About 50 UCSF Pharmacy students spent a good portion of their weekend in Palm Springs to attend the CPhA Outlook Conference. The UCSF alumni breakfast bright and early saturday morning was an excellent way for us to see how far UCSF network really stretches in hospital, community, and academic settings. Dr. Bob day who held the first continuing education seminar ever when they were not required for renewal of the pharmacy license.
I even was able to briefly meet my sponsor for the meeting, Chet Yee. We shook hands with him before we had to run off to go to the all school caucus, which was a session to introduce to pharmacy students new policies and ammendments up for the house meeting the next day. They could discuss possible changes to the wording or assert a unified stance on the policy.
For example, there was a rather radical policy to change marijuana from a schedule I to schedule II drug. From CP115, we learned that the only difference between those classifications is that a schedule I drug is not been shown to be safe and effective while a scheduled II drug is safe and effective. In other words, the policy is showing to the legislature that pharmacists in california recognize the abusive potential of marijuana but generally support the legal dispensing of marijuana for medical purposes.
For us pharmacy students, reading pharmacy law can be rather dry but applying it to a situation like this really puts everything we learn in class into perspective. It was rather exciting for APhA members to attend the main event which was the House of Delegates. The select few who were delegates voted on policies ranging from prescription legibility to supporting awareness programs for tylenol associated hepatotoxicity. We were able to watch the speeches and vote on the speaker-elect of the house, a close run between Dr. Gupter and Dr. Scheidmein (I apologize if I wrote that incorrectly). One of our ammendments did get passed concerning that Rx's should be clear and legible regardless of format. The attended continuing education classes alongside practicing pharmacists about new drugs, antibiotics, and Medicare Part D.
Not to mention parties, reception, buffets, brunches galore alongside an exhibition hall of freebies from pharmaceutical companies and chain pharmacies looking for interns. I even saw some pharmacy students whom were my classmates in undergrad. I wish I had more time to catch up but it was great to see them again. We all were competing for the trophy in the School Quiz bowl, which ucsf lost to UOP. There was speculation that UOP might have been using PDA's to look up answers to the questions, but I think since their entire curriculum is solely concentrated on OTC's and community pharmacy laws, of course they would be very well prepared. Plus, UCSF had about 5 times the number of attendees as other schools, so it was just harder to coordinate answers between everyone.
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