Conferences & Meetings - Iowa Pharmacy Association College Night

Iowa Pharmacy Association

College Night (9-12-2012)

 

Iowa Pharmacy Association (IPA) college night was an event that I attended at the beginning of the semester. I remembered how great of an event it was and decided to share. The event was held at the Coralville Marriot and had both students and faculty from the college of pharmacy. The event was aimed for students to learn about the Iowa Pharmacy Association and how to be involved with the organization. IPA offers several ways for students to be involved.  These include volunteering for the house of delegates, policy committees, advisory board, board of trustees, pharmacy recovery network, and katy’s kids. Students can also apply to attend the student leadership conference, do an IPPE4 rotation, or do a summer internship with IPA.  IPA also has annual meetings and legislative day.  For legislative day, students go to the Iowa State capitol in Des Moines to interact with their government representatives.  I enjoyed learning about all these great opportunities but I especially liked the event because it gave me to the chance to interact with classmates I haven’t talked to yet. I still continue to meet people I haven’t seen before in my class but hopefully by the end of the semester as I continue to stay involved in the pharmacy organizations, I will have had a chance to interact with everyone in my pharmacy class.  I feel fortunate to be attending pharmacy school at the University of Iowa and to be in a state with such a great pharmacy association. 

Community Engagement - Heartburn Awareness

CVS – HEALTH FAIR

Heartburn Awareness (10/14/2012)

Last week I volunteered at the heartburn awareness booth at the CVS grand opening health fair. It was a really great event since we had several students from the University of Iowa College of Pharmacy. In addition to the heartburn awareness booth, there was the smoking cessation, blood pressure, diabetes, and flu shot booths.  Herky, the University of Iowa mascot, and the cheerleaders were also there making it a very fun and educational event for everyone. Our booth had a spinning wheel which the people could spin and then answer a question about heartburn awareness. If they answered the question correctly then they won a small prize. The kids loved spinning the wheel and trying to answer a question and the adults found the information useful. The adults especially liked the brochures such as the stop & select pocket guide.  The guide includes a list of foods that do and do not cause heartburn. The red code warns patients to stop and reconsider the food choice, yellow code advises patients to consume with discretion and the green foods are a go with little potential to cause heartburn. Below is a link to the stop and select food guide.  It was great learning experience to educate the people about heartburn and how to prevent it. My favorite moment of the event was when Herky spun the wheel and tried to answer a heartburn question!

http://balancedconcepts.net/Heartburn_Alliance_chart.pdf 

Speaker – David Zilz

ASHP UI-SHP CHAPTER MEETING

Speaker – David Zilz (10/8/2012)

 

The University of Iowa student club leaders have been really great at having speakers come and spend time with the pharmacy students. This week we had the past president of ASHP, David Zilz, speak to us about health-systems pharmacy and advancing pharmacy practice. I really liked the presentation because it was well researched and presented good resources that I plan to explore. Even though I have a lot to learn about my career in pharmacy, events such as these allow for the development of the skill of life-long learning. To continually attend new events and have new experiences that may present me with an idea or opinion that I might not have considered earlier.  Events such as these spark my desire to think about the direction I would like to lead my career and the actions and experiences I can engage in during pharmacy school. I look forward to continue to hear from engaging speakers as I go through pharmacy school. 

Speakers - Tom Temple and Bill Wimmer

APhA-ASP CHAPTER MEETING

Speakers - Tom Temple and Bill Wimmer (10/1/2012)

Earlier this week, the University of Iowa College of Pharmacy hosted Mr. Tom Temple and Bill Wimmer. Mr. Temple is the former CEO of the Iowa Pharmacy Association (IPA) and Mr. Bill Wimmer is a legislative consultant for the Iowa Pharmacy association. I found it interesting to hear Mr. Temple describe his role in leading the Iowa Pharmacy Association and the reason why Mr. Wimmer was contracted as a legislative consultant.  The reason is that often the general public, including legislators, do not know the job of the pharmacist and it is important to educate them. This education allows legislators to better understand how the legislations they pass actually affect pharmacists. Most often pharmacists are seen in a community setting but in actuality there are a myriad of settings that a pharmacist practices in. It is important to represent all the pharmacists and to build a relationship with our legislators to continually have a positive impact on the profession.  Building relationships with legislators was especially stressed by Mr. Wimmer because it allows for continually teaching legislators about pharmacy and to ensure that legislation that needs to be passed is done accordingly.  By attending this APhA-ASP chapter meeting, I have been able to recognize the importance of being aware of pharmacy legislation and to also work on knowing my legislators. I plan on researching about my legislators and I look forward to attending the IPA legislative day in February at the Iowa State Capitol.