Pharmacy Students Qualify for National Competition

It’s normally hot in Charlotte, NC, in the summer, and it likely will be in July, when the Student National Pharmaceutical Association (SNPhA) holds their national meeting and 2018 Clinical Skills Competition.

However, after winning SNPhA’s regional competition, James L. Winkle College of Pharmacy PharmD students Brandon McCrea (‘18) and Tommy Montgomery (’19), will be bringing some heat of their own.

"Coming off the win at regionals, we’re fired up and confident, and looking to bring back the national title to the college,” Montgomery says of their March 2018, Region III win in New Orleans.

The SNPhA Clinical Skills Competition is a test of pharmacy student skills using mock patient cases in order to test for student knowledge of recommendations for over-the-counter drugs, profiles for drug interactions and counseling techniques.

Students first compete at the collegiate level, regionals and then nationals.

Winkle College of Pharmacy was one of 28 university teams that competed at regionals.

"The focus of the regional meeting competitions is to evaluate teams as they conduct a patient counseling session which features issues seen in a community pharmacy setting, says Pat Achoe, PharmD, the college’s director of equity and inclusion, a position funded in part by the Kroger Co., a SNPhA sponsor.

The Kroger Co., she says, has been a continuous supporter and advocate of the SNPhA Clinical Skills Competition program, which allows SNPhA members to develop and enhance their clinical pharmacy skills.

Montgomery says it was "fulfilling knowing that all the countless hours of preparing in the college skills lab and therapeutics classes, along with a great education from UC was paying off … I knew no one would be disappointed in us if we didn’t win, but I really wanted this for us, and the college.”

"The competition was a blast!” says McCrea, adding that the skills and knowledge that the college has instilled in them was able to be highlighted at the competition and "will make me an overall better pharmacist.”