For the Gazette
CEDARVILLE —Two teams of students from Cedarville University’s School of Pharmacy won first place in two events at the recent Ohio Society of Health-System Pharmacists 12th Annual All-Ohio Residency Showcase Competition in Columbus.
The students will be honored on the floor of the Ohio House of Representatives on Tuesday, Dec. 1. Representatives Bob Hackett and Kyle Koehler will present the students with a certificate of commendation.
Fourth-year professional pharmacy students John Van Schepen (DeMotte, Ind.) and Dan James (Fort Wayne, Ind.) comprised the top team in the Clinical Skills Competition (CSC). They will also travel to New Orleans Dec. 5-6 to compete against teams from around the country at the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) national competition.
Another team of students, including fourth-year professional pharmacy students Josh Arnold (Rochester, N.Y.) and Joe Zerka (Lansing, Mich.) and third-year professional students Jordan Long (Chillicothe) and Tiffany Zehel (Cleveland), were first in the Ohio Annual Pharmacy Bowl.
For the CSC competition, two-member teams create a pharmacy care plan for a simulated patient. Each team is given a scenario of a patient with health complications as well as a collection of books, assigned by the national organization, to assist in determining a diagnosis.
Each team must first prioritize the patient’s health concerns and then develop a treatment plan. After the initial steps, students compose a written plan and make a 10-minute oral presentation to a panel of two or three judges.
“Last year was the first time any of our pharmacy students attended ASHP’s national competition,” said Jeb Ballentine, Pharm. D., associate professor of pharmacy practice and director of pharmacy practice lab. “John and Dan were the same students who represented us last year, but they were only in their third professional year and had limited experience with clinical skills. Now that they are further along in their training, I think they will have a greater advantage.”
This semester, James’ clinical experience has been primarily at hospitals in the Dayton area. He also completed an emergency medicine rotation at the Cleveland Clinic and recently completed a rotation focusing on family medicine at the Victor J. Cassano Health Center.
Van Schepen’s clinical rotation has placed him at Kettering Medical Center, where he assists with the trauma team.
The 2015 top 10 finalists at the ASHP CSC will receive an iPad Mini containing a one-year subscription to a prescription assistance database.
The pharmacy bowl was set up in a mock Jeopardy-style game, composed of six categories of questions. The categories included infectious disease, endocrine, topical products, new drugs (FDA approved in 2015) and a miscellaneous category.
Cedarville’s team topped other teams from Northeast Ohio Medical University, University of Cincinnati, University of Toledo, University of Findlay, Ohio Northern University and The Ohio State University.
“It meant a lot to win the competition against so many other highly respected Ohio schools of pharmacy,” Arnold said. “It shows that the faculty at Cedarville are doing a great job educating the students and also shows that, although Cedarville’s pharmacy program is young, it deserves respect as well.”
