Winter 2007 [pdf] - University of Kentucky - College of Pharmacy

COLLEGE NEWS
UK Students Place Second in National Business Plan Competition
Pharmacy students Sarah Clark, Seth Larkin, Tyler Whisman and Lindsey White
were named the first runner-up team in the finals of the National Community
Pharmacists Association (NCPA) Pruitt-Schutte National Business Plan
Competition Oct. 8 in Las Vegas.
The UK team had been named among the top three teams in the nation in
July. The other finalists competing were from the University of Houston and
Washington State University.
The students presented their business plan to a live audience during the meeting
and proposed the launch of Thoroughbred Pharmacy in Midway, Ky., a pharmacy
specializing in meeting the compounding needs of the equine industry.
The pharmacy students all are members of the NCPA student chapter at UK
and third-year pharmacy students. Whisman is from Berea, Clark is from Sedalia,
Larkin is from Livermore, and White is from Frankfort. They also received first place
in the Annual Idea Fair Business Concept Competition held April 7 at UK.
Their advisor for NCPA, and in completing their business plan, is Karen
Blumenschein, Pharm.D., associate professor in the UK College of Pharmacy.
As their advisor, she also was honored at the national meeting with the NCPA
Foundation’s 2006 Faculty Liaison Recognition Award.
NCPA and the NCPA Foundation established the NCPA Pruitt-Schutte Student
Business Plan Competition in an effort to promote interest in independent
community pharmacy ownership. The goal of the competition is to motivate
pharmacy students to create the blueprint necessary for buying an existing
independent community pharmacy or to develop a new pharmacy.
Pharmacy Students Hold Spaghetti
Dinner to Benefit Faith Pharmacy
Victoria Smith was pretty sure she wanted to be
a pharmacist. After her first day volunteering at Faith
Pharmacy, she knew without a doubt.
“Helping people at the pharmacy was an experience
that solidified my decision on what I wanted to do and how
I could have an impact on patients,” Smith said. Currently
a third-year student at the University of Kentucky College
of Pharmacy, Smith volunteers at the non-profit pharmacy
in Lexington once a month and has spent many Saturday
mornings there during the past three years.
On Wednesday, Nov. 29, Smith and her UK pharmacy
colleagues helped patients at the pharmacy in a different
way. Pharmacy students and members of the Kentucky
Alliance of Pharmacy Students (KAPS) served spaghetti
to nearly 300 guests during the Annual Faith Pharmacy
Spaghetti Dinner at Christ the King Church This is
the fifth year pharmacy students and KAPS members
coordinated the event and volunteered for duties including
cooking and serving spaghetti as well as organizing raffles
and selling tickets. This year’s event was coordinated by
Smith and co-chair Julie Baumann.
All proceeds from the event will benefit the pharmacy
which opened in 2000 and provides medications each
Saturday morning for three hours for people who
otherwise couldn’t afford them. All patients who come to
the pharmacy in downtown Lexington must be referred
4
through specific referring agencies in the area. While
there, they receive help signing up for free drug assistance
programs and are provided medications needed while
waiting for the programs to help them.
Pat Deluca, professor at the UK College of Pharmacy
and one of the founders of Faith Pharmacy, says the
students’ involvement with the program is invaluable.
“They really have been a Godsend,” he said.
Each Saturday, three to four students volunteer at the
pharmacy along with licensed pharmacists, social workers
and other community volunteers. “I think they enjoy it,
but they also get the chance to interact with patients and
gain experience different than they’ll get working in most
other pharmacies,” DeLuca said.
Depending on where the student is in their education,
they volunteer filling prescriptions, counseling patients,
or assisting with checking in patients or helping them
complete paperwork for the drug assistance programs.
“It’s hectic with 30 to 35 patients and often as many as
100 prescriptions filled in the three hours the pharmacy
is open,” he said.
Many of the students serving spaghetti dinners on
Wednesday are regulars volunteering at the pharmacy. “The
event is another way for us to help the pharmacy and get
even more students involved,” Smith said.
UK pharmacy students joined pharmacy leaders and Gov. Ernie Fletcher’s
proclamation of October as American Pharmacists Month. Standing behind
Gov. Fletcher from left, Brad Hall, executive director of KPhA; Mike Burleson, executive
director of the Kentucky Board of Pharmacy; Tyler Whisman, UK student pharmacist
and KAPS Chair; Jordan Reeves, UK student pharmacist; Jack Nicholson, UK student
pharmacist; Lewis Wilkerson, representing Pfizer and KPhA board member; Duane
Parsons, representing Kroger and KPhA member; Joan Haltom, KSHP president-elect
and director of pharmacy for Ephraim McDowell Health System in Danville.
Faculty advisor Karen Blumenschein and pharmacy students Sarah Clark, Tyler Whisman,
Lindsey White and Seth Larkin are the runner-up team in the NCPA Business Plan Competition
held in Las Vegas.
The NCPA Pruitt-Schutte Student Business Plan Competition is the first
national competition of its kind in the pharmacy profession and is named to
honor two great champions of independent pharmacy, Neil Pruitt, Sr., and
H. Joseph Schutte. Mr. Schutte is a 1956 graduate of the UK College of Pharmacy
who lives in Louisville. The award is supported by contributions from the H. Joseph
Schutte family, the Neil Pruitt family, and Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals.
Photo courtesy of KPhA
Kirsh Receives NIH
Funding to Study Pain
Management Issues
The National Institutes of
Health (NIH) has awarded an
exploratory grant to Ken Kirsh,
Ph.D., assistant professor at the
University of Kentucky College
of Pharmacy, to study issues in
providing pain management
in end of life care. Kirsh, a
clinical psychologist and pain
medication expert, is also a
member of the Hospice of the
Bluegrass research group. He received notice of the funding
in September for the project, “Building Bridges to Hospice
and Rural Appalachia.”
The project will explore the perceptions and knowledge
of health care workers and use of opiods, the class of
drugs most often used for treating pain but also the most
frequently abused, he said. “There’s a need to understand
the abuse and diversion patterns of these drugs while also
preserving and potentially expanding their use, especially
for patients with pain at the end of life,” Kirsh said.
Kirsh and his colleagues applied for the R21 NIH
grant that encourages exploratory research by providing
support for the early and conceptual stages of projects that
may lead to further study. “We have found no existing
data in this area and intend for this to be the first step
in a new line of research that will continue to grow and
support the partnership between UK and Hospice of the
Bluegrass,” he said.
Funding is being used to develop, and then conduct,
a survey assessing the needs of frontline caregivers who
manage pain issues in rural populations where prescription
drug abuse problems exist. This data will be used to identify
barriers in effective treatment and for future studies, he
said.
The initial survey will be administered to about
300 “frontline” Hospice care workers from Hospice of
the Bluegrass within the next year. Then, a follow-up
survey given to the entire staff will further evaluate pain
medication and management issues. Data from the surveys
will be analyzed to determine further studies and courses
of action, he said.