Winners of AUHSOP's 10th Annual Clinical Skills Competition
essica Golden and Amy Pennington are this year's winners of the Clinical Skills Competition. They will be representing Auburn at the national competition in Orlando, Florida at the ASHP Midyear Clinical Meeting on December 6, 2008.
Background of Competition
Students work in self-selected pairs and are given a case study which reflects actual clinical scenarios that pharmacists may encounter in any patient care setting. The team has 2 hours to identify acute & chronic medical problems, construct a drug therapy problem list, and develop a pharmacist’s care plan. Each team is required to justify their care plan in a 10 minute oral presentation (5 minutes for presentation, 5 minutes for questions). Teams are evaluated on accuracy, relevance, and completeness of their written information, as well as the oral defense of their care plan.
The Auburn Competition
The in-house competition took place on Tuesday October 14th and was sponsored by the Student Society of Health-System Pharmacy (AUSSHP) The competition was also held in Mobile for interested parties located on that campus. Competing teams were encouraged to review the practice case (2007 competition case) with answers and copies of the forms used in the competition to familiarize themselves with the process.
Amy and Jessica gained experience competing last year and that, they say, prepared them to compete again this year. They were given a case which involved many disease states but the patient’s primary problem was chronic persistent asthma. They also received the equivalent of a patient’s chart as well as a description of the patient's most current visit.
They had 2 hours to evaluate the patient, conduct the necessary research and prepare their submission. Amy said, "Rotations have taught us to be concise and succinct, but we found it time consuming to make sure all the details of our thought processes were accounted for on our written assessment and plan."
However there was no time set aside specifically to prepare for the oral presentation. Jessica and Amy each shared in the 2 minutes oral presentation and felt it was more difficult than the brief Q&A session that followed. Since they had spent 2 hours researching the details of the disease state; the questions gave them an opportunity to explain their reasoning for the plan they chose.
Both Amy and Jessica felt that the IP and rotation experiences had prepared them for taking questions. "IP taught us how to recognize the details of a disease state," said Amy, "the goals of therapy and the specific monitoring recommendations." "Our clinical rotations have required us to explain our recommendations to other practitioners," said Jessica, "and prepared us for the oral argument."
At the Finals
Amy and Jessica will have to start from scratch with a totally new case in the finals, but the format will be similar to the Auburn competition. For instance, the finals case will encompass multiple disease states, some acute and some chronic, as well as health maintenance and economic issues. Both Amy and Jessica say there is no way to prepare specifically for the disease states; past cases have dealt with everything from chemotherapy to diabetes. They feel the best way to prepare is to know how to use the available resources and apply the skills of assessing and planning for a patient’s problems.
Both Amy and Jessica have a message for all their supporters: "We are really excited to have the opportunity to represent Auburn at the national competition and hope we can make Auburn proud."Congratulations to Amy and Jessica. We know you'll do well and we wish you luck in the finals in December.