Alyssa Ferrie, Week 4

Week four has come to an end. Again I can’t believe how quickly the weeks have gone. I attended my first ever Board of Pharmacy meeting on Wednesday. It was wonderful to see so many students! Batool Dawood gave a fantastic presentation about the results of her survey which assessed the community pharmacist’s ability to counsel in a typical retail setting. We all are aware of the demands placed on pharmacists, technicians, and students in busy community pharmacies. Batool’s project has provided real data about patient counseling in current practice. Her results have shown us that we have some work to do to enable pharmacists to deliver optimal counseling in all settings. I am confident that you will be hearing more about this soon! On Thursday I attended the Public Affairs and Policy Committee and Community Pharmacy Business Coalition meetings. Most of the agenda focused on reviewing the Board of Pharmacy’s proposed legislative changes which were initially presented on Wednesday. I was able to witness firsthand how MPhA works with the board on important policy issues. I was amazed at our MPhA members’ ability to critically evaluate the proposed changes and their affect on pharmacists, pharmacy staff, the practice, and most importantly patients. There was a lot of good discussion and I am confident that MPhA and the Board of Pharmacy will continue to work hard together on reviewing the proposed changes and collaborating on language that both protects the public and the profession. My fun event for the week was presenting with Julie at the Minnesota Pharmacy Student Alliance meeting at the college. We did a quick overview of MPhA and ways that students can get involved. I encourage everyone to look into the many volunteer opportunities available or simply attend an upcoming event! I decided to take my own advice and volunteer to be a member of the steering committee which will be focusing on proposed practice act changes.  I’m excited about this opportunity to stay involved with MPhA after my rotation is over! I better get back to work on my journal article…