School of Pharmacy students attend their first statewide conference

For members of the inaugural class of PharmD student in the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences (SOPPS), diving into coursework has become the norm. Going to a conference is another experience altogether.

Six PharmD students recently attended their first-ever pharmacy conference – the Pharmacists Society of the State of New York (PSSNY) Mid-Winter meeting held Jan. 26-28 in Albany.

Sara Spencer, SOPPS IPPE coordinator and clinical instructor of pharmacy practice, said the Southern Tier chapter of PSSNY sponsored the students to attend, paying their registration and lodging.

Alicia Letizio, from Staten Island, and Elizabeth Laughlin, an Endicott native, were among the six.

Letizio hopes to work in a hospital following graduation. She chose to attend SOPPS because of its welcoming environment and program plan. “They really sold me at the interview,” she said.

Laughlin, whose goal is to become a clinical pharmacist, liked that fact that she could stay home, “but the promise of being more than a general pharmacist sold me,” she said. “The extra programs and the way we’re learning to work as a team interested me.”

Laughlin had attended past meetings of the local PSSNY chapter and was invited to attend the mid-winter meeting. Letizio and the other students were chosen to attend after writing a paper about why they wanted to go and why they would be a good representative for the school.

“I’ve been interested in legislation and that’s something that PSSNY is involved in,” Letizio said. “I also want to make sure Binghamton gets known out there and wanted to go and talk about how great our new program is.”

Spencer also wanted to promote Binghamton. “I attended because I’m doing a lot of preceptor outreach trying to recruit sites for our students and it’s a great place to network,” she said. “I try to attend as often as I can, especially since we’re so new. Networking is extremely important, as is maintaining the collegial environment.”

Spencer spent time communicating with Alicia, Elizabeth and the other students, noting they were very surprised at the amount of investment that pharmacists from across the state have. “There were pharmacists there from Buffalo, downstate and the Southern Tier who all decided to support pharmacy and come to the meeting,” she said. “We also saw a lot of students from schools including Touro, Buffalo and St. John’s participating in a business case plan and posters. Our students weren’t ready for that yet, but are eager to get out there and do their part as pharmacy students at Binghamton.”

“We really wanted to participate in the business case plan because it was on pharmacy law,” Letizio said, “but we hadn’t gotten to that section on pharmacy law in class yet.”

“I’m always curious to see to see how students react to the conference and how they interact with the other students in their profession,” Spencer said. “They’re pharmacy students right now but in the end they will be colleagues playing an integral role in patient care and promoting the profession of pharmacy.”.”

“We had a volunteer session where we did check-ins and met pharmacists from around the state and attended their legislative session – the House of Delegates,” Laughlin said.

Assemblyman John McDonald from the 108th District in the Albany area spoke about what PSSNY might want to advocate for and about issues like expanding immunization authorization to interns. “We want to see the profession move forward and pharmacists practice at the top of their license.”,” said Spencer. “

The House of Delegates meeting was very interesting, said Letizio. “The legislator answered questions from all the pharmacists and PBMs (Pharmacy Benefit Managers) was a big topic. PBMs are the people who own your insurance plan and set the fees for what pharmacies are paid for prescriptions. The discussion was heated because the pharmacists feel the legislators are not doing enough to protect pharmacists from the PBMs.”

“One pharmacy owner was clearly upset with the lack of transparency and minimal reimbursements received from the PBMs,” Spencer explained. “The community pharmacists implored Assemblyman McDonald to investigate and escalate these concerns to the next level.”

“Seeing how passionate they were for a cause was something you don’t normally see,” said Laughlin.

“It was interesting to see their reactions and hear their comments about themeeting,” Spencer added. “The students had a lot of questions and we were able to have an informative discussion.” “We also had a student networking session that included the sponsors and they split students up and forced us to interact,” Laughlin said. “Overall, I expected it to be a stuffy conference where no one wanted to interact, but I found pharmacists to be interested in students in general. They wanted to know our opinions and where the field is going.”

“Networking is hard, so it was great they were very approachable. They were really interested about Binghamton, with us being in the first year,” Letizio added.

The SOPPS program is unique compared to the schools the other students were from, Laughlin said. “A lot of our hands-on programming and interprofessional programming isn’t anything they do. We have a very distinct pharmacy program. It really depends what outcomes program you’re following. We have to meet all of the requirements and interprofessional education is one of them.”

“I would definitely go again,” Laughlin said. “Knowing the setup, I would get a lot more out of it next time. Even more than this year.”