St. Louis College of Pharmacy

Project Description:

During the week of February 13th through the 17th, we conducted a Practice Advancement Initiative (PAI) Week at our University. This week consisted of various events on each day of the week. On Monday the 13th, we started off the week with an informational table set up with free cookies in our cafeteria. At this table we had a bunch of information and brochures about what PAI is and how to get involved in it as well. The second day of PAI week consisted of an event where we had a transitions of care specialist come visit the University to speak to our students about the importance of TOC. We had about 25 students in attendance at this event where we also provided free lunch! On Wednesday, we held a virtual APPE student panel where students had the opportunity to hear from current APPE students about their experiences and how to prepare for APPEs as well. On Thursday of our PAI week, we held an event where we made blankets for the St. Louis Children's hospital! We had about 15 people in attendance and ended up making 15 blankets to donate to the Children's hospital. Lastly, on the final day of our PAI week we ended it with a popcorn machine to have students "pop by" and write down what PAI means to them and where they hope to see the practice of pharmacy in the future.

Describe the ASHP Resources that were used?

For our event ideas and what we wanted to include in our week we began by referencing the PAI 2030 webpage located on the ASHP website. We additionally used the “SSHP Resource Guide: PAI week” in order to get ideas for events and help better understand the basic idea of PAI. Our chapter also reached out to the student portion of ASHP to ask for any promotional materials that ASHP had created for education. The about PAI 2030 PDF guide was handed out during our first event in order to help educate the campus community about what the week was about and why it was important.

How did your SSHP Chapter promote the project?

We promoted the event by utilizing our ASHP-SSHP Facebook page and Instagram account. We created flyers for each event and then posted them onour media sites to spread the word about each event.

Did you include any outside guest to complete this event?

We had a pharmacist come speak to students about transitions of care. Her name was Dr. Carrie Cicirale and she is a transitions of care specialist at Barnes Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri. We thought she would be a perfect fit for this event because we wanted to emphasize the importance of transitions of care and why pharmacists play such an important role in it. Our president had this pharmacist as a preceptor on one of her rotations and then reached out to her about coming to the University to talk about this topic. We also had APPE students collaborate with us for this event as we thought they make have great insight into what can make someone more successful during their APPEs. We also know that pharmacy students will play a large role in advocating for the advancement of pharmacy, so we thought it would great to hear their perspective as well.

What advice would you give to other SSHP's?

One of the biggest pieces of advice that I have for completing an event like PAI week is to take it one step at a time. I think that it is easy to become overwhelmed by all the tasks that need to be completed to pull off an event like this. However, the week will run much smoother if you divide the responsibility up between the members of your team. It is okay to ask for help and the event will be even better if you allow others to help.

AdditionalComments:

I want to give a thank you to my peers, because without their help and support none of these events would be possible!

SSHP Leadership

• Meagan Good, President
• Makenzie Schierding, President Elect
• Jordynne Brown, Chair of Communications
• Lauren Freels, Chair of Seminars
• Marsa Esmaeili Koosej, Clinical Skills Chair
• Paul Kibe, Chair of Residency Preparation