|Student Leadership|
Evolving Pharmacist : Bradenton What motivates students to take on high levels of management or administrative responsibilities.” responsibility? Why is there a dearth of leaders in the Students have taken a keen interest in leadership. pharmacy profession? Four of Dr. Wilkinson’s students — Niyati Patel (P4), Julie Wilkinson, Pharm.D., M.S., thought she Michelle Taylor (P4), Stacey Caponi (P2) and Barbara would find out the answers to those questions and Osei-Sraha (P2) — have had leadership-related artimuch more while teaching LECOM’s Leadership in cles published in The Pharmacy Times. Pharmacy class. “The elective enhanced my views on leadership. I The two-credit elective course was developed so realized that every pharmacist is in a leadership posithat students can engage in exploring their own potion,” says Caponi. “No matter if you are a staff phartential for leadership within the pharmacy profession. macist or community pharmacy manager, pharmacists Wilkinson said leadership is a topic that needs to be are in charge of themselves, their technicians, interns addressed in the curriculum for all Pharm.D. candiand the patients. Leadership should begin in phardates. macy school and continue into the practice setting.” Julie Wilkinson, “When we were first starting the Bradenton pharCaponi and Osei-Sraha coauthored a report on the Pharm.D. macy program, local pharmacy leaders talked about a importance of mentoring. lack of interest in leadership among recent pharmacy grads,” said “Our article addressed how we can use mentoring to recruit leadDr. Wilkinson. “Part of the rationale for the course was to link ers in the pharmacy profession,” says Osei-Sraha. “In our course, we leadership responsibility with the quality of patient care. There is learned that there is a shortage of pharmacy leaders, and through a a need for this skill in all pharmacist positions, not just those with mentorship program more leaders can be developed.”
|Community Service|
Pharmacy Legislative Day: LECOM LECOM School of Pharmacy students joined with other student pharmacists from Pennsylvania and Florida to make their voices heard in their state capitals. The Florida Pharmacists Association (FPA) held its Florida Pharmacist Health Fair and Legislative Days from March 15-16 in Tallahassee, Fla. The Pennsylvania Pharmacists Association (PPA) Legislative Day was held on April 5, in Harrisburg, Pa. During the events, students spoke with lawmakers about the training student pharmacists engage in, while also emphasizing the changes they are pushing for in current pharmacy laws. “The main purpose of these events is to get pharmacy students and professionals from all over the state together as one voice,” said LECOM Erie student Matt Madurski. “We spoke with lawmakers about different legislation and issues that are currently being discussed in the state legislatures to see if we could influence them.” LECOM Bradenton faculty members Fallon Enfinger, Pharm.D., and Stephanie Peshek, Pharm.D., accompanied 18 students to the Florida event. The group was comprised of fourth-year student Janine Manning; third-year students Kamlesh Christian, Sanjay Kohli, Leah Williams, Pinang Balsara, Rochelle Forsyth, Sara Lammers, Kunal Kunani and Danilo Solis; second-year students Melinda Buchanan, Jessica Mayoz, Jon Francisco, Natalie Johnson, Po-An Lu and Anthony Sanchez; and first-year students Henry Tsang, Tolulope Akinbo and Monica Yu. The students met with their local legislators — Sen. Michael Bennett (Bradenton), Rep. Greg Steube (Bradenton), Rep. Doug Holder (Sarasota) and Rep. Betty Reed (Tampa) — and sat in on an appropriations committee meeting. They also volunteered at a health fair, providing blood pressure, glucose, cholesterol and body composition screenings for the public.
20 | LECOM CONNECTION | SUMMER 2011
LECOM Pharmacy students from the Erie campus who participated in Legislative Days included, from right: School of Pharmacy Dean Hershey Bell, M.D., M.S.; Rebecca Bollinger; Arthur Malahimov; Kelsey Laks; Denise Traficante; Matt Madurski; Brooke Spino; Amanda Sommer; Erika Gould; Megan Groshner; Arpit Mehta; and Assistant Professor Bojana Stevich, Pharm.D., M.S.
Students were also briefed on current issues facing pharmacists by lobbyists and executives from the FPA and Florida Society of Health System Pharmacists. Currently, some of the hot button issues include proposals to allow pharmacy interns the ability to give immunizations, expanding the number of immunizations pharmacists can give, and supporting the controlled substance database to prevent the abuse of prescription drugs. The FPA has opposed a proposed requirement to have Medicaid prescriptions filled by mail-order, which would eliminate the