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ICHP Pharmacy Technician of the Year Award

Get to Know Me and What I Learned - Andrew Gibbs

by Andrew Gibbs, 2015 UIC-Rockford, PharmD Candidate

Hello everybody. My name is Andrew Gibbs and I am a fourth year pharmacy student at the University of Illinois Chicago – Rockford campus. I grew up and attended high school in the very small town of Milledgeville, Illinois. After high school, I attended Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE) for two years.  I was accepted into UIC – Rockford as part of the Rural Pharmacy (RPharm) program at which time I moved to Rockford. I am currently employed at The Medicine Shoppe in Sterling, Illinois, where I have worked during summers and breaks as a pharmacy intern since 2010.

My interest in pharmacy began during my senior year of high school when I was applying for colleges and had no idea what I wanted to do. I was always drawn toward the medical field and pharmacy seemed like the best match for me, as I enjoyed science and math. After my freshman year of college I applied at all of the local pharmacies back home and was given an opportunity by an independent pharmacy owner who has been my mentor throughout pharmacy school. Working at a pharmacy in a small town, you get to know all of your patients on a first name basis, which is vital to developing a trusting relationship with them. My work experience, as well as skills I have learned during my APPEs, will benefit my patients when I graduate and hopefully, when I return to the community.

During my four years at UIC-Rockford, I was involved in organizations including APhA, IPhA, and NCPA. Through a member of these organizations, I was provided opportunities to volunteer in the Rockford community. In addition to attending blood pressure and blood glucose screenings, I participated in medication take back day through Keep Northern Illinois Beautiful for the past three years. During my P3 year, I was elected an executive position as secretary of the UIC-Rockford chapter of NCPA. This position allowed me to expand upon and develop my leadership skills. I also volunteered for two years to talk to rural high school students from northern Illinois about the profession of pharmacy.

When I am not at school, on rotations, or studying, I have several hobbies and activities that I enjoy doing. One of the most self-fulfilling things that I enjoy doing is exercising. It allows me to stay healthy and is a great stress reducer from pharmacy school. I also have a dog that takes up a majority of my spare time and keeps me busy. During this past year, most of my free time has been devoted to studying or working on projects during APPEs. When I do have a day off, I try to make it back to see my family as often as possible.

As I am writing this and counting down the days to graduation, I am wondering where I will end up. I am hoping that there will be a position open for me at my current place of employment that involves implementing the clinical skills that I have acquired though my pharmacy school training. In the future, I plan on being involved in organizations that I believe in and that will help me get the most out of my career and practice. Through my participation in the RPharm program, I learned to be a member of an interdisciplinary team and want to be a part of that in practice. When I have some experience under my belt, I eventually want to be a preceptor to students and provide them with a unique experience.

During the past 5 weeks, I have been on my APPE rotation at ICHP in Loves Park with ICHP Vice President Scott Meyers and fellow UIC-Rockford student Dominique Sowell. I have enjoyed learning while on this rotation and appreciate the opportunities to get involved while here. I have been involved with numerous committee meetings and I have had opportunities to travel to Chicago for a meeting with law makers and a trip to my former undergraduate campus, SIUE. While on rotation, I have learned the importance of getting involved with state legislature when it comes to bills affecting the pharmacy profession. I always knew that this was important but until I spent time with Scott, I never knew how much it really mattered to my future profession. I am also taking away from this rotation the amount of work that goes into making an organization successful and beneficial to its members. In addition, I was also involved in reviewing CE material for pharmacy technicians and learning about the ACPE accreditation process. My classmate and I also drafted a position statement on medical marijuana that was sent to the committee and drafted rules for the Tech-Check-Tech program.

Get to Know Me and What I Learned - Dominique Sowell

by Dominique Sowell, University of Illinois at Chicago College Of Pharmacy-Rockford Campus, 2015 Pharm.D. Candidate

Hello all! My name is Dominique Sowell and I am a fourth year pharmacy student at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Pharmacy – Rockford Campus.  Born and raised in Rockford, Illinois, I received my high school diploma from Auburn High School. I decided to further my education by attending Xavier University of Louisiana (XULA). I graduated magna cum laude and with honors from XULA with a Bachelor of Science in biology, with Minors in chemistry and accounting in 2011. I decided to move back to my home-town and matriculated to UIC College of Pharmacy- Rockford in fall 2011.

During my first year of pharmacy school, I joined several pharmacy organizations to help give back to the community I grew up in. I am currently a member of ICHP, APhA, SNPhA, and AMCP. I have participated in numerous blood pressure, blood glucose, immunization and educational events during my time at UIC. As an advocate of furthering the pharmacy profession, I have participated in ICHP’s Legislative Day three times. I competed in UIC’s Pharmacy and Therapeutics Competition in 2014 as a member of AMCP. This competition helped me to develop a variety of crucial skills that pharmacists who serve on P&T committees use to determine which medications will be included on a formulary. I participated in the 2014 Urban Health Program’s Pipeline events for high school students. These events were designed to provide high school students with exposure to the wide array of healthcare professions available and allowed me to become a mentor to high school students in the Rockford area. I was also one of four P4 students chosen to represent the UIC- Rockford campus during ACPE accreditation in 2014.

In my free time, I enjoy volunteer work, community service, and spending time with family. While in college at Xavier, I was a tutor in biology, chemistry and math and assisted my peers in their studies. I volunteer as a Tax Preparer with the Goodwill in Rockford, where I utilize my skills in accounting to help low income families file their taxes annually. I am also a lecturer at St. Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Rockford. Additional hobbies include reading and running. I recently signed up for the Color Vibe 5K run in Rockford and am now training for the competition. I am newly engaged to my high school sweetheart, Ronald Webb, Jr. We plan on tying the knot in summer 2016.

Through my pharmacy education and the many experiences in different healthcare settings, I have learned the importance of effective communication and collaboration with other members of the healthcare team, which is vital to providing optimal patient care and safety. UIC College of Pharmacy at Rockford has provided me with the knowledge and expertise necessary to become an exceptional pharmacist. Upon graduation, I plan on working as a community pharmacist. I am currently looking for employment in northern Illinois.

For my last APPE rotation, I have spent the past 5 weeks at ICHP Association Headquarters in Loves Park, IL with VP Scott Meyers as my preceptor. I have had the opportunity to partake in numerous regulatory meetings. I even got the chance to travel to Chicago to meet with lawmakers and other pharmacy associations to discuss differing points of view on new legislation affecting pharmacy practice. I worked with Andrew Gibbs, another P4 student on rotation at ICHP from UIC-Rockford, on a rough draft of ICHP’s position statement on medical marijuana and submitted it to the professional affairs committee for further review. We also developed a rough outline of the JCAR’s Illinois Pharmacy Rules regarding the Tech-Check-Tech program and submitted them to Mr. Meyers for revision. I have learned about the ACPE accreditation process and what is required in developing and offering Continued Education (CE) courses for both pharmacists and pharmacy technicians. I was fortunate to be able to aid in the revision of a Pharmacy Tech Topics module. Andrew Gibbs and I co-authored a career center article titled, Navigating Pharmacy Career Search in Today’s Changing Job Market.  

Spending my last six weeks of rotation at ICHP headquarters has been delightful. I have learned so much from Mr. Meyers and the ICHP staff. Prior to this rotation, I had no idea about the enormous amount of work that goes into running a pharmacy organization. I have gained a greater appreciation of ICHP and will be a lifelong advocate and member!

Call for Entries: 2015 Best Practice Award

President's Message
Pharmacy Residencies

by Linda Fred, ICHP President

As we have recently gone through residency matching season, I thought this might be a good time to reflect on that topic. It was a very successful match this year with more than 3600 applicants matching with a position. The percentage of PGY1s who matched increased by 6.5% over last year – and for PGY2s the increase was 12.5% higher than last year. Those are some nice increases, but it still left more than 1500 PGY1 applicants without a match – and only 270 positions remaining for the post-match process, and 208 applicants for 112 positions for PGY2s. So, there is still some work to do here.

I freely admit - I’m part of the problem. I have been “talking about” starting a residency at my practice for probably five years. Something always seems to get in the way. I’m too busy --- we’re too short staffed --- it’s too much work. There are always reasons not to do it, even though they might not be very good ones, the biggest one usually being “I just don’t have time.”

Let’s talk about some reasons to do it, though.

Residency training is good for our patients. Residency training produces a cadre of pharmacists with the advanced practice experience we need to take care of our aging population with the associated myriad of chronic diseases. The needs of the patients in a team based model of care are best served with pharmacists as an integral part of that team and the better trained we are, the better we are able to serve the important role in medication therapy management that we need to fulfill.

Residency training is good for the profession. Population health management is the future of medicine. I talked a little bit last month about team based care in an acute care facility, but team based care is ballooning in the ambulatory world. Systems are looking for additional ways of extending the primary care practice access and pharmacists can be another extender. Many pharmacists have been bemoaning the increased number of pharmacists in the marketplace. The growth in number of schools, as well as the growth in admissions in existing schools, has even created a glut in some regions of the nation. But there is still a lot of growth happening related to the Affordable Care Act, and although we are doing more and more outpatient management, hospital censuses continue to be strong in many places. At least in my world, we are continuing to hire more pharmacists. And we are asking them to take on greater levels of responsibility in every setting. Residency training supports this growth in intellectual demand.

Residency training is good for the hosting organization. Residencies bring in financial support – to the extent that they are basically self-sustaining once you are past the start-up. The bigger “win” is in the scope of services supported by residents. In the same way that pharmacists are able to extend the reach of a provider’s service, residents help extend the reach of a pharmacy department’s service. Residents are commonly used to investigate, pilot, and implement new services. They are engaged in research. They are the extra support you need for the extra things you and your staff always wanted to do and never seemed to find the time to do. They also provide a built-in mentoring system for the pharmacists and a residency is great for professional staff recruitment (both pharmacists and other professional staff).

Residency training is good for the individual pharmacist. I think it is obvious that residency training opens career doors – but it’s more than that. Residence training builds a kind of professional poise, a level of confidence that eases integration into the professional team.

I know I am preaching to the choir for a lot of you, but the point of this is really to reach the people out there like me: those of you who have the desire, who have a suitable practice site, who have the depth of staff resources to support the program, who have a medical staff that is begging for more services, who have a desire to do more research. You all know who you are. It’s time to step up. Look again at the short list of benefits I’ve listed. I’m sure it isn’t a comprehensive list. But after looking at this list, I think it is apparent that the benefits far outweigh the things that are keeping you from moving ahead with the program. This is important enough and beneficial enough for you to make yourself make the time to get it done.  

If you don’t have a residency program but have a practice site that can support one, I urge you to make the move this year. The recommended window for your accreditation application to take residents starting in July 2016 is July 1st through September 30th this year. The ASHP website has a tremendous wealth of resources to help you get started. There are workshops at the ASHP national meetings. The colleges of pharmacy have resources available to support starting residencies. Existing residencies will help you start your residency. ICHP is exploring starting a residency directors’ network. There are many people out there who will help you take the plunge.  

It was a great resident match this year – strong improvement over last year – but still not good enough! We still left almost 2000 applicants without a residency option. Make this year the year you move your practice site to the next level! We’ll see you at Midyear at the Residency Showcase!

ASHP press release on this year’s match:

http://www.ashp.org/menu/News/NewsCapsules/Article.aspx?id=1567

ASHP Residency Resources:

http://www.ashp.org/menu/Residency/ResidencyAccreditation

Directly Speaking
Where’s the Beef?!

by Scott A. Meyers, Executive Vice President

New Practitioners Network
Crucial Conversations in Hospital Pharmacy Practice: Relevance to the New Practitioner

by Michael Cusumano, PharmD, PGY1 Pharmacy Resident HSHS St. John’s Hospital

The importance of strong communication in healthcare has gained attention in recent years. Poor communication has been among the most commonly attributed root causes for medication-related sentinel events reported to The Joint Commission since 2004,¹ and in 2006, the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality and the Department for Defense jointly released the TeamSTEPPS toolkit, an evidence-based approach to enhancing team communication and performance.² TeamSTEPPS is now being systematically implemented in several Regional Training Centers across the United States and in the coming years it will be evaluated with respect to whether this training improves patient outcomes. The new practitioner, however, may find that communication challenges are not uniquely encountered during clinical decision making. New practitioners may need, for the first time in their careers, to discuss scheduling disagreements with fellow pharmacists, provide recommendations or feedback on workflow or process changes, address complaints or suggestions made by employees in other departments, or participate in committees or other meetings attended by managers and administrators. Those interested in the topic of effective communication may enjoy the broad perspectives and insights of the mainstream-oriented bestseller Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High.³

First published in 2002, this book seeks to provide guidance on holding effective conversations where “(1) stakes are high, (2) opinions vary, and (3) emotions run strong.” The authors do explicitly comment on the importance of communication in healthcare, referencing incidents of wrong-site surgery and the statistic of 98,000 annual preventable inpatient deaths from To Err is Human. Greater emphasis is given to general workplace interactions and familial or spousal disagreements. There were two insights in this book that I have found to be absolutely spot-on and relevant to professional interactions in healthcare: the concepts of “silence or violence” and the “shared pool of meaning.”

Silence or Violence

I learned several useful communication tools from the TeamSTEPPS model that have helped me to speak up when I observe a safety risk. In practice, however, it can sometimes be difficult to differentiate a safety issue from a clinical decision that I do not understand due to my own lack of clinical experience as a new practitioner. The concept of “silence or violence” from Crucial Conversations provides some insight on our potentially inadequate behavior in these circumstances. It is an approximate paraphrase of “fight or flight,” and it suggests that it is natural for otherwise mature professionals to inappropriately remain silent – or, alternatively, to speak with counter-productive hostility – when we do not know how to better address a potential disagreement.

The “silence or violence” response is a potential pitfall for the new practitioner in each of the situations described above.  I have found that it is particularly easy to fall into this trap regarding process complaints from other departments or professionals. For example, if a nurse expresses frustration with a pharmacy-related process, such as missing medications, it is easy to passively accept the criticism and hope it doesn’t recur.  Worse, it is tempting to become defensive and accuse the nurse of having unreasonable expectations. The bulk of the book’s chapters provide advice on moving beyond this “silence or violence” gridlock with strategies termed “Start with Heart,” “Learn to Look,” “Make it Safe,” and others. These strategies reflect, respectively, verifying one’s own good intentions in conversation, maintaining vigilance for signs that oneself or others are feeling unsafe in a conversation, and increasing others’ comfort in speaking openly. Fortunately, for the task of addressing inter-professional process complaints, the new practitioner usually isn’t responsible for having a complete “crucial conversation" on the spot. It is often sufficient to relay the complaint to a manager and follow up to see what steps you can take in addressing it. The key insight provided by the book is that our naturally avoidant or defensive response to a complaint does not help solve the underlying problem.

Shared Pool of Meaning

The authors of Crucial Conversations argue that the ultimate goal of many of their tools is to ensure that all relevant information is known to everyone having the crucial conversation; that is, the goal is to expand a shared pool of meaning.  In my brief experience as a new practitioner, this has been a helpful concept for avoiding the pitfall of “silence or violence.” Instead of trying to decide whether I am concerned or uncomfortable about a potential safety issue, I often just need to clarify what I am observing or ask for more information. Similarly, when others are making a decision with which I disagree, I do not need to work up the nerve to tell them that I disagree. Instead, the first step is to clarify that they have the same information that I do.

As such, some of the verbiage I picked up as a student has required refinement. As a student, I often tried to approach practitioners with an explicit recommendation or intervention. As a pharmacist, there are probably more situations in which I have to ask a question or clarify that another provider was aware of certain information than there are situations where I am immediately ready to make an intervention.

In the coming decades, I believe that research on communication in healthcare will equip us with robust communication tools to confidently address at least those exchanges with other providers where we need to collaborate in clinical decision-making. In the meantime, I have found the above-described concepts useful in guiding my transition from student to practitioner.

References

1.      The Joint Commission. Sentinel event data: Root causes by event type 2004 – 2Q 2014 (Sept 2014). http://www.jointcommission.org/assets/1/18/Root_Causes_by_Event_Type_2004-2Q_2014.pdf (accessed 2015 Feb 23).

2.     King HB, Battles J, Baker DP, Alonso A, Salas E, Webster J, Toomey L, Salisbury M. TeamSTEPPS(™): Team Strategies and Tools to Enhance Performance and Patient Safety. In: Henriksen K, Battles JB, Keyes MA, Grady ML, editors. Advances in patient Safety:  New directions and alternative approaches (Vol. 3: Performance and Tools). Rockville (MD): Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (US); 2008 Aug.

Patterson K, Grenny J, McMillan R, Switzler A. Crucial conversations: Tools for talking when the stakes are high. 2nd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill; 2012.

Educational Affairs
Growing Pharmacy Together – A Tale of Two Associations

by Trish Wegner, BS Pharm, Pharm.D., FASHP

2015 marks the year when we collaborate with our neighboring association, the Missouri Society of Health-System Pharmacists, to host our Spring Meeting. It was a perfect marriage of the presidential themes of “collaborate” for ICHP and “garden” for MSHP. This collaborative effort allows us to share ideas, see “old” friends and meet new friends – a perfect environment for growth.

Prepping the soil was our keynote, Dr. Michael Frisina, who spoke of the need to work harmoniously with others and have a committed workforce to ensure optimal patient care. He shared a memorable formula: Performance = fx (Technical Skill) (Behavior Skill).  In other words, performance occurs when you have a function of both technical skill and behavior skill. If either is zero, there is no performance – ten times zero is still zero. So you can have someone with a high level of skill, but if they are not willing or able to work well with others, the end result's performance is not up to par. We all have a part to play in the healthcare world. Each day of the meeting was planned and planted with presentations to nurture our continuing professional development.

The poster session provided a bumper crop of projects with 47 poster submissions total – a new record! Congratulations to all the winners: Best Original poster – Kushal Shah for “Evaluating pharmacists’ role in Hepatitis C treatment”, Best Encore poster – Ed Rainville for “Pharmacy consults on adult hospitalized patients with delirium”, and Best Student poster (tie) – Blaine Johnson for “A business plan to enhance access to quality care among veterans in rural communities” and Megan Ashley LeBaron for “The forgotten transition of care: Discharge protocol from hospital to community pharmacy”. Winner of the Best Platform presentation was Michael Santini for “Vancomycin use and monitoring following rapid testing of bloodstream cultures for Staphylococci and oxacillin susceptibility”. The other platform presenter, which represents the highest scored original research poster abstract submission, was Bryan McCarthy for “Effect of new services and related marketing on employee e-prescription capture rate in an academic medical center retail pharmacy”. ICHP collaborated with MSHP to judge each other’s posters. Congratulations to the MSHP winners and many thanks to all the poster judges and abstract reviewers for volunteering their talents.

Nothing can flourish without the sun, and the exhibit program provided that much needed sunshine – ongoing and necessary support and information for our continued growth. Many thanks to our meeting Silver Sponsors Astellas, Chiesi, Daiichi-Sankyo, and Omnicell. Lots of thanks to all of our exhibitors – we had 42 in all. We could not offer such quality programming for our low registration fee without them.

Gardens need planning and pruning – plants may need to be moved to a better location, trees need to be cleared of any dead branches. So, too, our organization needs to be evaluated

and tweaked. The Town Hall is one way to do that – an opportunity for our members to tell us what needs fixing and what is working well. ICHP plans to continue offering a Town Hall at each state-wide meeting and we need your input. This is the only way we can grow and sustain our services and membership. Suggestions at the Town Hall will be discussed and reviewed at an upcoming ICHP Board meeting.

Thanks to all of you who participated in the meeting! You enriched our collective experience and helped us to grow pharmacy together! Every speaker and poster presenter offered seeds of knowledge accompanied by a sprinkling of networking with colleagues, ultimately creating a colorful and bountiful garden.

Help us in “Playing Our Part: Providing Excellent Patient Care” by attending the ICHP Annual Meeting September 10th through the 12th at the Drury Lane Conference Center in Oakbrook Terrace. It will be another great opportunity to learn and collaborate. See you there!

To view more pictures from the 2015 Spring Meeting visit -  

http://ichpnet.org/spring.php

Leadership Profile
Alicia Juska, PharmD, BCPS, Residency Program Director, Swedish Covenant Hospital

Where did you go to pharmacy school? 

University of Illinois - College of Pharmacy

Trace your professional history since graduation: where have you trained / worked, any special accomplishments?

I graduated from the University of Illinois in Chicago where I received my PharmD degree and went on to complete my Pharmacy Practice Residency (PGY-1) at Evanston Northwestern Healthcare (ENH), which is now a part of the NorthShore University Health System. After residency, I was hired as a clinical pharmacist at Swedish Covenant Hospital (SCH), focusing on critical care. While staffing, I became involved with many department projects which led to my participation on several hospital committees. As we have a progressive practice site, I have been fortunate to present several posters at the ASHP Clinical Meetings regarding some of our pharmacist driven protocols, including heparin, insulin, procalcitonin, and sedation. I have also been a speaker at two of the ICHP Spring Meetings. In addition, recently three co-workers and I published a literature review on statin-associated incident diabetes in the Consultant Pharmacist.

Describe your current area of practice and practice setting.

I worked as a clinical pharmacist, obtained board certification, and am now the Residency Program Director. I started a new PGY-1 pharmacy residency at SCH, with four residents. In addition to developing a new program and structure, creating a residency manual and policies, preceptor education and motivation was key. The SCH PGY-1 residency is now in its second year. In addition, I currently serve as the Institutional Review Board Coordinator, editor of the Pharmacy and Therapeutics Newsletter, and a member of the Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee, Graduate Medical Education Committee, and lead the Residency Advisory Committee.  

What initially motivated you to get involved, and what benefits do you see in being active in a professional association such as ICHP?

Even as a student, I have always been involved in professional organizations. It is a great way to meet people, exchange ideas, and get energized about the profession. At every meeting you are able to speak with pharmacists throughout the country, find out current practice trends, and learn how various parts of the country deal with global issues affecting the pharmacy profession. My Director of Pharmacy, Ramesh Patel, re-introduced me to ICHP several years ago by encouraging me to speak at an ICHP Spring meeting. Being an active member of ICHP allows you to build a network of pharmacists with whom you can share ideas in order to learn about the profession, what is new, and what challenges are facing us in the future. Also, it is fun to reconnect with friends from school or previous colleagues working at other organizations.

What advice would you give to a new practitioner eager to become more involved within ICHP? To the new grad? To the student? 

This can apply to all three: Start small but get involved and talk to people. Attend a local meeting, talk to ICHP members, and ask about how you can get involved. Review the ICHP website for ideas and contact key people to join a sub-committee or submit an article to KeePosted. For the new grad, sign up to be a student mentor or serve as a poster reviewer. Also ask co-workers or preceptors who are ICHP members how they got more involved with the organization and if they know of any opportunities.

Is there an individual you admire or look up to, or a mentor that has influenced your career?

I have worked with many great clinicians and leaders during my career who have contributed to my personal and professional growth; however there are two individuals that I need to highlight. My mother, Irena Juska, Consultant Pharmacist at HCR-ManorCare, has been a great mentor and role model. She is committed to the profession and very dedicated to life-long learning. Prior to long-term care consulting and precepting students, she worked in multiple facets of pharmacy including owning her own retail pharmacy and being a Director of Pharmacy at La Rabida Children’s Hospital. She has always been a strong promoter of the pharmacy profession and its versatility. She has been a leader and active member in several pharmacy organizations throughout her career. She has always encouraged me to work hard and aim high when setting goals and then supported me until I reached those goals. She leads by example and has given me positive encouragement every step of the way. My second mentor is Zoon Park, previous Assistant Director at SCH. He is an extremely dedicated, hard-working, and well-read individual. We worked together over a decade and I admired how he embodied using evidence-based literature and team work to solve any pharmacy related issue.  On a personal level, he pushed me to constantly challenge myself and the status quo in order to improve. He always worked with you when something was hard with a favorite quote, “We learn together, we go together.” His constant encouragement during my time at SCH has definitely led to many of my professional achievements.      

As a newer practitioner, what is your vision for pharmacy in the future? Or what would you like to able to see accomplished within pharmacy?

It is my hope that pharmacists receive healthcare provider status in the near future. Pharmacists are highly trained, with many practitioners having gone on to complete residencies and obtain further certifications. Collectively we could do so much more for patient care if we receive legal authority to do so. I think the future possibilities for our profession could be endless, however we need to be creative in how to best maximize our impact on healthcare.     

What three adjectives would people use to best describe you?

Organized

Dedicated

Detail-oriented

Do you have any special interests or hobbies outside of pharmacy/work/school? Special accomplishments?

Any time I can spend outside is great.  I enjoy running, biking, and walking my dog along the Lakefront path.  I have always loved reading and watching movies.  Also, I love traveling, especially to beach destinations.  

Do you have a favorite restaurant/food?

Going out for tapas with my friends always guarantees a fun night out. Café Ba Ba Reeba has always been a great place, offering many sangria flavors. I like the idea of sharing small plates so that you can taste more dishes. 

Where is your favorite place to vacation?

Hawaii is my favorite place. There is something magical about those islands, where you feel relaxed the moment you get off the plane. The snorkeling, beaches, and flowers are amazing. Every island has a different character to it, but all are beautiful and the people are so happy and friendly.  

What is the most interesting/unique fact about yourself that few people know?

In the last three years I have developed a new passion for running. What started out as a challenge because I could not do it has turned into an activity that I really enjoy. In less than a year, I have run five half marathons and am currently training for the Chicago Marathon this year.

ICHPeople
2015 ICHP Student Awards

The Illinois Council of Health-System Pharmacists is an organization composed of health-system pharmacists who strive to improve the delivery of pharmaceutical services in Illinois institutions.  The  organization recognizes that participation by the pharmacy student is important and necessary.  As a result, the Illinois Council of Health-System Pharmacists wishes to grant a monetary award to a pharmacy student at each of the Illinois Colleges of Pharmacy based on the following criteria:

1. The recipient must be in the next to last professional year of the curriculum.

2. The recipient must be active in professional organizations and demonstrate a high degree of character and leadership.

3. The recipient must demonstrate outstanding scholastic abilities; a grade point average of greater than a 3.0 (based on a 4.0 system) representing a “B” average.

4. The recipient must be a student member of the Illinois Council of Health-System Pharmacists.

5. The recipient must have a past history of employment in a hospital or health-system as a student pharmacist.

6. The recipient must be an Illinois resident or Illinois high school graduate.

Selection of the Recipient

The selection of the recipient for the Illinois Council of Health-System Pharmacists’ Student Award should be determined by the Student Scholarship and Awards Committee of the College of Pharmacy and the Dean of the College of Pharmacy with approval of the Board of Directors of ICHP. The award consists of a scholarship of $500 and a plaque for permanent recognition.

Government Affairs Report
Moving Forward Slowly

by Jim Owen and Scott Meyers

The Transition from President Elect to President

by Whitney Maher (P2), President-Elect and Kimberlee Kabbes (P3), President Southern Illinois University Edwardsville

6th Annual Residency Panel held at Chicago State University

by Hanh Nguyen, P3 Student, SSHP Vice President, Chicago State University College of Pharmacy

CHICAGO, ILL –ICHP-SSHP students at Chicago State University held its 6th Annual Residency Panel on campus March 3rd.  

APPE Tips From A Seasoned Student

by Alex Mersch, 2015 Pharm.D. Candidate Roosevelt University

Officers and Board of Directors

Welcome New Members!

Family Night at the Ballpark

2015 Student Video Contest

Upcoming Events

                                                                                                                                                

                                                                             

Thursday, May 14 at 12pm & Wednesday, May 20 at 3pm  

Champion Webinar on Allergic Emergencies (pharmacists and technicians)

Wednesday, May 27

New Practitioners Network & Pharmacy Directors Network Night at the Ballpark

Chicago Cubs vs. Washington Nationals

Wrigley Field | Chicago, IL

Wednesday, June 3 at 3pm & Wednesday, June 24 at 12pm

Champion Webinar on Blood Clotting Disorders and Factors (technicians)

Wednesday, July 1

Submission Deadline! 2015 Best Practice Award Entries

Thursday, July 16

SSHP Night at the Ballpark

Springfield Sliders vs. West Virginia Miners

Springfield Sliders Baseball Club | Springfield, IL

Saturday, July 18th 7:45am-3pm

Habitat for Humanity Women Build

119th & S Union Ave in the West Pullman neighborhood in Chicago

Thursday, September 10 - Saturday, September 12

ICHP 2015 Annual Meeting

Pharmacist & Technician-specific CPE programming

Drury Lane Conference Center | Oakbrook Terrace, IL