Pharmacy Students Selected for National Leaders Program

Four students named community pharmacy scholars

Four University of Mississippi School of Pharmacy students have been accepted into the ACT Pharmacy Collaborative’s Pharmacy Student Scholar Leaders program.

Students selected were Delancey Anderson, of Yazoo City, Erin Lomenick Pearson, of Potts Camp, Elizabeth Jenkins, of Grenada, and John White, of Puckett.

Only 66 students from across the country were selected to complete the program during the inaugural 2023-2024 academic year.

“I was thrilled to hear that four of our students were accepted into this first cohort,” said Lindsey Miller, clinical assistant professor in the Department of Pharmacy Practice. “I love that students will be able to develop leadership skills while meeting other students with similar passions and career goals.”

The Academia-Community Transformation (ACT) Pharmacy Collaborative is an operational learning and acting collaborative between colleges/schools of pharmacy and community pharmacy practices, including clinically integrated networks of community-based pharmacies.

The organization seeks to support the transformation of community-based pharmacy practice from a product-based care model to a community-based pharmacy care delivery model.

The collaborative’s just-launched Community Pharmacy Student Scholar Leaders program aims to help pharmacy students develop leadership skills, cultivate a network of colleagues interested in community-based pharmacy practice, apply important community pharmacy transformation concepts and theories and create a practice transformation philosophy and career development plan to drive community-based pharmacy practice.

“Community-based pharmacy practice is evolving,” Miller said. “We’re providing multiple clinical services to patients every day, from medication therapy management to chronic disease state management to vaccinations and so much more.

“It’s so important for students to be involved in the conversation of not only how to provide patient care, but also how to crate sustainable business models for this service delivery.”

Miller noted that the ACT program will accomplish these goals through discussing theories of billing and sharing success stories from pharmacies.

Pearson, a second-year student, always knew she wanted to work in healthcare and was attracted to pharmacy after working in her father’s independent community pharmacy and witnessing the positive impact his work had.

“I applied to the ACT program to gain more exposure in community pharmacy by collaborating with community pharmacists and other students” Pearson said. “I plan on practicing in an independent community pharmacy and both Ole Miss and the ACT program have and will continue connecting me with people who also have the desire to better serve their community through pharmacy.”