Back in May 2020, the inaugural class at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) School of Pharmacy in Milwaukee exceeded the 2020 national average as a first-year Match Day participant, with more than 70% of residency applicants matched during phase 1 and 2, according to an MCW article.

As the pharmacy school graduates began their PGY-1 residencies last year at the peak of the global COVID-19 pandemic, the residents expressed concern with feeling ill-prepared, the uncertainty of life post-COVID-19, and limited engagement between medical teams and their patients in an interview with 

®. However, as of 2021, the biggest concern for students at MCW is getting into a residency program in general.

“There are so many great applicants with few spots available, and it is really competitive to get in. I feel that the MCW School of Pharmacy has prepared me for these situations, and I know that I will be ready to step into any program and be successful with any program that I match with,” said Aubrey Cutler, MCW School of Pharmacy, Class of 2021, in an email to 

As for handling any extra training to prepare for administering the COVID-19 vaccine, the MCW School of Pharmacy had the students complete Immunization Certification from the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists as a part of their curriculum during school.

“I feel that having the experience from giving other immunizations has prepared us well to administer COVID-19 vaccines without experiencing any extra stress or issues,” Cutler said.

George E. MacKinnon III, PhD, MS, RPh, FASHP, founding dean and professor at MCW School of Pharmacy and 

® board member, said that the pharmacy school’s adjustments to the pandemic were right in line with the school’s overall mission. For example, the MCW School of Pharmacy joined with the MCW Office of Research to jointly lead the creation of a COVID-19 vaccination clinic on the Milwaukee campus to administer the Pfizer vaccine to identified IA individuals starting on December 22, 2020.

“Many of our student pharmacists volunteered over the holiday break to assist in the COVID-19 Vaccine Clinic, along with our school of pharmacy faculty and staff. To date, we have had 100% participation in the clinic from our school of pharmacy faculty and staff and 40% of student pharmacists participating (many are also engaged in vaccine delivery on clinical rotations),” MacKinnon said in an email to 

®. “At MCW, we have run very successful COVID-19 Vaccination Clinics, administering about 6500 Pfizer vaccines to 1A health care providers (through 2-3-21). As an immunizing pharmacist and dean, I am very proud of the efforts of our school of pharmacy in responding to the pandemic.”

As for the value of the pharmacist in general, Cutler said that the pharmacist is irreplaceable, as they play a vital role in the patient care continuum.

“Pharmacists are more accessible and are in most retail stores. There are many independent community pharmacies that are easy to get access to as well. Patients that I have talked with have also mentioned that they are more comfortable talking and opening up to pharmacists than they are with doctors,” Cutler said. “The pharmacist role is also expanding from only dispensing medications. Pharmacists are able to provide immunizations, certain medication injectables, point-of-care testing, and now we are helping with the COVID vaccine response. We are now able to help with so much more and help increase the quality of patient care in the health care field.”

MacKinnon added that he hopes to see pharmacists continue to be recognized as an important part of the health care model for years to come.

“Pharmacists, particularly in community pharmacies, are often the closest, most accessible and frequently seen health care provider in urban to rural communities. The Association of American Medical Colleges 2020 Report projected shortfalls in primary care range between 21,400 and 55,200 physicians by 2033. With the ongoing shortage of primary care providers, it is imperative for patient care that new models of care are conceived of that include pharmacists as providers of the health care team,” MacKinnon said.

MCW school of pharmacy inaugural class finds success in first residency match day. MCW. https://www.mcw.edu/education/pharmacy-school/news/mcw-school-of-pharmacy-inaugural-class-finds-success-in-first-residency-match-day. Published March 23, 2020. Accessed May 12, 2020.

Murphy, Jill. Pharmacy residents balancing uncertainty, optimism during pandemic. Pharmacy Times. 

https://www.pharmacytimes.com/view/pharmacy-residents-balancing-uncertainty-optimism-during-pandemic

. Published May 12, 2020. Accessed March 12, 2021.

Articles

However, as of 2021, the biggest concern for students at MCW is getting into a residency program in general.

Upcoming Pharmacy Resident Students Continue to Balance Uncertainty, Optimism as Pandemic Continues

Today, we’re celebrating the work of Maddy Yamnitz, a pharmacy student at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Pharmacy. Yamnitz is also an intern at Saint Luke’s Health Systems of Kansas City, where she has been dedicated to helping patients throughout the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

Yamnitz has also volunteered with COVID-19 testing while picking up extra hours at the hospital, putting in nearly 30 extra hours per week on multiple occasions. Yamnitz has also worked 2 rotations during this time, with the goal of educating and helping her own community in Jackson, Missouri.

According to Yamnitz’s boyfriend, Dalton Tripp, her persistence in improving the town’s COVID-19 protocols even led the fire chief to reach out and set up a meeting.

“Her hard work, courage, and love for her community has really shown why she is a true pharmacy hero,” Tripp said.

Pharmacy Times is celebrating American Pharmacists Month by honoring amazing pharmacists. Use the hashtag #ThankAPharmacist on social media to show us who you’re celebrating!

As part of American Pharmacists Month, we're celebrating some amazing pharmacists! Today, read about the work of Maddy Yamnitz, a pharmacy student at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Pharmacy.

Pharmacy Intern Works Extra Shifts, Volunteers At COVID-19 Testing Site During Pandemic

spoke with Jenine Abuzir, PharmD candidate at Chicago College of Pharmacy at Midwestern University, about her experience teaching in the Women’s Health elective during pharmacy school.

Abuzir’s experience with education and teaching others began in her first and second years of school. She became heavily involved with a specific student organization that showcased using and creating different health screenings for undeserved Middle Eastern communities within the Chicago area.

Further, this opportunity helped Abuzir realize her passion topic in pharmacy is cardiology. “It was something that immediately captivated me when I was learning it in school, and I knew this was something potentially I wanted to go into more long-term in the future,” said Abuzir. 

Being on the other side of the classroom showed Abuzir how much work goes into creating a lecture, which she feels her professors make look easy, considering the amount of research she conducted and thinking in the perspective of a student when creating her material. “I told my advisors I had so much more of an appreciation for what they do, because even me just doing one lecture, I thought, ‘Wow, this was a lot,’” said Abuzir.

Videos

Pharmacy Times® spoke with Jenine Abuzir, PharmD candidate at Chicago College of Pharmacy at Midwestern University, about her experience teaching in the Women’s Health elective during pharmacy school.

Pharmacy Student Takes Passion for Cardiology into World of Academia During COVID-19

Ben Harding, a PharmD candidate at Auburn University's Harrison School of Pharmacy in Alabama, discusses the scenario of being a pharmacy student during the COVID-19 pandemic.

 Hi everyone, my name is Ben Harding, and I'm a fourth year pharmacy student currently on my medicine rotation. 

So far the situation has been both concerning and exciting. It's concerning because there is a chance that my rotation may be cancelled, and I don't want that to happen. But we have developed back-up plans just in case. 

On the flip side, it is quite exciting to see a pandemic happen in real life, and to see how the hospitals respond, as well as the health care professionals. 

This is a scenario that is not going to happen for most students, so I think it's a great learning experience, something to take with me in my future practice. 

Ben Harding, a P4 student, discusses the scenario of being a pharmacy student during the COVID-19 pandemic.
 

Pharmacist In Action: Pandemic Delivers Student a Unique Rotation

“All the world’s a stage, and all [are] merely players,” Shakespeare wrote.

When we go to work or to school, we choose how we present ourselves to our patients and colleagues. We need the abilities to remain calm in chaos and to confidently make clinical choices.

Participating in improvisational comedy, known as ‘improv,' can help enhance these skills that are essential to providing the best patient care, according to a study. This research found that student pharmacists who had improv coursework included in their curriculum refined their communication skills.

Here are some reasons more why pharmacy professionals should engage in improv:

Learn How to Adapt to Different Situations

Engaging in improv teaches you how to deal with unexpected circumstances. Your partner may say something random during a performance and you need to adjust to the scenario presented. Maybe you wanted to pretend you were a pirate, but your partner blurted something out about being a grocery store cashier—now, you have to respond quickly and logically.

Unexpected circumstances also happen in health care. Perhaps the guidelines say that a patient should receive a certain medication, but it turns out that the medication is contraindicated or on backorder. Adaptability is an essential component of treating patients appropriately, and practicing Improv can help increase work performance.

Improv comedy tends to be silly and unrealistic. Actors are forced to portray a variety of scenarios, such as devising a scheme about stealing a pasta recipe or pretending to translate a foreign language. Thinking of scenarios like this improves creativity, which is vital in health care.

Sometimes medical professionals need to think outside the box to save lives. For example, some doctors have successfully used extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) to resuscitate patients who were in refractory anaphylaxis even though this was not part of standard guidelines.

 Creative thinking allows health care teams to come up with new solutions in critical cases.

In improv, actors do not memorize lines because the scenarios that they depict will often depend on what the audience requests. This forces actors to communicate concisely and get to their point quickly. If they think of convoluted stories on stage, their partners might not understand how to behave in the situation. The number 1 rule of improv comedy is to never say “no.” Whenever someone comes up with a new idea on stage, you must reply by saying “yes” and then adding on to what your partner suggested.

This strategy can be used when communicating with other healthcare providers. Improv teaches people how to work together to find solutions, such as when dosing errors are made or the incorrect medication is recommended. Instead of blaming colleagues for having differences of opinion, we need to think in terms of improv: everyone has different ideas, but we need to come together to make them work.

When you watch people perform improv comedy, you laugh the entire time. As health care providers, we undergo a large amount of stress on a daily basis.

When you enjoy a funny performance happening in front of you, you do not worry about all of the patients that you saw earlier in the day. Regularly smiling until your cheeks hurt can help prevent burnout. Additionally, getting feedback on an improv performance teaches you to not take things so personally, thus making it easier to accept constructive criticism at work.

Participating in a club or activity outside of our regular day jobs allows us to meet more people and network. I befriended several medical students on campus at Rosalind Franklin University when I—quite spontaneously&mdash;joined an improv club on campus. Weekly rehearsals allowed me to see the fun side of future health care providers. I learned how to accept and give feedback, and how to work together to solve problems.

Getting to know people on a personal level allows for better interprofessional teams because everyone can easily talk to each other to decide what treatment is best for patients. Networking can also open doors for new and exciting opportunities. Meeting fun colleagues makes work feel like a good part of life.

Participating in an improv comedy club directly translated from my personal to my professional life. It gave me an opportunity for growth, forcing me out of my comfort zone. A few practice sessions taught me how to improvise when needed at work. I felt more at ease talking with patients and healthcare professionals. I learned how to think quickly in new situations and how to respond, even if my colleagues had ideas that differed from mine.

They say that the only constant in life is change, and improv is a useful tool that can teach us how to adapt to life’s challenges.

Are you looking for ways to engage in medical improv? Visit www.medicalimprov.org.

 at the Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science College of Pharmacy in Illinois. 

Boesen KP, Herrier RN, Apgar DA, Jackowski RM. Improvisational exercises to improve pharmacy students’ professional communication skills. 

Lafforgue E, Sleth JC, Pluskwa F, Saizy C. Successful extracorporeal resuscitation of a probable perioperative anaphylactic shock due to atracurium. 

2005;24(5):551-5. doi:10.1016/j.annfar.2005.02.008.

A study found that student pharmacists who had improv coursework included in their curriculum refined their communication skills.

Why Pharmacists Should Practice Improvisational Comedy

citizens are increasingly traveling to international destinations, with Americans making 38 million visits abroad in 2017. Fortunately, pharmacists are well-placed to assist patients with their travel health needs.

An article published in the December 2018 of 

The outcomes of the studies support the role of pharmacists in the travel-health services setting.

Pharmacists’ scope of practice in administering travel vaccines varies by state (Table); notably, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Florida, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, and South Carolina have specific travel health training requirements. However, all pharmacists can provide counseling and over-the-counter medications and supplies for travel.

Statistics on Pharmacists’ Scope of Practice in the U.S.

Administer routine vaccines independently

Administer routine vaccines with a CPA or prescription

Administer all travel vaccines independently

Administer all travel vaccines with a CPA or prescription

Pharmacists interested in travel health services can complete the APhA Pharmacy-based Immunization Delivery Certificate Training Program as a prerequisite for the APhA Advanced Competency Training Pharmacy-Based Travel Health Services program. The gold standard in travel health information is the International Society of Travel Medicine’s (ISTM’s) Body of Knowledge, which forms the basis for the society’s Certificate of Knowledge Examination. Those who pass earn a Certificate in Travel Health by the ISTM that must be renewed every 10 years.

was high when pharmacists delivered travel health services, according to the study. However, patients did not always accept the pharmacist’s recommendations for vaccines. Acceptance rates varied depending on the vaccine and the patient’s perceived risk of contacting the illness.

Additionally, patients were primarily interested in travel-related vaccines and not routine vaccines.

 that pharmacist can utilize and direct patients towards. Most patients receive travel information from airlines or a travel agencies that may fail to stress the importance of pre-travel vaccines. Pharmacists’ are at an ideal position at the forefront of patient-care to educate travelers on the vaccine preventable diseases they can encounter abroad.

Sonya Kremnchugsky is a 2019 PharmD candidate at the University of Connecticut School of Pharmacy.

Hurley-Kim K, Goad J, Seed S, Hess KM. Pharmacy-Based Travel Health Services in the United States. 

 (Basel). 2018 Dec 27;7(1). pii: E5. doi: 10.3390/pharmacy7010005. Review. PubMed PMID: 30591674.

US citizens are increasingly traveling to international destinations, with Americans making 38 million visits abroad in 2017. Fortunately, pharmacists are well-placed to assist patients in their travel health needs.

Travel Immunization in the Pharmacy: Exploring the Growing Opportunity

Although pharmacy schools are known for their advancements in pharmacy education, scientific discovery, and patient care, they still face an unspoken and universal truth shared among institutions of higher learning: students sometimes feel lost and unsure of themselves, and as if they have no one to whom they can turn. This silent struggle can prevent many students from comfortably and confidently seeking out help with their academics, pharmacy careers, and research projects. In trying to keep up with the hustle of pharmacy school, students have forgotten who their biggest asset and source of support can be: faculty.

On October 31, members of the School of Pharmacy’s chapters of the Phi Lambda Sigma Leadership Society and the Rho Chi Society set out to nurture positive relationships between students and faculty by hosting the School’s first-ever “Student FaculTEA Party.” Students and faculty were invited to a tea party style lunch, complete with finger sandwiches, pretzels and hummus, fruit, and tea for all to enjoy. Our goal was to have an informal, yet structured gathering where faculty and students could put aside their titles and get to know each other on a personal level.

More than 40 students and nearly 20 faculty attended our gathering, including Natalie D. Eddington, PhD, FCP, FAAPS, dean and professor of the School. To kick off the event, we broke attendees into small groups, which included approximately six students and two or three faculty members each. We started with a “This or That” icebreaker, which brought a lot of laughs and set the mood for our event. Through a series of questions, students and faculty talked about their childhood memories; hobbies; and failures, lessons learned, and how to move forward. Many of the questions asked were not ones that would be commonly broached in typical conversations between students and faculty, as they were not related to pharmacy school.

We then shifted the conversation to the barriers that faculty sometimes assume students encounter when trying to approach them, as well as what students consider to be the true barriers. Our goal was to transform this silent struggle into an acknowledged, spoken one. We have noticed that students primarily interact with faculty during lectures or roundtables; as a result, they often shy away from approaching faculty for advice or guidance on problems not directly related to those brief interactions. They forget that their professors, though knowledgeable and wise now, started in the same place they did — as students, who faced the same anxieties and stressors that current students continue to experience, and who can relate to almost any challenge we might currently be confronting.

By not leveraging a resource as rich as faculty insight, students are only hindering themselves. The years in pharmacy school go by fast, and it is important for both students and faculty to understand how we can work together to make this time more productive. We believe that, by offering students an opportunity to get to know their professors outside the confines of the classroom, they will start to see faculty as less intimidating, and more approachable — mentors to whom they can turn to for advice and guidance on any academic, professional, or personal challenge they might be experiencing.

Although the Student FaculTEA Party was only an hour long, we hope that all those who attended make the most of it moving forward. For students, we hope the next time they see the faculty members they spoke with, that they will say hello and stop to have a conversation. Hopefully, the next time they encounter an obstacle that they do not think they can overcome alone, they will know they have someone to whom they can turn. And the next time they have a question, they will know who to reach out to for help. For faculty, we hope they have gained a better understanding of the reasons that students may not come to them for help as often as they expect, and use that understanding to guide their interactions with students.

We plan to host the Student FaculTEA Party each semester, with the hope of developing relationships that will ultimately help faculty and students at the School unlock their full potential.

, the student blog of the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. To read more insights from UMSOP students, go to 

Leann Kwak and Saniya Chaudhry are PharmD candidates at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy.

Although pharmacy schools are known for their advancements in pharmacy education, scientific discovery, and patient care, they still face an unspoken and universal truth shared among institutions of higher learning: students sometimes feel lost and unsure of themselves, and as if they have no one to whom they can turn. 

Bringing Students and Faculty Together Over Tea

Each year, the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) hosts its DC Public Health Case Challenge to promote interdisciplinary, problem-based learning that focuses on an important public health issue facing the Washington, DC community. Students from all universities in the DC area are invited to participate in the competition, but teams must be interprofessional, and include five to six members from at least three different disciplines.

I first learned about the competition in 2017, when I read about the winning team’s proposal to address adverse childhood events from lead poisoning — a serious issue, particularly in Baltimore City. This year, the topic of the challenge was “Reducing Disparities in Cancer and Chronic Disease: Preventing Tobacco Use in African American Adolescents.” I knew that I wanted to participate in the challenge, and was very fortunate to be recruited by Gregory Carey, PhD, associate professor in microbiology and immunology at the School of Medicine and the faculty advisor for the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) team.

In addition to myself, Dr. Carey recruited Jennifer Breau and Erin Teigen from the School of Social Work, McMillan Ching and Dominique Earland from the School of Medicine, and Adrienne Thomas from the School of Law to round out our team. We set to work as soon as we received the case. We were given two weeks and a hypothetical $2.5 million budget to spend over five years to develop a solution to this complex problem, which was presented to a panel of expert judges during the NAM Annual Meeting in October.

Working together, our team devised a multi-tiered approach that leveraged arts and sports programming to engage middle school students, as well as health promotion courses to empower members of the community to make good health care decisions. We titled our proposal “D.C. Health Passport Project,” and employed a community-based participatory research approach to build the program and a mobile app to measure community participation. Data from the app was used to assess community empowerment and incentivize participation in the program.

Our idea was inspired by UMB’s CURE Scholars program, which recruits health profession students to mentor middle schoolers, while also teaching them about better health care practices. We developed a photovoice curriculum for the arts component, which would allow students to capture elements of tobacco use in their communities and how it affected them. At the end of the program, students would have the opportunity to share their project with family, friends, city council members, and legislators.

In addition, understanding that physical activity can help protect children against certain cancers as they age and reduce stress, we included a basketball league into our weekday activities, with a tournament at the end of the season. To include all members of the family — since we know that teens are most influenced by the people closest to them — we incorporated smoking cessation courses to be held at local recreation centers, along with health screenings, health literacy courses, and employment resources. We also incorporated different elements to address societal barriers – such as access to healthy food or impoverished living conditions – that might prevent some individuals from making healthy decisions.

Our goal was to develop a non-traditional approach to addressing health inequities outside of the health care system to show that such solutions can have an indelible impact on communities, as we saw earlier this year in an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine, which highlighted a six-month study of a pharmacist-led intervention in Black barbershops that was shown to reduce blood pressure among 66 percent of African American participants in the intervention group (compared to 11 percent in the control group).

It was an interesting experience to work so closely with a team of students that I had not met prior to participating in this challenge. Over the two weeks of the case, we spent more than 15 hours brainstorming and strategizing together. It was an incredible teambuilding experience, and when we were announced as the winners of this year’s competition, I could not have been more thrilled.

As a student pharmacist, I was truly honored to have played a part on the winning team, because I saw participating in this competition as an opportunity to showcase the creativity that our profession can bring to addressing some of our region’s most critical health challenges. Pharmacists should be an integral part of any team that aims to create personal and societal solutions for health disparities. In 2010, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Commission to Build a Healthier America noted that medical care can only prevent 10-15 percent of preventable deaths. Helping to address rising drug costs, medication adherence, unhealthy lifestyles, environmental factors, and the health care infrastructure are just a few of the ways in which pharmacists could intervene as members of the health care team.

Pharmacists have the power and the capability to change how Americans interact with the health care system. Being part of the grand prize winning team at this year’s D.C. Public Health Case Challenge affirmed to me that we are creative thinkers who are well-equipped to partner with other health care professionals to address the challenge of health care reform. I hope to be part of this ever-expanding field as I move forward in my career.

Chigo Oguh is a PharmD candidate at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy.

Each year, the National Academy of Medicine hosts its DC Public Health Case Challenge to promote interdisciplinary, problem-based learning that focuses on an important public health issue facing the Washington, DC community

Taking Home Gold and the DC Public Health Case Challenge

On Wednesday, October 24, and Saturday, October 27, student pharmacists from the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy

chapter of the American Pharmacists Association-Academy of Student Pharmacists’ (APhA-ASP) Generation Rx joined forces with the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) Police and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to host our bi-annual Drug Take-Back Day at the University’s SMC Campus Center. An initiative started by the DEA in 2010, Drug Take-Back Day has led to the collection of almost 10 million pounds of prescription and non-prescription medications across the United States.

Drug Take-Back Day is a nationwide initiative aimed at addressing a critical public safety and public health issue. According to the 2011 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), more than 50 percent of individuals ages 12 and older received pain relievers, stimulants, and sedatives from a friend or relative for a nonmedical use in the past year, with 5.7 percent of those individuals taking the medication without asking the original owner. By offering a convenient location for community members to bring in these medications, we are helping to reduce the risk of those medications being diverted, and protecting our most vulnerable populations from misuse or abuse of these drugs.

Set up in the heart of the UMB campus, the drug take-back boxes are available to the public beginning at 9:50 a.m. These boxes are completely free, anonymous, and open to anyone to use. All members of our community are encouraged to bring in their unused or expired medications for safe disposal. In the three years during which I have participated in Drug Take-Back Day events led by the School of Pharmacy, our group has collected more than 300 pounds of medications for safe disposal. This means those medications are no longer taking up space on people’s shelves, and no longer have a chance of being improperly disposed of or detrimentally impacting our environment.

Nationwide, more than 910,000 pounds of medication were collected and disposed of at EPA-approved facilities during this year’s event, with 11,119 pounds of medications collected across the state of Maryland alone.

Improving People’s Health and Protecting Our Environment

Having been involved in numerous Drug Take-Back Day events during my time as a student pharmacist, I hold these events close to my heart.

As a strong environmentalist, I approached my first Drug Take-Back Day from that perspective, really wanting to pair my environmental background with my future pharmacy career. I was immediately overwhelmed by the outpouring of support not only from the Generation Rx chair at that time, but also from community members, who shared with me their support of those same ideals. Each year, many community members thank us for providing this service, saying that they specifically set aside their old medications to bring to our Drug Take-Back Day events because they want to dispose of them properly, and in a manner as safe to the environment and to those around them as possible.

In addition, the 2017 NSDUH reported that 11.4 million individuals ages 12 and older admitted to having misused opioids in the United States — a dramatic increase from the 4.3 million Americans reported to be nonmedical users in 2014. With approximately 115 Americans dying every day due to opioid overdose, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services declared the opioid crisis a national public health emergency on Oct. 26, 2017, which has helped to bring even more light and attention to treating the prevalence of this substance abuse.

When we come together to host Drug Take-Back Day events, it can sometimes feel like we are only taking a small step when compared to the enormity of this crisis, but together, these small actions add up to create larger impacts on our communities and among our friends. We start a ripple of awareness, and that ripple carries across communities, counties, and even states.

The October Drug Take-Back Day events marked our group’s 14th year of hosting Drug-Take Back Day events across UMB, a feat we could not have accomplished without the assistance of Corporal John Jones from the UMB Police, Special Agent Andrew Biniek from the DEA, and all of our amazing student volunteers who took time from their days to make these events possible. Each time I reflect on my involvement in these events over the past three years, I am reminded of the positive impact that Generation Rx has hopefully imparted on the West Baltimore community.

Kimberly Cai is a PharmD candidate at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy.

On Wednesday, October 24, and Saturday, October 27, student pharmacists from the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy chapter of the APhA-ASP joined forces with the University of Maryland, Baltimore Police and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to host our bi-annual Drug Take-Back Day at the University’s SMC Campus Center.

Helping Baltimoreans Safely Dispose of Medication

As a first-year student pharmacist, I was initially overwhelmed by the number of student organizations and opportunities to get involved. During the first month of school, I attended all of the general body meetings (GBMs) and student panels I could to figure out which organizations might interest me the most. It was at the second GBM for the American Pharmacists Association-Academy of Student Pharmacists (APhA-ASP) that I first discovered the International Pharmaceutical Students’ Federation (IPSF), and its Student Exchange Program (SEP). After listening to the student panel share stories about their time in countries like England and Taiwan, I decided that I definitely wanted to take advantage of this opportunity during the free time I would have the summer after my first year.

On my application, I indicated Japan as my top choice of countries in which I’d like to study abroad. I had just vacationed in Japan for two weeks before starting my first year of pharmacy school, and I enjoyed my time there so much that I wanted to go back. I was already familiar with some elements of Japanese culture, but I had never been exposed to Japan’s health care system. Despite having just spent the previous summer in Japan, I had never visited a hospital or pharmacy — I didn’t even know what the Japanese word for pharmacy was when I applied for this experience! In addition to gaining a better understanding of Japanese culture through learning about the country’s approach to health care, I wanted to learn some new aspects of pharmacy practice that I might be able to take back to the U.S. I also hoped to improve my Japanese language skills, since studying languages is one of my passions.

I was fortunate to have my application accepted by the Association of Pharmaceutical Students in Japan (APS-Japan). The program’s student exchange officer (SEO) reached out to me to provide more details about the program. My study abroad experience included two major parts: a four-day internship at a community pharmacy in Kouchi prefecture, which I would complete alone, and a two-week exchange program in Nagoya, where I would be placed with four other exchange students.

I spent the four days of my community pharmacy internship at three different locations of Blue Cross Pharmacy, an independent pharmacy chain. Although I was not able to work as a traditional intern due to language barriers (the prescriptions were written exclusively in Japanese, and some of the commonly prescribed medications are different from those we use in America), this internship was still one of the most insightful parts of my study abroad experience. I was able to spend the majority of each day talking to the pharmacists at each of the pharmacies. We talked for hours about the similarities and differences between some of the more complex aspects of pharmacy, such as insurance systems and pharmacy education, in our respective countries. I also had the opportunity to participate in hands-on learning with compounding ointments, operating the medication packaging machines, and providing patient counseling in Japanese.

The second part of my exchange program offered additional exposure to various sectors of pharmacy practice through visits to a community pharmacy; hospital; Pfizer’s manufacturing plant; the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), a government agency that provides assistance to developing countries; and a skincare workshop with Shiseido. All of the exchange students — or SEPers, as we liked to refer to ourselves &mdash; were also required to prepare brief presentations about pharmacy practice in our home countries, which we presented to each other and the SEP staff. In addition to me representing America, the other four students had traveled from the Netherlands, Poland, South Korea, and Taiwan, so we were all able to learn a lot about how pharmacy is practiced in completely different cultures. The rest of our time was spent sightseeing around the city. We ate local specialties, sang at karaoke bars, did a lot of shopping, visited museums, and explored local shrines and temples. In those two weeks, I grew very close to the other SEPers, as well as the local SEP staff, who were also pharmacy students. Parting ways was bittersweet, but I still keep in touch with everyone online, and we will hopefully stay lifelong friends.

Looking back on this experience, I am extremely thankful to all of the staff for guiding me through the internship and exchange program, allowing me such a unique opportunity to experience what pharmacy is like in another country. The differences between Japan and America are almost impossible to count, but some notable contrasts that I learned about involved the insurance systems, pharmacy education, types of medications dispensed, and patient counseling. One of the biggest takeaways from my stay in Japan was learning about the principle of omotenashi, which is a concept of hospitality that is deeply engrained in Japanese culture. The term loosely translates to “looking after guests wholeheartedly” — going the extra mile to look after needs that guests might not even realize they have. Omotenashi is exhibited through various services that the pharmacy provides, such as dividing a patient’s medications into different packages according to the time of day they need to take them, providing services such as free tea and foot massage machines in the pharmacy’s waiting area, and spending more than 10 minutes to counsel every patient. To the Japanese pharmacists, these acts of consideration were an obvious part of patient care, and they were surprised to learn that pharmacies in America do not normally provide these same services. I think the concept of omotenashi is a very admirable part of Japanese culture, and could be very beneficial to incorporate into the patient care that we provide in American pharmacies

Learning about how your profession is practiced in another country not only teaches you about the ways that you can improve those practices in your own country, but also makes you more aware and appreciative of how the profession operates in your home country. In addition to learning so much new information during the internship, I was able to connect with the pharmacists and students I worked alongside, making new mentors and friends. Participating in study abroad programs like SEP is one of the most valuable experiences a pharmacy student can have, and I would highly recommend it to any student who is able to take advantage of such an opportunity.

, the student blog of the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. To read more insights from UMSOP students, go to blogs.pharmacy.umaryland.edu/insidesop.

Amy Bao is a PharmD candidate at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy.

As a first-year student pharmacist, I was initially overwhelmed by the number of student organizations and opportunities to get involved.

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