Dear Colleagues - July 2023

With the arrival of summer comes the excitement and anticipation of “The Big Show,” or more fondly referred to as the AACP Annual Meeting. Every year, pharmacy faculty, deans and administrators look forward to connecting with new and old friends, discussing the latest challenges our profession is facing, and returning to their institutions with new tools and techniques to use in their classroom or practice settings. 

A few of the timely session topics that will be addressed during Pharmacy Education 2023, July 22–25, are highlighted in this second issue of Academic Pharmacy Now. In the feature article, “AI: Friend or Foe?,” Dr. Andrea Sikora at the University of Georgia is utilizing AI to prevent adverse drug events in the ICU. Critical care pharmacists are busy, often responsible for too many patients, making it hard to perform such timely interventions. Enter AI and its ability to alert a pharmacist to prevent an ADE before it happens. Dr. Sara Trovinger at Manchester University explains how she is using innovative AI teaching tools in the classroom, such as ChatGPT, to help her students embrace and utilize them effectively. AI will also be featured during our upcoming AACP Annual Meeting, with Dr. Paul Leonardi, author of “The Digital Mindset: What it Really Takes to Thrive in the Age of Data, Algorithms, and AI,” serving as keynote speaker. 

Moving from artificial to human intelligence, we profile Dr. Adam Bress as he applies an expert’s eye to preventing cardiovascular disease and optimizing medication use. The associate professor of population health sciences at the University of Utah School of Medicine is using his role as 2020 National Academy of Medicine (NAM) Fellow in Pharmacy to expand new ventures in his research, collaborating with policy experts, clinicians and fellow researchers nationwide. Read about his new perspectives before joining him and 2022 NAM Fellow Dr. Inmaculada Hernandez in a discussion on “Research, Health Science and Policy in Academic Pharmacy” at Pharmacy Education 2023. 

Finally, I encourage you to read the article, “VIP Treatment for Vets” which shines a light on the importance of COPD management for veterans. While COPD is the sixth-leading cause of death in the U.S., veterans are three times more likely to experience it than the general population. Dr. Edward Portillo, assistant professor at the UW–Madison School of Pharmacy (and I’m proud to say, a past student of mine!), created the program COPD CARE to deliver treatment to vets thanks to pharmacists practicing at the top of their license within a network of nurses, primary care providers and other healthcare team members. 

I look forward to seeing many of you at the Gaylord Rockies in Aurora, Colorado, in just a few short weeks. Until then, enjoy your summer and thank you for supporting pharmacy education and AACP. 

Sincerely,