APhA-ASP Region 3

Welcome to our new format for multimedia newsletters!

     Planning for this year’s APhA-ASP Midyear Regional Meeting (MRM) is now underway! I had the opportunity to join the other MRM Coordinators at the January Business Meeting a few weeks ago, and we spent the weekend learning all about the MRMC position, reading through suggestions from the MRM2013 Attendee Survey, and discussing different ideas for MRM2014. Since MRM is a meeting entirely designed to benefit student pharmacists, I need your input as well! Here are some ways you can help me plan the most fun and beneficial MRM for Region 3 this year:

1. Get to know your chapter’s MRM liaison. Your liaison is my main connection and point of contact for your chapter. When I send out important information about MRM to your chapter, I will send it through your MRM liaison. Similarly, if you have questions or concerns about MRM, ask your liaison! They will be able to answer your questions, and if they don’t know, they will be able to contact me to find out the answer.

2. Send me your ideas and suggestions. Thank you to those who attended MRM2013 and filled out the post-MRM survey! The ideas and suggestions were very helpful during our MRMC planning sessions at January Business Meeting. If you were not able to fill out the survey, or if you have come up with more ideas or suggestions in the past couple of months, let me know by passing them along through your MRM liaison. Again, MRM is designed to benefit student pharmacist, so I need to know what you think would benefit your chapters the most!

3. Sign up for the APhA Annual Meeting and Exposition. APhA2014 is at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, FL from March 28-31, 2014. This is a great way to start networking with pharmacists and student pharmacists from across the nation. You can also learn more about the different patient care projects, attend educational and leadership sessions, see the APhA-ASP policy process in action, and meet the APhA-ASP National 

Officer Candidates. If you see me walking around at Annual Meeting, 

please come up and introduce yourself! I would love to meet and talk

with you. I can’t wait to see all of you there!

Regional Delegate Update

by Lauren Bode

With a new year and a new semester, there’s a lot to be excited about. New classes, new rotation sites, and new opportunities to learn and lead. I’m going to add one more: a new legislative session in each of our states. With the beginning of the year, most state senators and representatives start heading back to Capitol Hill, whether it is Columbia, Atlanta, or Nashville. (Sorry, Florida, your legislative session starts in March, but that means you can catch legislators in their home districts now.) Pharmacy is primarily regulated in our states’ capitals, so as future pharmacists we must advocate on a state level.

Do you know what your state's legislative building looks like?

First up, get together with your State Association Liaison in your chapter, and think about what issues are most important for your state right now.  If you don’t know, then ask your state association. As future pharmacists, anything that the state association does affects us, so build a relationship with them now.  Ask a staff member to present at a Pizza and Policy event, offer to help set up a health fair at the capitol, or provide manpower for a letter-writing campaign, whatever you think will benefit both your chapter members and the goals you share with your association.

When you are planning your events this semester, I challenge you to be bold.  Set up a face-to-face meeting with your legislators. Offer to give them a flu shot or invite them to visit campus or your pharmacy. It may seem daunting to talk to policy makers, but they are public servants, and like pharmacists, they want to help people. We call them “patients” and they call them “constituents,” but we both have the public welfare at the heart of what we do. So when you are preparing for these conversations, start there. Put patient care front and center when talking about the role of pharmacists in the healthcare system, the training required for a PharmD., or desire for provider status. When pharmacists are integrated into a patient’s healthcare team, the patient has better outcomes, greater satisfaction, and reduced costs. In this way, while advocating for patient-centered care, we are also advocating for our profession. For more information on conducting letter-writing campaigns, hill visits, and more see section 3 at the link below:

http://www.pharmacist.com/node/55322

Policy on!