Greetings from Roseman University’s Henderson Campus. The New Year has just begun and the pace accomplished by our community-engaged students and faculty is already remarkable.
Last month, on a cold and rainy Saturday morning, members of the College of Pharmacy’s Drug Abuse Awareness Team (DAAT) joined volunteers with a coalition of community partners and local law enforcement to collect unused and expired prescription and over-the-counter drugs from the public. In just four hours, 352 lbs. of medications were collected at eight locations throughout southern Nevada for safe disposal. These medications are now out of medicine cabinets, reducing the risk of misuse, abuse, contamination and accidental poisoning. These drug take back events, combined with DAAT in-school drug abuse prevention presentations and ongoing youth drug abuse research are helping to combat the drug abuse problems in our region.
The Roseman University College of Pharmacy Student Alliance provided free health screenings last month at a Henderson Health Fair. Sixty-two individuals had a total of 165 tests. They received blood glucose, blood pressure and cholesterol screenings. Over half of these individuals had one or more tests that were out of range, meaning they were at risk of diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. With these results, our students were able to encourage these patients to follow up with their primary care physicians for treatment.
Another College of Pharmacy endeavor, the Medicare Call Lab, continues to provide valuable service to Medicare beneficiaries. Last week, the Medicare Call Lab achieved a significant milestone when it broke the $1 million mark in estimated annual cost savings for Nevada beneficiaries. Faculty advisor Dr. Leiana Oswald says that P2 student Rachael Mukuha was the volunteer that took the call that helped the lab reach the milestone. The beneficiary she spoke with had a medication which was not covered on his current Medicare plan and was costing him $5,800 every month. Rachael worked with the beneficiary and identified a plan that not only covered the medication, but cost only $18.40 per month.
This is a great example of the training our students receive and how they use their knowledge to provide much needed volunteer service to benefit our communities. They serve as an inspiration for our newest students who join them in pursuing rewarding careers in healthcare, like the 51 students of the February 2018 cohort of Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing (ABSN) who start their educational journeys at Roseman this week. We welcome our new students to our campus community. We support them and look forward to their contributions and educational success.
I invite you to please join us to learn about our healthcare focused research during our Fourth Annual Research Symposium on Wednesday, March 14, 2018 from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. on our Henderson campus. Please download the event flyer for more information.
Best wishes,
Eucharia Nnadi, RPh, JD, PhD
Chancellor – Henderson Campus
Roseman University of Health Sciences