursue multiple opportunities to share their research or other experiences on a national level. To ease the burden of costs, all are welcome to donate toward their efforts at this link.
PHOTO: Jillian Thro and Khushali Sarnot hold their Top 10 certificates at (ASHP) Midyear Clinical Meeting