Academic Pharmacy Now: 2024 Issue 1

Intricacies of Aging The

Student pharmacists benefit from a curriculum that integrates components of geriatrics education and highlights the need for interprofessional collaboration when working with older patients. 14

Also in this issue:

Researching Stimulant Use Disorder Treatment 5

Vigilance Toward Viral Threats 8

5 8

Hope on the Horizon

A $19 million grant may help University of Florida Health researchers uncover a treatment for stimulant use disorder.

Detecting the Next Threat

How are pharmacy schools taking lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic and applying them to research to identify and combat emerging pandemics?

campus connection

The Intricacies of Aging

Student pharmacists benefit from a curriculum that integrates components of geriatrics education and highlights the need for interprofessional collaboration when working with older patients.

AACP’s Mock Trial Competition provides an opportunity for student pharmacists to enhance advocacy skills as they collaborate to address healthcare challenges. 24 26 14

@AACPharmacy

Turning the Classroom Into a Courtroom

INtegrating a New Perspective

Pharmacy educators from around the nation converged in Phoenix in February to learn new lessons in leadership and pave the profession’s road ahead.

Dear Colleagues:

The beginning of 2024 has been a busy one for AACP members and staff as we continue to grow our portfolio of exceptional professional development opportunities. INtegrate 2024 was one of our most highly attended Interim Meetings, with sessions addressing timely topics such as race conscious admissions, organizational culture and change management, and branding the profession. The successful EDI Institute, held in late January, provided attendees with ways to effectively incorporate and enhance EDI efforts within their policies and professional development plans. We are on track to launch the new Learning Management System in July at our Annual Meeting in Boston. The platform will offer a variety of educational opportunities in different formats, such as archived webinars, posters, microlearning videos, past Institute recordings and certificate programs. Stay tuned for more information about the LMS in the coming months. We’re grateful to all subject matter experts, speakers, planning committee members, and others who have contributed to the success of these activities!

AACP members are also working hard to advance the profession through teaching, research and service at their institutions. This issue’s feature article, The Intricacies of Aging, highlights the need for interprofessional collaboration when it comes to treating older adults. Some schools are taking a more robust approach to incorporating geriatrics education in the curriculum, with a particular emphasis on understanding medication safety for aging patients.

Now that four years have passed since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, what lessons can be learned? Detecting the Next Threat examines how pharmacy researchers are working to identify and combat emerging infectious diseases so we can be better prepared to control and treat viruses.

Another article focuses on promising research from the University of Florida College of Pharmacy. A $19 million grant from the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute on Drug Abuse will help researchers further the development of a compound that may become the first oral treatment for stimulant use disorder.

As I finish writing this letter, the Artificial Intelligence Institute is in full swing and early feedback from attendees is overwhelmingly positive! Before we know it, we’ll be in Boston for Pharmacy Education 2024 , July 20-23, to learn, connect, collaborate and celebrate the work of our profession’s outstanding academic leaders and scientists. Until then, best wishes for a productive end to the academic year.

Sincerely,

Lee Vermeulen, B.S.Pharm., M.S., FCCP, FFIP CEO and Publisher

Hope on the Horizon

A $19 million grant may help University of Florida Health researchers uncover a treatment for stimulant use disorder.

By Emily Jacobs

As many as 4.5 million Americans over age 12 may have a stimulant use disorder, according to the 2021 annual National Survey on Drug Use and Health. This includes misuse of stimulants like cocaine, ecstasy and methamphetamine, as well as legal prescription stimulants. While opioid misuse and overdose deaths have received the most attention and funding, stimulants are a growing driver of U.S. drug overdose deaths, creating greater urgency to find effective treatments. There are currently no FDA-approved medications available to treat stimulant use disorder. However, that may change thanks to new research out of the University of Florida College of Pharmacy and Sparian Biosciences.

The National Institutes of Health and the National Institute on Drug Abuse have awarded a five-year, $19 million grant

to Sparian Biosciences and the University of Florida College of Pharmacy researchers. This funding will help further the development of the molecule SBS-518, which may become a novel, oral treatment for stimulant use disorder.

Dr. Christopher R. McCurdy, professor of medicinal chemistry and the Frank A. Duckworth Eminent Scholar Chair in the UF College of Pharmacy, leads the team that developed this compound. He also directs the university’s Translational Drug Development Core within the Clinical and Translational Science Institute. This core will conduct the work necessary to get the molecule out of the lab and into clinical tests.

The researchers’ aim with SBS-518 is to block or decrease the desire to use substances like cocaine or methamphetamine.

McCurdy’s team, along with researchers at the National Institute on Drug Abuse, used the compound on rats that had been trained to self-administer cocaine or methamphetamine. After receiving SBS-518, the animals showed less interest in self-administering the stimulants, although they had access to the drugs. At the same time, the rats maintained a normal food intake on demand. This may indicate that the compound blocks their drug-seeking ability without blocking normal survival behaviors.

Promising Research

In seeking a treatment for stimulant misuse, previous research had attempted to imitate the structure of cocaine in a way that would block cocaine’s actions. This included targeting the dopamine transporter protein that cocaine interacts with in the body. However, these previous compounds also blocked that dopamine transporter from doing its job, just as cocaine does. This left more dopamine available to create a euphoric response, without reducing cocaine intake.

Dr. Chris McCurdy works with graduate student Alexandria Senetra on the stimulant use disorder compound.

Photo credit: University of Florida College of Pharmacy

“It is very easy for us, as researchers or as educators in the basic sciences, to get lost in the science and forget that what we’re doing has a bigger purpose overall…to improve human health and improve outcomes and ultimately to make people better.”

—Dr.

Christopher R. McCurdy

While SBS-518 does interact with the dopamine transporter, it also interacts with another protein called the sigma-1 receptor. This dual activity may keep the stimulant from limiting the transport of dopamine and preserve dopamine’s normal functioning. This was indicated by the dopamine levels in the lab rats given SBS-518; their brains’ dopamine levels did not rise as they normally do after administration of stimulants.

McCurdy’s team will use its new funding to convert SBS-518 into a clinical oral drug candidate. Then, the lab will conduct toxicity studies prior to clinical trials. If the drug is found to be both safe and effective in animals, it would advance to clinical trials and be a first-in-class treatment in humans for cocaine use disorder, and possibly for stimulant use disorder in general. Counseling is currently the only available treatment for stimulant use disorder. If this proves to be a safe and effective pharmacotherapy, clinicians and patients would have another valuable tool to reduce stimulant misuse.

“It is very easy for us, as researchers or as educators in the basic sciences, to get lost in the science and forget that what we’re doing has a bigger purpose overall,” McCurdy said. “And that purpose is to improve human health and improve outcomes and ultimately to make people better.”

Over the years that this project has been underway, undergraduate and graduate student pharmacists have passed through the lab to help with some of the synthesis work. McCurdy welcomes students into the lab, remembering his own life-changing laboratory experience as a student pharmacist. He initially entered pharmacy school with the intention of working in a community-based pharmacy practice, but working as a student in medicinal chemist Stephen J. Cutler’s laboratory at Ohio Northern University piqued his interest in academia and research.

“Every day had the promise of discovering something new and seeing something for the first time that no one in the world has ever seen,” McCurdy said of pharmacy research. “It was just the excitement, I think, of the discovery and the new contributions that could be made to medicine.”

While academia does not bring as much face-to-face interaction with patients as community pharmacy practice, McCurdy noted that it can have just as much of an impact on people. “By teaching in pharmacy and doing research, I could impact many more patient lives than just practicing pharmacy by myself at a single location. So if I’ve averaged teaching a hundred pharmacy students…that starts to add up to thousands upon thousands of pharmacists that I’ve had a little part of their educational background in, and they have a little part of me in their practice setting.”

That influence on future professional pharmacists can be vital for research and patient welfare. Substance use disorders of all kinds remain highly stigmatized, McCurdy pointed out. By seeing stimulant use disorder as a chronic disease and better understanding the mechanisms behind it, it may lead to better treatment plans and social supports for patients. “Most people that end up doing substance use disorder research have a personal reason why they got involved, either a family member or a friend that they knew who struggled with addiction,” McCurdy said. “It’s not just all nitty-gritty science down at the molecular level. We try to bring it up to what human impact there will be.” P

Emily

Jacobs is a freelance writer based in Toledo, Ohio.

Detecting the Next Threat

How are pharmacy schools taking lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic and applying them to research to identify and combat emerging pandemics?

By Joseph A. Cantlupe

As the COVID-19 pandemic wanes, resurges, lays low and sometimes intensifies, researchers at pharmacy and medical schools are playing a big role in examining ways to thwart the next waves of the coronavirus as well as other viruses that could evolve into pandemics. Academic institutions around the country are working diligently to assess potential threats already under exploration before 2020, with a focus on viruses impacting humans and animals. Researchers are carrying out these studies within and beyond the halls of academia, teaming up with industry and other partners to develop innovative programs to contain viruses before they spread uncontrollably.

The University of North Carolina Eshelman School of Pharmacy is concentrating on developing pills that can combat pandemic-level viruses like COVID-19 at its Anti-Viral Drug Discovery Center (AViDD). The university received a $65 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to run the program under its Rapidly Emerging Antiviral Drug Development Initiative (READDI).

Dr. Tim Willson, chief scientist of the Structural Genomics Consortium at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, and

his lab team members are developing and opening sharing with the scientific community small molecule chemical probes of the dark proteome. He said the multidisciplinary effort fits nicely with the curriculum for student pharmacists and for other scientists working to engage with new antiviral therapies. The work is particularly illuminating for students, giving them an opportunity to experience all facets of the drug discovery process.

Willson is particularly pleased that their work, carried out by experts in medicinal chemistry, cell biology and chemical biology, is considered “open science,” meaning that their published findings are shared quickly throughout the world. “The drug molecules, data and everything we do in my lab goes on in the public domain,” Willson noted. “That’s one of the biggest drivers for me. What we’re doing is for society’s benefit. More drugs can be produced that way.”

He is quoted on UNC’s website: “Open Science guides the way we practice science and maintain the quality of our work. Openness is what sets SGC apart from other academic labs. Our goal is to distribute reagents and data without restrictions to the community and to enable other scientists to make immediate use of our discoveries. We deposit copies of all manuscripts on preprint servers as soon as they are ready for submission so that publication of our research is not delayed by the review process.”

One example of that effort, Willson said, involved the discovery of certain enzymes that appeared to be shutting down replication of the virus that causes COVID-19. He said the lab quickly published the information, making it widely available. READDI has also developed animal models to test inhibitors of alpha viruses, which include severe pathogens that attack the brain causing encephalitis and are often fatal. “We are making great progress with drugs that can block these viruses, which are found in many parts of the U.S., including North Carolina,” he said.

“Investment in antiviral drug discovery through open science is the best way to ensure that the world is prepared for the next pandemic.”

—Dr. Tim Willson

Preparation Through Partnerships

As a result of the “openness” in the university’s laboratory and science investigations, researchers have been able to draw many resources from industry partners, such as information from corporate libraries. The communication and interaction have accelerated the scientists’ efforts to move drug candidates into private development, according to university officials.

“This is great training for future scientists and for jobs in industry, and having cross-functional teams,” Willson said. “I do think students at the Center already are learning about the early drug discovery process and how you pick a target, how you build assays and find compounds, or if you want to work with disease models. This is a great opportunity for scientists in all aspects.”

Willson’s career has bridged the gap between academia and pharmacy. For nearly 30 years he worked for GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) as director of chemical biology. “This is how we work all the time, as a multidisciplinary team,” he said. “It makes sense [to work this way] to move the drug along.”

At UNC, a nearby lab is run by Dr. Ralph Baric, a professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology and cofounder of READDI. He is a world leader in the study of coronaviruses, and for decades he warned that they represented a “significant and ongoing global health threat, particularly because they can jump, without warning, from animals into the human population and they tend to spread rapidly.” The World Health Organization indicates that other pathogens being studied by READDI, such as filoviruses including Ebola and Marburg, also have the potential to cause the next pandemic.

The READDI-AViDD Center, one of nine established by the National Institutes of Health, is a public private partnership with an “interdisciplinary team of experts,” including from the Gillings School of Global Public Health at UNC, the university said. Carolina’s Creativity Hubs Initiative and the Eshelman Institute for Innovation and the North Carolina General Assembly financed the program. The university said in a statement that it will conduct research on early stage identification and validation of novel viral targets, with an eye toward identifying small molecules and biotherapeutics that directly block viral threats.

“We have to do a much better job of modeling these infectious diseases, incorporating economic behaviors, which many epidemiologic models miss.”

—Dr. Anirban Basu

The Center’s international collaborators include the University of Toronto; Diamond Light Source LTD; Sichting VU; Duke University; McGill University; Rutgers University; the University of Alberta; the University of Wisconsin-Madison; University College London; and Vanderbilt University and the Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Willson said the collaborators often have discussions to evaluate the process of drug discovery. “Investment in antiviral drug discovery through open science is the best way to ensure that the world is prepared for the next pandemic,” he emphasized.

The research is particularly important because it comes at a time when, despite the progress in vaccine research and development, R&D for therapeutics and diagnostics for pathogens and pandemic potential remain underfunded and lagging, according to the Third Implementation Report from the 100 Days Mission. The mission, which stemmed from a 2022 global pandemic preparedness summit cohosted by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and the UK government, strives for availability of “diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines” within the first 100 days of a pandemic threat.

On Alert for Potential Risks

Deaths from a handful of viruses that spill over from animals to humans may increase “12-fold by 2050” because of “climate change and habitat encroachment,” according to the British Medical Journal. While there is much examination of the biology of infectious diseases, scholars also tout the importance of reviewing the economic impacts, especially after seeing the pandemic’s ramifications on the world’s economic markets since March 2020.

“The pandemic has evolved quite a bit,” said Dr. Anirban Basu, director of The Comparative Health Outcomes, Policy, and Economics (CHOICE) Institute, which is part of the University of Washington School of Pharmacy. “We have to do a much better job of modeling these infectious diseases, incorporating economic behaviors, which many epidemiologic models miss.” One of his students, Felipe Montano-Campos, a third-year Ph.D. candidate at the CHOICE Institute, is doing just that, working on a paper that explores how people have reacted to

information and perceived risks from the coronavirus. His dissertation examines the economic epidemiology of infectious diseases, with a concentration on COVID-19.

“It is important to focus on biological factors but also to create models regarding how people react to information (about COVID-19) and how they perceive risks,” Montano-Campos said. The paper’s focus is on lessons learned from public and government actions during COVID-19 and how to incorporate them in potential solutions to combat future pandemics. Montano-Campos said he is examining how government preventive practices and people’s responses have changed over time.

One of Basu’s colleagues, Dr. Deborah Fuller, professor of microbiology at the University of Washington School of Medicine, had been working on developing vaccines and antivirals prior to the pandemic. “There’s always going to be another pandemic as long as humans and animals are living in the world together,” Fuller said, “as has happened throughout time and history. What COVID-19 did was bring it out to the forefront for society. We must be more prepared than ever—COVID-19 has helped us develop some of those tools and now we apply those and hopefully we will be in a better situation to stem the next pandemic.”

She is among the scientists investigating what she termed a universal vaccine for flu and also coronaviruses. The goal would be to provide a high level of immunity regardless of changes to the virus. The idea is to “induce a level of immunity in the population so that any new virus is not going to have a dramatic effect in terms of severity of disease or spread among people,” she explained. While there are vaccines against COVID-19, advances have not come that far with some other emerging threats. Collaboration between schools within universities is key to moving the science forward on drug discovery and vaccines.

Fuller is working on new technology to protect against emerging infectious diseases, such as fungi. She and other scientists from the University of Washington School of Medicine and Northern Arizona University, with the Washington National Primate Research Center, received a $1.5 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to fund research for a vaccine for Valley Fever, a fungal infection that Fuller said is spreading in hot and dry regions.

The NIH has been tasked with creating a vaccine for Valley Fever within the next decade. The disease is endemic in the Southwest and the fungus is in the soils, often stirred by forest fires, she continued. It can be particularly harsh to humans and dogs, impacting the nervous system. In this project and others, Fuller focuses her instruction on a “marriage between disciplines” that she believes will continue to affect the work of medical and pharmaceutical scientists for years to come as they try to prepare for the next pandemic. P

Joseph A. Cantlupe is a freelance writer based in Washington, D.C.

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The Intricacies of Aging

Student pharmacists benefit from a curriculum that integrates components of geriatrics education and highlights the need for interprofessional collaboration when working with older patients.

By Jane E. Rooney

Growing older is complicated. No two people will age in the exact same way, from the physiological changes they experience to the types of comorbidities they have to the ways their bodies absorb medications. This makes geriatrics care particularly intricate to navigate and highlights pharmacists’ pivotal role in team-based care. It also means that geriatrics education must focus on ensuring that students understand the nuances regarding prescribing and medication safety for older adults.

“Healthcare professionals working in geriatrics tend to be leaders in interprofessional collaboration because it’s so complicated. As you age you get more complex, you have more disease states and there are medication interactions to consider. Interprofessional collaboration is key,” explained Dr. Teresa DeLellis, chair, Department of Pharmacy Practice, Manchester University College of Pharmacy, Natural & Health Sciences. “Education starts with understanding what aging does physiologically to how the body handles medications. It requires knowing the pharmacology of each of these medications and the expected side effects, or knowing if the answer is not a medication.”

DeLellis is part of a team that is developing guidance for pharmacy programs regarding the concepts that every entry-level pharmacist should know about geriatrics. The team is also exploring best practices for teaching these topics in the most effective way. She and her colleagues are partnering with the American Society of Consultant Pharmacists, which has published a geriatric curriculum guide, as well AACP and some other American and Canadian pharmacy organizations to pull from their collective knowledge. “Unless you are in pediatrics, you are going to care for older adults,” she pointed out. “We are doing a literature review to see what pharmacists are doing in patient care right now, what are the pharmacy practice models and health outcomes associated with those. That will help us see what to prioritize in the Pharm.D. curriculum.”

According to Census Bureau data, about one in six people in the United States were 65 or older in 2020—close to 17 percent of the population. That figure is expected to rise to 23 percent by 2050. A broader focus on geriatrics education in pharmacy can help students understand how physiology changes as people age, how response to medication changes and how best to communicate with older patients and their caregivers.

A Robust Curricular Commitment

The Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) School of Pharmacy has made an intentional effort to keep geriatrics integrated in the curriculum so student pharmacists are exposed early and often to concepts related to caring for older adults. Students also have an option to pursue a Certificate in Aging Studies dual degree, thanks to a 30-year partnership with the Department of Gerontology. That commitment to geriatrics education recently earned the pharmacy school recognition from the Academy for Gerontology in Higher Education (AGHE) as a Program of Merit for Health Professions, making it the first Pharm.D. program in the country to receive the designation.

In addition to a geriatrics pharmacy elective and an APPE rotation in geriatrics, “one big thing we offer is a lot of opportunities for research and independent study with faculty,” said Dr. Emily Peron, associate professor. “We have five pharmacy faculty on board who are geriatrics trained. We offer projects for students who are interested in exploring the topic further. The gerontology faculty are instrumental. There’s a lot of overlap and collaboration with them.” She noted that the collaboration extends to several other schools within VCU.

“We have a nursing faculty that we consider to be part of our team that is working on related issues, as well as folks from medicine, occupational therapy and physical therapy. There are interprofessional offerings and clinics where we all work together in the community, plus a virtual case that all medicine, nursing and pharmacy students complete that is teamwork-based,” Peron said. “We’re starting to see growth in terms of community engagement. We’re partnering with societies and student interest groups. Sharing responsibilities makes it a richer experience for everyone.”

Dr. Patty Slattum, interim associate dean for research and graduate studies, added that the program was able to flourish thanks to a dean in the 1990s who championed the idea of hiring faculty who specialized in geriatrics. “Having the leadership that says this is important and we’re going to build something with that, probably that is what got us to the place where we could get the recognition from AGHE,” she said. “You look across many courses, and the pieces that are important to the care of older adults are included, and people with geriatrics expertise are teaching them. These are things that help our graduates become better prepared to care for older adults with complex medication needs.”

VCU prioritizes interprofessional education, with three required IPE courses built into the pharmacy curriculum. “If students are in the community clinics where faculty work, they can do rotations and get hands-on experience working with older adults,” Peron noted. “It’s vitally important to our students to be able to work interprofessionally. The system does work better that way to care for older adults. Patients’ needs can vary significantly. There are lots of opportunities for healthcare professionals to identify different issues as they come up.”

Older adults tend to present many complexities as patients, so student pharmacists need to be prepared to take those into account when it comes to

therapeutic decision making, Slattum noted. “We see older patients experiencing adverse social determinants of health. How is that playing into chronic conditions and things like payment for services? We want students to be able to deal with that complexity and be comfortable through that decision making,” she said. “We also want students thinking about how you deprescribe drugs. We have a much bigger focus on that in this population. There are complexities of settings where care is delivered. You are dealing with assisted living or a family caregiver environment, and so how do you work through those as a healthcare professional?”

Peron added that the curriculum also encourages students to examine ageism in the healthcare system. “Pain gets overlooked in older adults,” she pointed out. “We tell students to look out for the phrase ‘what do you expect at this age?’ A big push we have is helping [future pharmacists] use terminology that’s appropriate and think more critically about choices they are making or whether they are making an assumption based on age. We want to ensure that we are doing what’s best for the individual patient. It’s not one size fits all. We want to dispel myths about aging and make working in geriatrics something that’s really making a difference.”

Slattum hopes to see more pharmacy schools pursue the AGHE designation and embrace working with this population. As Peron noted, “It may not

seem like a sexy specialty, but there is so much value pharmacy can add to working with older adults. It’s a great opportunity for schools of pharmacy to identify areas of need. We need more healthcare professionals working in geriatrics. As people take more medications, pharmacists are going to be one of those groups that provide additional assistance in that realm.

“There’s a fear of our own aging that can prevent us from looking at ways to make changes in care,” she continued, noting that she hopes other schools will consider expanding geriatrics opportunities. “The tenets of how we operate apply across the board. One special thing about geriatrics is that you are specializing in working with a population, but it allows you to work across many different practice settings. It’s a robust opportunity for pharmacists.”

Safety First

From Dr. Joseph Zorek’s perspective, integrating key concepts of geriatric pharmacotherapy throughout the pharmacy curriculum to weave in a deliberate focus on older adults would be ideal. Zorek, professor and executive director of Linking Interprofessional Networks for Collaboration at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UT Health San Antonio), teaches advanced pharmacotherapy to graduate nursing students and leads the university’s effort to advance

“The days of practicing in a silo are pretty much over in the vast majority of pharmacy practice settings. You have to be knowledgeable about other professionals. You have to be an advocate for yourself within the healthcare team. Many of the most rewarding pharmacy practice ventures have interprofessional aspects to them.”

—Dr. Joseph Zorek

IPE. “Older adults take lots of medications and have lots of comorbidities,” Zorek noted. “You would be hard-pressed to find an older adult who would not benefit from an interprofessional, team-based intervention.” The role of caregivers in this population adds another layer of complexity and challenge optimizing medication use. He added, “caregiving is really an ideal scenario to explore how important it is for different healthcare professionals to be working as a team.”

At UT Health San Antonio, students participate in several large-scale IPE activities that leverage care-based learning rooted in real-world examples. In one of these IPE activities, students are put on interprofessional teams to conduct a simulated telehealth visit with the caregiver of an older adult living with dementia. Experiencing the difficulties faced by a family caregiver, including challenges with medication management, illustrates why teambased care is crucial. “You can’t really practice pharmacy without figuring out how you fit into the complex ecosystem of healthcare,” Zorek said. “The days of practicing in a silo are pretty much over in the vast majority of pharmacy practice settings. You have to be knowledgeable about other professionals. You have to be an advocate for yourself within the healthcare team. Many of the most rewarding pharmacy practice ventures have interprofessional aspects to them.”

Manchester’s DeLellis pointed out that pharmacists play a particularly important role when it comes to transitions of care. Establishing and maintaining medication histories is vital to prevent inaccuracies and errors. “At the beginning of a transition, pharmacists help determine what medication management should look like as we think about getting patients to the next place, and then they are involved at intake there,” she explained. “Patient education is a huge part of that. A lot of these medications will be self-managed. There have been a lot of impressive outcomes proven from pharmacists doing posttransition follow up after hospital discharge. A lot

“Education starts with understanding what aging does physiologically to how the body handles medications. It requires knowing the pharmacology of each of these medications and the expected side effects, or knowing if the answer is not a medication.”

—Dr. Teresa DeLellis

of errors have been caught and prevented that way. And it has saved hospitals a ton of money.”

Dr. Sunny Linnebur, professor, Department of Clinical Pharmacy, University of Colorado Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, who also practices at a primary care clinic serving patients over 75, is focused on drug safety and deprescribing. “What I want students to understand is when you give a medication to a 40-year-old it has one outcome, but for an 80-year-old it can have a completely different outcome,” she said. “There are adverse reactions that can lead to hospitalization.

We have to be careful and thoughtful about medications in older adults.”

Linnebur teaches students to look at kidney dysfunction as something that can affect many disease states in the geriatric population and that may require medication adjustment. “I teach a lecture on pharmacokinetics in older adults. I want students to be aware of drug-drug interactions with older patients and making sure they are providing safe dosages.”

With many patients having complicated polypharmacy situations, pharmacists are ideally positioned to help optimize medication therapy. Sometimes that means understanding which medications to take away, which Zorek agreed must be a component of geriatric pharmacy education. “Polypharmacy is associated with numerous negative outcomes. It correlates with depression, for example, and falls. [Pharmacy schools] need to hone in on the safety of medications,” he emphasized. “As individuals age, changes in our bodies lead to predictable changes in the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of medications. If you’re not paying close attention to the age-related physiological changes, you are likely to run into issues with medication management. Pharmacist-led deprescribing services have become quite popular, with several widely used tools available to help assess the appropriateness of medications.”

It Takes a Team

Given the large percentage of older adults in the United States and the rapid increase in medication use, Linnebur said, it would be smart for pharmacy schools to prioritize geriatrics education to train students to understand the needs of older adults.

“One of the growing areas of clinical practice is ambulatory care specifically working with Medicare patients,” she noted. “We are able to bill for Medicare wellness visits. We are also starting to be able to bill for continuous glucose monitors in outpatient clinics. You can bill for other Medicare visits as well. In the past we have done billing through Medicare Part D. One of the growing areas of clinical practice is working with these patients over 65. If we are expecting pharmacy graduates to practice in an ambulatory setting and bill for services, then we need to train the students to have the skill sets and ability to work with that patient population.”

She credited the American Geriatrics Society, an interprofessional organization, with helping to ensure that pharmacists are at the table and part of the discussion about decisions related to the care of older adults. To recognize how the skill sets of multiple providers come together and how an interprofessional approach benefits older patients, Linnebur recommends having students shadow other team members such as physicians, nurses and social workers, or asking team members to teach in a pharmacy course.

This ties back to the need for team-based care in geriatrics. As Zorek pointed out, “Older adults don’t take medications in a vacuum. The advice and actions of numerous health professionals impact patients’ medication regimens and their medicationtaking behaviors. To use medications safely, pharmacists have to understand and engage with these clinicians. For example, sharing concerns, providing recommendations, and coordinating efforts with physicians, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, dentists, physical therapists, social workers and many others to improve any given older adult’s care. It’s impossible to practice pharmacy without a good understanding of interprofessional dynamics.”

DeLellis hopes to see a more consistent emphasis on geriatrics across the board, which will help break down societal barriers. “We have ingrained in society a subtle ageism: it’s terrible, it’s depressing, so no one is interested in caring for older adults. We need to destigmatize aging and focus on how important this type of care is to ensure that aging doesn’t have to be a negative experience.”

As Linnebur noted, “Working in geriatrics is really rewarding. The providers are some of the best people to work with, and the quality of work life is really high when you work with older adults.”P

Jane Rooney is managing editor of Academic Pharmacy Now.

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Applications Now Open: Aspiring Academics 2nd Cohort

The 2024–25 AACP Aspiring Academics Program will provide up to 28 student-faculty pairs from AACP member institutions the opportunity to participate in a hybrid longitudinal program that aims to strengthen the participants’ skills and commitment to a career in academic pharmacy.

The program consists of virtual meetings, asynchronous modules and activities, and will culminate at the 2025 AACP Annual Meeting with in-person programming, networking, and graduation ceremony. Participants will be required to contribute to a group poster for the Annual Meeting and develop an individual career development plan.

Through this program, students will have the opportunity to learn from two distinct faculty member mentors, one from within their own institution (the home mentor) and one assigned by AACP (the AACP group mentor). Encourage your students to apply by May 15.

https://www.aacp.org/resource/aacp-aspiring-academics-program

Turning the Classroom Into a Courtroom

AACP’s Mock Trial Competition provides an opportunity for student pharmacists to enhance advocacy skills as they collaborate to address healthcare challenges.

By Dr. Ettie Rosenberg and Dr. Hoai-An Truong

Seeking to expand development opportunities in advocacy and debate for student pharmacists across the Academy through active learning and innovation, the AACP Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Section supported and facilitated an Inaugural Mock Trial Competition in 2022 and continued the initiative into 2023. The mock trial project (MTP), first implemented in 2015 at the West Coast University School of Pharmacy, has evolved into a collaboration with the University of Maryland Eastern Shore over the past nine years. In addition to having been published and presented at several conferences, the mock trial also won Honorable Mention at the AACP Innovation in Teaching Competition in 2017. AACP recognized the development and implementation of the MTP in its first two iterations (2015-2016). This innovative teaching and learning strategy reinforces evidence-based practice skills and affective domain competencies in the Center for the Advancement of Pharmacy Education (CAPE) 2013 Outcomes and Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE) Standards 2016. Recently, the mock trial initiative has been updated to reflect the COEPA 2022 and ACPE Standards 2025.

This self-directed team activity requires participants to apply knowledge (literature evaluation, research design and critique, evidence-based practice and decision-making); skills (critical thinking, communication, debate, advocacy);

and attitudes (collaboration, professionalism, leadership, self-awareness) gained from the Pharm.D. curriculum and co-curriculum. Student teams from participating pharmacy programs are assigned a controversial topic in pharmacy practice, pharmacotherapy, healthcare and/or public health that impacts the pharmacy profession.

Honing Critical Thinking

Student teams across all Pharm.D. programs were invited to submit letters of intent with an application package to be considered and selected for opening rounds of the virtual mock trial competition (as semifinalists). In both 2022 and 2023, a panel of judges reviewed all submission packets and narrowed down the eligible teams to four semifinalist teams. For the semifinal rounds, the four selected programs (teams) were randomly paired to compete in each of two virtual mock trial debates on an assigned topic. Each team received a random designation as proponent (“Petitioner”) or opponent (“Respondent”). Pharmacy schools sponsored student teams to compete.

“As the faculty advisor for the virtual mock trial, witnessing my students confidently present arguments using primary literature before a panel of judges was exhilarating,” said Dr. Lauren Caldas, associate professor, Department of Pharmacotherapy and Outcomes, at the Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) School of Pharmacy. “Through this self-directed team activity, I was able to witness my students apply knowledge, skills and devotion to patient care to passionately debate controversial topics impacting the pharmacy profession, showcasing their critical thinking, communication and leadership abilities.”

Teams are challenged to research, evaluate and critique the evidence they identify, develop best arguments for their respective team/position based on the evidence and prepare to debate their respective positions (“for” or “against”) on the assigned topic during the virtual mock trial. Students must collaborate on every aspect of their mock trial strategy as they develop the strongest arguments to support their team position on the specified mock trial issue. “I enjoyed seeing everyone’s individual strengths and interests come together

The Temple University team confers at the 2023 mock trial competition.

for this competition. It highlighted the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration when making large-scale healthcare decisions,” said Josephine Gresko, a Pharm.D. candidate at VCU who participated in the 2023 competition.

The virtual mock trial was enacted before a panel of judges. After the first round, the top two teams (finalists) were invited to face each other and compete in person for the final round at the AACP Annual Meeting in July 2022 and 2023. Dr. Stephen A. Brown, associate professor, Department of Pharmacy Practice, Samford University McWhorter School of Pharmacy, served as a judge in 2022 and 2023. “Each year I am extremely impressed with the students’ ability to marshal the evidence and present reasoned arguments to the judges,” he noted. “They do this with a level of professionalism that instills me with confidence in the future of the pharmacy profession.”

The AACP CPD Section is launching the 2024 Third Annual AACP Mock Trial Competition. Schools are invited and strongly encouraged to sponsor a student team to represent their institution. The top two teams will advance as finalists to compete in person during the 2024 AACP Annual Meeting in Boston, with the final competition scheduled for Saturday, July 20. The winning team will receive $500, courtesy of the CPD Section. The names of the two finalist teams will be recognized with those mock trial finalists from prior years. For more detailed instructions and information about the sub -

mission deadline and the 2024 debate topic, visit the AACP Mock Trial Competition website: bit.ly/AACPMockTrial. P

Dr. Ettie Rosenberg is assistant dean of student affairs and a professor in the Department of Pharmacy Practice at the West Coast University School of Pharmacy. Dr. Hoai-An Truong is a professor and the director of public health at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore School of Pharmacy and Health Professions.

2023 Mock Trial Competition Finalists

First Place: Virginia Commonwealth University

Second Place: Temple University

2022 Inaugural Mock Trial Competition Finalists

First Place: West Virginia University

Second Place: Chapman University

We wish to acknowledge the following:

Dr. Kelly Ragucci and the AACP CPD Section; the pharmacy programs that sponsored participant teams; faculty advisors who supported the student teams; and faculty judges, all of whom made the mock trial competitions happen.

INtegrating a New Perspective

Pharmacy educators from around the nation converged in Phoenix in February to learn new lessons in leadership and pave the profession’s road ahead.

“Looking around this room and seeing more than 400 current and future leaders,” President Craig Cox opened the INterim keynote, “it’s clear we are committed to solving some of our profession’s biggest challenges.”

From race-conscious admissions and artificial intelligence to community pharmacy transformation and re-branding the profession, INtegrate 2024, the AACP INterim Meeting, focused on pharmacy education’s most pressing issues and discussed strategies to best address them effectively.

“I encourage you to be innovative in our ideas and solutions… [seizing] opportunities to be ‘Champions Together,” President Cox continued, underscoring his presidential theme.

Change Agents

By applause, attendees at the Meeting Kick-off signaled their experience with change in shifting student demographics, personnel changes, government pressures and more.

“Change is a mission-critical capability,” said Dr. Barbara Trautlein, principal and founder of Change Catalysts. As the author of the best-selling book, Change Intelligence: Use the Power of CQ to Lead Change that Sticks, Dr. Trautlein walked the audience through her CQ® System for Developing Change Intelligence®, a proven approach equipping people, teams and organizations with the skills to lead through change and crisis in a successful and sustainable manner.

“We’re all leaders, regardless of role. We’re all change agents taking charge of change.”

Roadmap to a Rebrand

“Everybody has a brand, the question is: who’s controlling it?” Dr. Tom Hayes asked the keynote session audience. “How does your brand differentiate you from somebody else?”

First through an energetic and fast-paced session, and then through a highly interactive workshop, keynote speakers Dr.

Judi Godsey, DNP faculty at the University of Kentucky College of Nursing, and Dr. Hayes, professor of marketing at Xavier University, helped attendees unlock successful strategies to pharmacy branding, and explore opportunities to transform the profession’s image.

Using their prior research with the field of nursing as an example, the speakers put a spotlight on survey data to drive home their lessons in branding and audience.

“What are the current descriptors of a pharmacist?” Dr. Godsey asked during the workshop. “How might those be different from the public?”

When the same questions were put to nurses, the speakers said, they discovered a discrepancy between how nurses viewed their profession and how patients saw them: public perception had ranked them lower as “advocates,” “autonomous” and “technological.”

“This is how disconnected we can be,” said Dr. Godsey.

Looking Ahead

Buzz about the state of the profession continued throughout the conference, from the attendee feedback surrounding ACPE’s update on Standards 2025 to roundtables discussing the ways academia and community-based pharmacy practice can partner to transform it.

The conversation will continue in-person at Pharmacy Education 2024, July 20–23 , in Boston, Massachusetts. Watch your inbox for registration information!

February 10–12 | Phoenix, Arizona

Renaissance Phoenix Downtown

Dr. Judi Godsey, University of Kentucky College of Nursing, and Dr. Tom Hayes, Xavier University, lead their keynote session, “Re-Branding the Profession of Pharmacy: Translating Research on the Brand Image of Nursing.”

Dr. Barbara A. Trautlein, Change Catalysts, helps attendees build their “Change Intelligence” to ensure effective and long-lasting change at their institutions.

AACP greatly appreciates the support from our meeting sponsors, whose contributions make this event possible:

Gold Sponsor

Bronze Sponsors

Silver Sponsors

Pharmacists Help People Live Healthier, Better Lives.

1400 Crystal Drive, Suite 300 P Arlington, VA 22202 703-739-2330 P www.aacp.org

AACP Annual Meeting

July 20–23 Boston

Hynes Convention Center

Pharmacy Education 2024 Heads Back to Boston

Get ready to connect and collaborate with colleagues from across the country and around the world to share ideas, solve problems, and find solutions to critical issues facing pharmacy education and the changing healthcare landscape.

Pharmacy Education 2024, July 20-23, promises to deliver outstanding programming, opportunities for networking and renewing old friendships, and hopefully some time to take in the sights and sounds of Boston.

More than 150 sessions will address highly relevant topics, including:

P Improving organizational effectiveness and efficiency

P Promoting student success

P Incorporating the 2022 Curriculum Outcomes and Entrustable Professional Activities into assessments for didactic and experiential learning

P Utilizing inclusive principles in admissions, didactic teaching, and experiential education

P Exploring the use of artificial intelligence in pharmacy education, practice and research

P Addressing DEIA resistance

P Enhancing academic freedom at colleges and schools of pharmacy

P Developing best practices for incorporating, teaching, and assessing social determinants of health Registration opens