SPOKANE, Wash. – Thirteen Doctor of Pharmacy students at Washington State University scored in the 90th percentile or higher on a national curriculum assessment exam administered recently by the National Boards of Pharmacy.
The students are in their third-year of the four-year pharmacy program at WSU and were among 1,843 pharmacy students nationally who took the exam. A score in the 90th percentile means the student scored at or higher than 90% of the examinees.
“The Pharmacy Curriculum Outcomes Assessment exam is an independent, objective, external measure of student performance in US pharmacy curricula,” said Brenda Bray, assessment director at the WSU College of Pharmacy and a clinical associate professor of pharmacy. “The 220 multiple choice questions are divided to assess four areas: basic biomedical sciences, pharmaceutical sciences, clinical sciences, and social and administrative sciences, and we use the results of the exam as one source of information for curriculum evaluation,” Bray said.
The 13 students were honored at a recent luncheon hosted by Gary M. Pollack, dean of the College of Pharmacy and vice provost for Health Sciences at WSU. The students, in alphabetical order, were Ross Bindler, Rachel Ellis, Saranne Egger, Joseph Gallegos, Andy Ho, Tony Hoang, Brett Kittle, Matthew Johnson, Svetlana Melnik, John Steiner, Eric Yancey, Susan Yoon and Brayton Zipse.
Pictured from left to right are: Matthew Johnson, Brayton Zipse, Brett Kittle, John Steiner, Andy Ho, Ross Bindler, Eric Yancey, Svetlana Melnik, Joseph Gallegos, Susan Yoon, Tony Hoang, Saranne Egger, and Rachel Ellis.