UAMS Student Pharmacists Named Best in the Nation
| March 25, 2016 | UAMS College of Pharmacy students proved themselves to be doubly good this year by earning recognition for the second year in a row as the American Pharmacists Association-Academy of Student Pharmacists (APhA-ASP) National Chapter of the Year.
APhA-ASP, as it did in 2015, presented the chapter with the honor at its Annual Meeting and Exposition. This year’s gathering in early March in Baltimore, Maryland, was the first time in 15 years a chapter has won the award two consecutive years, and the sixth time that the UAMS College of Pharmacy’s chapter has garnered the prize since 2000.
The chapter also received the following honors during the annual meeting:
- APhA-ASP Operation Heart National Winner
- APhA-ASP Operation Diabetes National Winner
- APhA-ASP Operation Immunization Regional Winner
- Generation Rx 1st Runner-Up
- National Patient Counseling Competition Top 10 Finalist (Lindsey Tankersley, first-year UAMS College of Pharmacy student)
Lindsey Tankersley, National Patient Counseling Competition Top 10 Finalist
“The armful of awards the chapter brought home and the fact that this is their second year in a row to win the top prize prove that these students are extraordinary not only to us but nationally,” said Eddie Dunn, Pharm.D., the chapter’s faculty advisor. “As student pharmacists, they constantly strive for excellence in all their endeavors from leading community health screenings and hosting monthly guest speakers on campus to offering guidance through the college’s student life program.”
Dunn is an associate professor in the College of Pharmacy’s Department of Pharmacy Practice.
Operation Heart is a national, public education project of APhA-ASP, and Operation Diabetes seeks to identify individuals with previously undiagnosed diabetes while increasing overall awareness of the disease. Operation Immunization is an immunization education campaign that also works to raise the number of adults receiving immunizations.
Generation Rx is another APhA-ASP national educational program. Its goal is to increase public awareness of prescription medication abuse and to enhance cooperation between health care providers, teens, parents and communities to prevent such abuse. The goal of the National Patient Counseling Competition is to encourage student pharmacists in their efforts toward becoming better patient educators.
The APhA-ASP national organization consists of 128 chapters nationwide and seeks to provide opportunities for professional growth, to improve patient care, and to envision and advance the future of pharmacy.