Four chapters, one goal

All APhA–ASP Chapters share a common goal: to provide care to patients and the community while advocating for the profession. Student pharmacists do this every day in some type of way, either individually or with peers at their schools. So why not take it a step further and bring the forces together? As chapter leaders at four different schools that are geographically close within Region 2, we had a unique opportunity to travel a short distance and meet in the City of Brotherly Love!

During American Pharmacists Month (APhM) this past October, the University of the Sciences Philadelphia College of Pharmacy (PCP), Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy, the Temple University School of Pharmacy, and the Thomas Jefferson University Jefferson College of Pharmacy gathered in the name of patient care and held a city-wide health fair for the citizens of Philadelphia. Who knew a small idea tossed around in conversation during the 2016 Region 2 Midyear Regional Meeting would bring together four chapters and four unique individuals with one common goal?

One student voice

Teamwork, dedication, and vision brought us all together during APhM to not only provide optimal and accessible patient care to Philadelphia residents, but also to serve as a catalyst to encourage chapters throughout the nation to connect and collaborate with regional chapters as one student voice. Our chapters successfully brought together 10 pharmacists and more than 40 student pharmacists. Together, we reached more than 100 patients, with 83 receiving clinical services (41 blood pressure screenings, 25 blood glucose testings, and 17 flu shots) through the five APhA–ASP patient care projects and a local community pharmacy’s flu shot services. It is safe to say that while APhA–ASP Chapters may utilize similar ideas gained from conference workshops or materials from pharmacist.com, each individual chapter has its unique personality and skillset in executing patient care projects.

The student pharmacists in attendance also advocated and raised awareness for APhM by using policy postcards and “Know Your Pharmacist” buttons. The Philadelphia Health Fair served as the first (of what we hope will be many) melting pot for student pharmacists to come together to act and serve.

Divide and conquer

The two biggest challenges for any collaborative event are time management and communication, especially when the coordinating students are from different schools. In our case, time management was difficult because there needed to be a way for everyone to know what was completed and what still needed to be done, in real time. Communication was difficult because being at different schools, in-person meetings were not feasible. Although we faced a few hurdles at the start, we were able to surpass these challenges by using tools such as Google Sheets and video conference calls. After we transitioned from e-mail to Facebook Messenger to video conference calls, everything became much easier, as we could better understand each other’s intentions through talking rather than reading messages.

We were also able to delegate tasks and coordinate what materials each school would provide by documenting these assignments on our Google Sheet. Dividing and conquering helps to keep control during a large-scale event with many moving parts and is a great method to use when it comes to collaboration. For example, Temple covered creative posters, Jefferson brought engaging activities, PCP provided point of care testing supplies, and Rutgers handed out APhM buttons and policy postcards. By tracking sign-ups and tasks in our Google Sheet, we were able to ensure we had adequate students who engaged with and educated patients, provided services, tracked informed consents/patient outcomes, and captured the memories on camera to share with the rest of the world.

Time management

One of our planning obstacles was that we started off with an idea to host the fair at Philadelphia’s City Hall. We realized after some date conflicts and reservation limits that we would need to change our location. Due to the setback, we decided that we needed to be honest with ourselves about what we could actually accomplish in the time that we had to work with.

As a team, we had a group discussion and realized that if we gave ourselves 2 extra weeks, we would be able to accomplish everything we had initially planned on. The important lesson to note from this situation is that you need to be realistic when budgeting time. It is okay to admit that you need more time. That doesn’t make your plan a failure; instead it shows your ability to be flexible and adjust when facing unanticipated changes.

Bring collaboration to life

When we first agreed to working on this project together, our initial reaction was fear and a familiar rush of stress we normally only associated with our therapeutic exams. However, like most things in life, taking each step one by one really broke down the process into manageable pieces for us. It took a great amount of communication, time management, and delegation among us and the members of our respective chapters. Eventually, we were able to produce a valuable collaborative health fair that we foresee to become a continually improved upon annual tradition.

So, we encourage you to Google Map the nearest APhA–ASP Chapter to you and bring chapter collaboration to life!