Advocating for the Pharmacy Profession through APhA-ASP
at the University of Missouri – Kansas City
Submitted by: Lara Kerwin, Pharm.D. Candidate, Class of 2015
Edited by: Puja B. Patel
At the University of Missouri-Kansas City, our charge is to inform our community about the capabilities of the pharmacist, to promote grassroots advocacy, and to engage our students in these processes. With these goals, we put our plan into action:
MRM Policy Process
Communication with members outside of the elected chapter officers is paramount to successful MRM resolution development. To facilitate communication of this and our other initiatives, we needed high visibility, innovation, and efficient widespread distribution of our message.
This month is a great month to promote the profession, but planning needs to happen early as most semesters begin in August (and APhM is in October). Our APhM initiatives included:
Ø 3 months of student-designed billboards displayed on I-35 South, which
featured prominent APhA-ASP, UMKC SOP, and Missouri Pharmacy Association (MPA) logos. Our billboard themes were:
If you have any feedback or would like more information about our initiatives, feel free to contact Lara Kerwin, UMKC APhA-ASP Policy Vice President (Kansas City campus) at [email protected] .
at the University of Missouri – Kansas City
Submitted by: Lara Kerwin, Pharm.D. Candidate, Class of 2015
Edited by: Puja B. Patel
At the University of Missouri-Kansas City, our charge is to inform our community about the capabilities of the pharmacist, to promote grassroots advocacy, and to engage our students in these processes. With these goals, we put our plan into action:
MRM Policy Process
Communication with members outside of the elected chapter officers is paramount to successful MRM resolution development. To facilitate communication of this and our other initiatives, we needed high visibility, innovation, and efficient widespread distribution of our message.
- Innovation: At general meetings, our "Pharmacy Hot Topics" post-it board was a springboard to collect ideas of a captivated audience.
- Message distribution: Social media is key, as is spreading the message via word of mouth from multiple informed members! Our members use Facebook to post on personal pages, in respective graduating class groups, and in our organization page. We heavily utilize and promote “following” our Twitter account (@UMKCatKC_ASP), write regular articles for our school’s newsletter, The Script, and regularly utilize school email.
- Visibility: “Pizza and Policy” lunches on each campus allowed for resolution discussion and wording development. As a final step, each campus’ Policy VP wrote up resolutions from each campus, and a SurveyMonkey was distributed through the APhA-ASP Blackboard email service to capture votes.
This month is a great month to promote the profession, but planning needs to happen early as most semesters begin in August (and APhM is in October). Our APhM initiatives included:
Ø 3 months of student-designed billboards displayed on I-35 South, which
featured prominent APhA-ASP, UMKC SOP, and Missouri Pharmacy Association (MPA) logos. Our billboard themes were:
- "Know Your Pharmacist, Know Your Medicine" (10/2013)
- American Diabetes Month (11/2013)
- DEA Drug Take Back Day (4/2014)
- During October 2013, our account promoted APhM by liking, RT, and sharing SOP news, student successes, and health-care related news.
- Also during this campaign, students could earn credits for our Spring Casino Night event by tweeting, RT, and "favoriting" our pro-pharmacy tweets.
- Our Twitter account serves as a method to continually promote students, school organizations, health-care news, and school events year-round.
- This form letter included information from our 2012-2013 CAAR to highlight our APhA-ASP activities and services we provide as student pharmacists.
- With all of our APhM activities, this initiative was not fully implemented and tabled for further development.
- This flyer featured APhM, APhA-ASP, UMKC SOP, MPA logos.
- Additionally, the flyer featured a QR code linked to a website about the role of a pharmacist.
- This fact sheet describes traditional and emerging roles and services provided by pharmacists.
- The fact sheet has been distributed to patients at patient care events and to legislators, during our MPA Legislative Day event.
- Participation in this national initiative was a goal of our chapter, and we were able to submit 24 postcards on behalf of our patients to their legislators.
- We hope to increase our involvement in this initiative and other like initiatives in the future.
If you have any feedback or would like more information about our initiatives, feel free to contact Lara Kerwin, UMKC APhA-ASP Policy Vice President (Kansas City campus) at [email protected] .