CHSU Students Go to Vegas and Win Big!

Team CampRx attended the SNPhA National Conference held in Las Vegas, Nevada from July 28-July 31 to present their Walmart/Sam’s Club Prescription for Service project, which aims to breakdown barriers and serve the underserved communities. The team, selected in October 2016, consists of Jessica Chan (founding SNPhA President), Kenya Covarrubias (SNPhA Vice-President), Madison Fesperman (SNPhA President), Cecilia Kieu (SNPhA member), and Faith Olivares (founding SNPhA Scholarship & Competition chair).
Since being honored as the Region 5 Finalist in January 2017, Team CampRx has been working toward using their $2,500 grant from Walmart to implement their project entitled, CampRx: A Prescription for Success. Team CampRx created a free three-day camp specifically tailored towards high school students enrolled in the migrant program to give them hands-on training and experience on the roles of a pharmacist. The purpose of the camp was to inspire students and encourage them into the field of pharmacy, and thus, lead to more bilingual speaking pharmacists.
Team CampRx prepared a 20-minute presentation followed by a Q&A session with 5 Walmart judges as well as presented their poster. For the work on their outstanding presentation, they were invited by Walmart and Sam’s Club Health and Wellness team to an invite-only SNPhA/Walmart Future Leaders in Pharmacy Luncheon for Leaders. Team CampRx narrowly missed out on the $10,000 scholarship that was awarded to the winner of the project. Upon feedback from the judges, it was stated that Team CampRx was the other highly contested project winner.
Team CampRx member, Cecilia Kieu says “What if you went to a pharmacy and could not communicate with the pharmacist? We asked ourselves what we could do to change that. That was the inspiration of CampRx: A Prescription for Success. As one of the newest SNPhA chapters in the nation, we worked hard to fix 2 problems in our community: a medically underserved region and a language barrier for minority populations. CampRx was a success in that all 15 of the students now consider or may consider pharmacy as a career path.” She adds “This has been an incredible learning experience as both a pharmacy student as well as community member and I am excited to continue our goal in treating minority populations and encourage more bilingual health care providers into the field of pharmacy.”
Team CampRx, named the Region 5 Winner, is still very proud of their work and its impact on the community. They will continue their vision to hold the camp annually as well as work on the national implementation CampRx in order to help all underserved areas throughout the country and breakdown language barriers through SNPhA’s motto: One Mission, No Barriers.
Team CampRx thanks SNPhA faculty advisor, Dr. William Ofstad, for advising their project. They also thank Mrs. Richele Kleiser and Dr. Charles Douglas for their assistance with the project.
Other CHSU students in attendance at Nationals were Anabell Corpuz (founding SNPhA Public Relation Liason) and Minh Nguyen (founding Diabetes Initiative Chair), who competed in the Clinical Skills Competition as well as Seema Rai (founding CKD Initiative Chair), who was the CHSU delegate.
Click here to see the CampRx Presented Poster