WSU pharmacy students won a Northwest regional award in March 2008 at the American Pharmacists Association (APhA) meeting in San Diego for their diabetes outreach campaign this year. It was the second consecutive year WSU won the Region 7 award in competition among APhA student chapters.
The 100 students who participated held 28 diabetes events during which they screened 794 patients and educated 894, not including another approximately 200,000 who watched them on television. The students referred 58 patients to a physician. Diabetes events were held on the Pullman and Spokane campuses as well as in pharmacies, senior centers and apartment complexes, schools and at public health fairs in both locations.
Two other students also returned from the APhA meeting with awards – one was a $2,000 grant for a business plan to start an anticoagulation clinic at the Community Health Association of Spokane, and another was the honor of placing in the top 10 finalists in the patient counseling competition against students from 100 other pharmacy schools.