Jul Aug 2008 APN.pdf - AACP

African-American Men Named
Cardiovascular Disease MVPs
$1 Million CareFirst Grant Funds University of Maryland Grassroots Health Program
The University of Maryland (UM) School
of Pharmacy and CareFirst BlueCross
BlueShield (CareFirst) are on a mission
to educate and empower African-American
men in the greater Baltimore metropolitan
area to improve their cardiovascular
wellness. The CDC estimates that
roughly 47,500 African-American men
die each year from major cardiovascular
diseases and the Maryland cardio-Vascular
men’s health Promotion, or MVP
program, for short, aims to combat this
alarming statistic.
MVP will begin by enrolling 40 African-
American men with risk factors of cardiovascular
disease from University of
Maryland emergency room sites and family
practice centers, local churches and
through community outreach. In completing
the six-month program, participants
will have their vital signs assessed,
learn how to maintain healthy lifestyles
and work toward their health goals. The
men will also recruit two future participants
and serve as an MVP mentor. The
initial three year pilot is designed to help
600 African-American men in Baltimore
live longer, healthier lives with increased
access to quality, affordable healthcare.
During the program, MVP men will be
helped in finding doctors and pharma-
18
Right: Clinical Research
Nurse Clyde Foster discusses
the dangers of hypertension
with MVP participant Berry
McCain Jr. Far right: Foster
and graduate student Xia Yan
review program information.
academic Pharmacy now Jul/Aug/Sept 2008
cists and encouraged to lead healthy lifestyles.
Dr. Fadia Shaya, associate professor of
pharmaceutical health services research
at the UM School of Pharmacy, will lead
the MVP initiative. “Treating cardiovascular
disease isn’t difficult, but too many
African-American men don’t get diagnosed
until heart attacks or strokes put
them in the emergency room—or worse,”
he said. “The purpose of the MVP program
is to empower men to take control
of their health. We’re confident that having
men build their own teams is a faster,
more sustainable and effective way of
promoting cardiovascular health than by
reaching out to them one at a time. Each
person can be an MVP for himself and
his friends.”
The MVP program builds on the success
of Hair, Heart and Health (HHH),
an inner-city program in Baltimore and
Washington D.C., funded by CareFirst
and spearheaded in Baltimore by Dr.
Elijah Saunders, professor of medicine
at the University of Maryland School of
Medicine. HHH has brought cardiovascular
health education into barbershops
and beauty salons, whereby customers
are assessed by their barber or stylist for
cardiovascular risk factors and recommended
for follow-up with a specialist as
appropriate.
Baltimore Orioles legend and Hall of
Fame pitcher, # 22 Jim Palmer, is supporting
the MVP program and serves on
its board to help raise awareness about
the dangers of cardiovascular disease
and the power of teamwork in achieving
the goal of good health. For his career,
Palmer led Baltimore to three World
Series titles over two decades of excellence
and is the Orioles’ all-time leader
in numerous categories, including most
wins (268) and most strikeouts (2,212).
Palmer is recognized as one of Major
League Baseball’s all-time greatest pitchers
and ambassadors of the game.
Additional organizations helping lead
the charge against cardiovascular disease
include MEDBANK of Maryland
Inc., which can link qualified patients
with free prescription medications; Total
Health Care, whose doctors provide
health services on a sliding fee scale to
help make healthcare services more affordable
regardless of social or financial
barriers; and Bon Secours Hospital,
which provides facilities for enrollment
and assessment.
An Agent of Change
AACP President Dr. Victor A. Yanchick foresees exciting but challenging times ahead
At the 2008 AACP/
AFPC Annual Meeting
and Seminars, Dr.
Victor A. Yanchick,
dean of Virginia Commonwealth
University
School of Pharmacy,
was installed as the
2008 AACP President.
During his illustrious
career, which has
spanned more than four decades, Dr.
Yanchick has served as dean at The University
of Oklahoma College of Pharmacy
and as a faculty member at The
University of Texas at Austin College of
Pharmacy. He completed his residency
in hospital pharmacy at The University
of Iowa. Academic Pharmacy Now was
honored to talk with Dr. Yanchick about
his exceptional career and his vision for
the future of pharmacy education.
APN: Over the past 40 years, you have
seen the Academy change dramatically?
Do you expect to see this explosive
growth continue over the next 10 years?
VY: I see the Academy changing, not
just in membership but in the types of
members in our colleges and schools of
pharmacy. Of course, we will continue to
have exceptional clinical faculty, but we
are going to see people who are trained
in many different ways, even those who
are not educated in a pharmacy environment.
Pharmacy is becoming much
more global and much more diffuse in
its application in areas such as genomics,
proteomics, epidemiology, informatics
and nanotechnology. I see bringing in
faculty who have backgrounds in fields
such as engineering, as well as others
that we have never thought of as pharmacy
educators, as a tremendous benefit
to our students. I think that the entire
structure of AACP could change in the
next 10 years.
APN: How great of a challenge do you
think this will pose for Academy members?
VY: I think it presents a significant challenge
to us. We can never forget the cul-
ture of pharmacy. We have a very rich
and important history, a history that has
to remain in the forefront, but I think
that in order for us to know where we’re
going, we need to know where we’ve
been. I see this not only as a challenge,
but an opportunity to broaden the training
of our students.
APN: Do you believe that the current
systems in place for faculty development
will remain the same, for example, the
standard “tenure-track” vs. “non-tenure-track”?
VY: No, I believe that the whole aspect of
tenure should change in the future, and I
think it WILL change in the future. I am
not sure that we should expect someone
to come into our colleges and schools
and demonstrate within five years their
usefulness for the next 30. I believe we
really need to debate this long and hard.
Unfortunately, we are not completely
in control of tenure within our colleges
and schools. For example, I think that
if we plan to continue to use the tenure
system to attract future faculty, my recommendation
has been to consider not
awarding tenure to a faculty member
until they are promoted to full professor.
This gives them enough time to determine
their fit for the institution.
APN: What would you like to see accomplished
by the end of your presidency?
VY: As I mentioned in my speech at the
Annual Meeting, “Thinking Off the
Map,” there are three major initiatives
that I intend to pursue under this theme.
They are:
1. Globalization of Pharmacy Education;
2. Faculty Recruitment and Retention,
how do we better sell to our students
the career of academic practice;
and
3. Curricular Reform, better preparing
our pharmacy students to be prepared
to handle the meteoric changes
that we are seeing within healthcare
delivery, medicine and within all of
the healthcare industry.
APN: You once shared with us that you
were a rule-breaker when you began
your practice. Can you share with our
readers just how you broke the rules?
VY: I remember when I was educated in
pharmacy school, I was very unhappy
about the way pharmacy was practiced.
I worked in two community pharmacies
part time and patients really relied
on their pharmacist for information.
Although the information was not as
detailed and critical as the information
we provide today, at least there was a
patient dialog. Unfortunately, our code
of ethics in the 60s when I graduated
pharmacy school expressly prohibited
pharmacists from talking with patients.
We were to refer all questions that a patient
might have back to their physicians.
I thought that was fundamentally wrong,
so I would talk to them. I would tell them
the name of their drugs, and I would
give them advice on how to use them. My
wife was a nurse so she even taught me
to take blood pressures for my patients. I
remember being reprimanded by a physician
for taking blood pressures, but it
didn’t stop me.
Of course, I don’t advocate breaking
the rules, but back then I thought that
we needed to change the way that pharmacists
were viewed. In order to do this,
we needed to change the way that we are
educated. I really think that was one of
the things that stuck in my mind and
convinced me to go into education.
Dr. Yanchick continues to change the
way pharmacists are educated. From
emerging techniques in medication therapy
management to changes in the code
of ethics that once prohibited pharmacists
from communicating with patients,
Dr. Yanchick has created and seen numerous
changes in pharmacy education
and practice. He is ready to lead AACP
as we navigate through the coming years
of a changing world in healthcare and
medicine.