Greetings from the Department of Pharmacy Practice. It is my pleasure to provide you with information from our department. As you will see from the stories in this issue of the newsletter, there has been a lot going on as we say goodbye to 2020 and embark upon 2021.
Faculty in the department have been actively engaged in many areas. One of the most significant areas included in this month’s newsletter has been related to their roles with COVID-19 treatment at their respective healthcare practice sites. Many of the faculty in the department have been on the front lines helping care for patients admitted to the hospital due to the pandemic. They have helped to make a tremendous impact in successful treatment over this past year. I am very proud of our faculty and the beneficial impact they have had to date.
An additional area where faculty have worked to have an impact on the pandemic is by offering an additional training session in early January for pharmacists and technicians to get them certified to administer vaccines. This was critical to help get additional vaccinators available as the vaccine has been rolling out. This is also an important role for our department to play based on the university’s land grant mission.
Similarly, our pharmacy students have been very active with vaccine administration in a variety of settings. This has included going to long term care facilities and health care systems. I am certain our students will continue to be involved and their role will expand as the vaccine continues to become available to more and more of the population.
Also in this month’s newsletter, you will read about how faculty in the department have been involved in helping tackle the opioid crisis. Faculty have been critical in helping create and launch this very important program as it relates to safe and effective opioid utilization.
One of the areas that has impacted the entire department immensely has been the changes to our instructional approaches during this past year. The faculty and staff have been very nimble, creative, and adaptable when it came to pharmacy instruction this past year due to the pandemic. The best measurement to date that demonstrates the amazing and impactful work the faculty and staff in the department did was seeing our 2020 pharmacy class graduate on time last May. In addition, seeing that the didactic instruction continued in an effective manner with the 2021 graduating class by insuring they are able to complete their P4 year on schedule and graduate on time as well. I am very proud of our department's accomplishments and the outstanding work of the faculty and staff.
Bringing medication-assisted treatment to those recovering from opioid addiction has become even more important amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The loss of connection that everyone is feeling now hits those fighting addiction even harder, increasing the chances that those in recovery will begin using again,” explained associate professor Jennifer Ball of SDSU’s Department of Pharmacy Practice. “Addiction is a disease of lost connections because it has so much to do with trauma and a lack of support.”
Making sense of the COVID-19 pandemic has been confusing for the lay person and it hasn’t been any simpler for those developing treatment strategies.
“It was very fluid; changing on a weekly basis, if not faster than that,” John Kappes, a critical care clinical pharmacist at Monument Health in Rapid City and an assistant professor in pharmacy practice, said in reference to treatment protocols that were being developed in summer 2020.
“The biggest challenge was we didn’t really know what to do. Case by case, we were making decisions … taking your best guess. It made it very stressful for us not being confident in what we were doing,” he said.
Across the state at Avera McKennan, the situation was no different, although Rapid City didn’t experience COVID-19 patients until about a month after Sioux Falls.
It takes a lot of work to distribute the COVID-19 vaccine. Now SDSU students are getting a firsthand experience in helping do just that. With more vaccines becoming available, more people are rolling up their sleeves to protect themselves against COVID-19. To help with that distribution, SDSU pharmacy students are administering some of the vaccines.
South Dakota State University student Heidi Schultz has been named to a 10-member Student Leaders in Public Health cohort by the Rocky Mountain Public Health Training Center. Schultz, from Rapid City,
has been awarded a $3,500 stipend to assist with her public health field placement this spring semester.
Schultz is completing a Master of Public Health degree through the combined SDSU/USD MPH Program. Her field placement is with the SDSU College of Pharmacy and Allied Health Professions and South Dakota Department of Health collaborative project named “Improving the Health of South Dakotans through the Prevention and Management of Diabetes, Heart Disease, and Stroke” funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Working for the SDSU Foundation on behalf of the College of Pharmacy & Allied Health Professions, I always want to make sure that I’m not only helping match the financial needs of the College with the philanthropic goals of our donors, but that I’m
also helping make the alumni experience as rich and meaningful as possible. As we gear up for the spring football season, I am reminded of the many wonderful happenings SDSU has to offer its alumni. Whether it is a sporting event, concerts at the Performing Arts Center, class reunions or a speaker in a lecture series, University activities are a key part of the Jackrabbit experience. While COVID has made these activities challenging, to say the least, it has also forced us to look for new and creative ways to engage with each other. I am currently working with Interim Dean Dan Hansen to develop a list of engagement opportunities for alumni of the College.
With that in mind, I would appreciate it if you would follow the link below and complete a short survey about potential activities. The results of the survey will be used to develop our activity plan over the next twelve – eighteen months. If you have comments outside of the survey’s scope, please email me at scott.crane@sdstatefoundation.org.
As always, thank you for your support of SDSU and the College of Pharmacy & Allied Health Professions.
Go Jacks!
Scott Crane
Director of Development
College of Pharmacy and Allied Health Professions
Medical Laboratory Science (MLS) White Coat
The MLS program held its white coat ceremony live via zoom on Oct 19, 2020 at 5:30 pm to keep the tradition of having family involved in this momentous occasion. The keynote speaker for the event was Dr. Rodney Rohde, professor, and chair for the CLS program at Texas State. Sixteen MLS2 students received their MLS white coat that symbolizes the rite of passage and to convey the virtues of the laboratory profession of compassion, altruism, duty, honor, respect, and responsibility. During the MLS white coat ceremony, nine MLS2 students were inducted into Rho Lambda Tau Honor Society.
College of Pharmacy and Allied Health Professions, 1055 Campanile Ave., Box 2202C, Brookings, SD 57007, 605-688-6197
