First-year pharmacy student selected finalist for national patient counseling competition
Kim Chaudoin |
First-year student pharmacist Seth Meyer may be one of the newer members of the Lipscomb University College of Pharmacy community but he is already making history.
Meyer has been selected as a national finalist in the American Pharmacists Association Academy of Student Pharmacists (APhA-ASP) Patient Counseling Competition, becoming the first in school history to accomplish this feat. He will compete with nine other finalists in the national competition at the APhA Annual Meeting & Exposition March 22-25 in Orlando, Florida.
"I am so proud of Seth for becoming a national finalist in the Patient Counseling Competition. What is extraordinary about this is the fact that Seth is only in his first year of the program,” says Tom Campbell, dean of the College of Pharmacy. “Making it to this level is a testament to Seth's work ethic and dedication to his studies. It also is another indicator of the great work being done by our faculty to prepare our students for the important job of medication counseling. I look forward to hearing about Seth's final round performance in Orlando at the national meeting."
The goal of the APhA-ASP National Patient Counseling Competition is to encourage student pharmacists in their efforts to become better patient educators. The competition is designed to reflect changes that are occurring in practice, to promote and encourage further professional development of the student pharmacist and to reinforce the role of the pharmacist as a health care provider and educator.
“Being selected as a top 10 finalist has been nothing short of a blessing and honor. A common saying that goes around is that student pharmacists often lack confidence in their work and capabilities. While I felt more confident in my intellectual capacities after beginning my time in the program, I never felt confident that I could effectively communicate with patients,” says Meyer, of Mt. Juliet, Tennessee. “As a result, being selected as a top 10 finalist has skyrocketed my confidence in my ability to interact with patients and communicate with the best outcomes, especially after finding out that I am the first student in Lipscomb's College of Pharmacy history to be a national top 10 finalist. I am so thankful for the opportunity, and I can only imagine what growth I will experience by the time I finish my fourth year.”
The preliminary round of the competition included a virtual session where student pharmacists counsel "patients" who roleplay certain situations based on the medication. Before interacting with the patients, participants are given five minutes to prepare to counsel on the medication selected for them. They are required to counsel on several parts of the medication, including its indication, dose, dosage form, side effects, warnings/contraindications, storage, what to do if a dose is missed and how many refills are available. While the competition involves understanding the medications, the primary judging aspect of the competition is how well student pharmacists communicate with patients.
The competition begins on the local level as students compete to be the national representative from their school or college of pharmacy. The national competition is divided into the preliminary round and the final round. In the preliminary round, students select a simple practice scenario at random and must counsel a patient on the appropriate use of the drug involved. Meyer competed against more than 120 students from across the nation who won their local college APhA competitions. Evaluations are based on the content and style of the counseling presentations. The ten highest-scoring participants are then invited to the final round.
The final round involves a more complex counseling situation where the participants again select a prescription at random and are asked to counsel the patient on safe and effective drug use. In addition, the patient in the final round will display personality characteristics such as anxiousness, hostility or apathy to challenge the participants' ability to convey pertinent information in a realistic situation.
While Meyer is in his first year as a Pharm.D. student, he is also working simultaneously on finishing his undergraduate degree through Lipscomb’s 3+1 Health Sciences: Pre-Pharmacy major track. He is on track to graduate in May with his bachelor’s degree.
Meyer’s interest in a career in pharmacy stemmed from a friend who was pursuing the profession.
“I decided very late in my high school years that I wanted to pursue pharmacy as a career. I had a very impactful experience with pharmacy as a senior in high school where I struggled with my health at one point,” he explains. “I remember meeting with a pharmacist after receiving a new prescription and getting my questions answered at a time that was full of anxiety and concern for my health. While all members of the healthcare team are important, I felt a great connection to pharmacy as one of the most accessible healthcare professions. I continue to follow my motivations or my ‘why’ which is to impact other patients and lessen their anxiety in the same way that mine was lessened during my senior year.”
After attending Lipscomb for his undergraduate studies, choosing the university’s program for pharmacy was a simple decision, he said. The small class sizes and opportunities to know professors deeply on a professional and personal level are some of the things Meyer says he likes most about Lipscomb.
“Moving forward into a doctoral program, I knew that making connections with faculty would be even more important,” says Meyer. “I felt confident that Lipscomb's pharmacy school would provide the same level of intentionality that I felt in undergrad. Along with being familiar with the environment, Lipscomb's College of Pharmacy has received numerous recognitions and strong numbers when it comes to students passing the NAPLEX, being selected for residencies and earning jobs after graduation.”
Meyer believes firmly that Lipscomb’s College of Pharmacy will help him realize his goal of becoming a pharmacist.
“I have so much love for Lipscomb's pharmacy program. The number of mentors I have found since starting last August has been such a blessing as I continue to grow into the profession,” shares Meyer. “The faculty clearly have a passion for teaching student pharmacists, and the opportunities for leadership, employment and learning are incredible. I feel that I have been called into this profession due to my passion for learning, teaching and patient care, and Lipscomb's program has only further developed those passions of mine.”
He continues, “There are so many opportunities to get involved as a P1 (first-year student), so I can only imagine all the opportunities I will pursue by the time I graduate from the program.”