KU News Release

Pharmacy student receives KU’s first Walgreens Diversity Scholarship

Veronica Nieto takes patient information from 1950 KU pharmacy graduate Jamie Estlack McElwain during Operation Immunization: Greensburg. McElwain owned Hunter Drugstore and Old Fashioned Soda Fountain, the Greensburg community pharmacy destroyed in the May 2007 tornado. (Photo by David McKinney, University Relations)

LAWRENCE — A fifth-year pharmacy student at the University of Kansas has received the first $2,000 Walgreens Diversity Scholarship at KU. The scholarship is part of a $10,000 gift from Walgreens Corp. to develop and support KU’s Multicultural Pharmacy Scholars Program.

Veronica Nieto of Denison, Texas, is among students at accredited pharmacy schools nationwide recognized as Walgreens Diversity Scholars for the 2009-10 academic year. Nieto’s award honors her academic achievements and her role in educating others about cultural diversity as it impacts the pharmacy profession, said Bob Emerson, director of KU’s Multicultural Pharmacy Scholars Program.

“Since coming to KU, Veronica has set a standard of excellence among her peers in the areas of leadership and academics,” Emerson said. “She is an active member of our Multicultural Pharmacy Scholars Program. She proudly represents a truly underrepresented group within the profession and the school, being the only female Latina student in the pharmacy program, and has adopted the role of student mentor to new scholars.”

When Nieto transferred from the University of Texas-Austin to KU in fall 2006, she imagined a career with a hospital pharmacy or perhaps working for or owning an independent pharmacy. Her mentoring experiences have inspired her to consider teaching and practice. She now hopes to pursue a year of post-graduate residency in ambulatory care.

“I plan to teach pharmacy students in my area of expertise as well as becoming a preceptor for those students in their final year of rotations,” she said. “I envision having a practice setting where I can monitor my patients for improvements or progression of their disease states and make appropriate recommendations to their primary care physicians to compile an appropriate medication regimen.”

That way, Nieto said, “I get to help patients and help shape the lives of young professionals.”

Nieto is an honor roll student and active in Phi Lambda Sigma Pharmacy Leadership Society. She is president of the American Pharmacists Association-Academy of Student Pharmacists. The KU chapter has about 250 student members, and Emerson is the faculty adviser. The group’s projects include an annual Operation Immunization event to provide flu inoculations on the Lawrence campus.

Last fall, under Nieto’s leadership, the KU chapter conducted a significant outreach program in south central Kansas called Operation Immunization: Greensburg. The students raised $4,000 to provide free flu vaccine for residents of a community that had lost its only pharmacy in a 2007 tornado.

Nieto and 18 other student pharmacists traveled to Greensburg with pharmacy practice faculty to inoculate about 200 residents in October. Area residents gathered for flu shots in a community building recently constructed by KU architecture students, the 5.4.7 Arts Center. Jamie Estlack McElwain, the 1950 KU pharmacy graduate who had owned Greensburg’s Hunter Drugstore and Old Fashioned Soda Fountain, joined the immunization event.

Nieto is the daughter of Javier and Magdalena Nieto. Following graduation from Denison Senior High School, she attended Grayson County College in Denison before transferring to the University of Texas. Her interest in pharmacy developed when she worked summers as a student aide in the pharmacy at Texoma Medical Center in Denison. She learned about KU through an alumnus, the Rev. John Dick, her hometown priest at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Denison.

“Had he not mentioned it in casual conversation, it might not have ever crossed my mind,” Nieto said, adding that from her first visit to KU, “it just felt right. The faculty and staff made me feel they were truly interested in what I had to offer to their program. It was a great school with high academic standards and excellence in the way of pharmaceutical advancement.”

Founded in 1885, KU’s School of Pharmacy is recognized as a leader in pharmacy education. KU’s doctor of pharmacy degree, or PharmD, is a six-year professional-level degree similar to a law or medical degree. The curriculum offers the education and experiential training that provide the student with the knowledge, skills and ability required of the pharmacy practitioner in the 21st century.

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The University of Kansas is a major comprehensive research and teaching university. University Relations is the central public relations office for KU's Lawrence campus.