KU News Release

KU student pharmacists honored for helping Greensburg residents get flu shots

LAWRENCE — Members of the University of Kansas student chapter of the American Pharmacists Association Academy of Student Pharmacists won a regional award for their immunization work in Greensburg last fall.

Veronica Nieto, a fifth-year pharmacy student from Denison, Texas, and president of the KU chapter, accepted the award April 4 at the annual meeting of the American Pharmacists Association in San Antonio, Texas. The award recognizes the outstanding Operation Immunization project for Region 6. The region includes 14 schools and colleges of pharmacy in Kansas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas.

KU’s Academy of Student Pharmacists’ chapter annually conducts Operation Immunization on campus. This year, Neil Young of Erie and Laura Mazur of Wichita, both fourth-year pharmacy students, suggested adding an immunization event to assist a Kansas community in need and served as co-chairs of the project.

The KU chapter includes about 250 members who raised $4,000 last fall to purchase flu vaccines and travel to Greensburg to help vaccinate 200 area residents. Greensburg had lost its only community pharmacy — Hunter Drugstore and Old Fashioned Soda Fountain — in a devastating tornado in May 2007. Jamie Estlack McElwain, a 1950 KU pharmacy graduate, had owned and operated Hunter Drugstore, which served all of Kiowa County.

To raise the $4,000 needed for the Greensburg project, the KU student pharmacists cleaned Memorial Stadium after home football games, sold T-shirts and textbooks, and solicited donations from Kansas pharmacists. Ken Audus, dean of the School of Pharmacy, also contributed.

Young and Mazur worked with Robert Emerson, faculty adviser, and Mitzi Hesser, director of the Kiowa County Health Department, to coordinate Operation Immunization: Greensburg.

The KU students teamed with Hesser and Kiowa County Memorial Hospital officials in Greensburg to purchase the flu vaccine. On Oct. 11, Hesser and hospital officials joined pharmacists from Kinsley Drug in Kinsley and the Main Street Pharmacy in Coldwater and KU School of Pharmacy faculty in providing professional and clinical support for the 19 pharmacy students who traveled to Greensburg.

Vaccinations were given by injection. Kansas allows licensed pharmacists to administer vaccinations to persons age 18 or older and allows trained pharmacy students to do so under the direct supervision of a licensed pharmacist. Each of the 19 student pharmacists had learned to give injections during their first year in pharmacy school. As a registered nurse, Hesser administered injections to patients under age 18.

The students were supervised by area pharmacists Brad Eustace of Kinsley and Lisa Gales of Coldwater and three KU pharmacy faculty members: Robert L. Emerson, director of experiential education; Janelle Ruisinger, clinical assistant professor in pharmacy practice; and Barbara Woods, director of postgraduate pharmacy education.

Eustace and Gales are also preceptors for KU’s School of Pharmacy experiential training program, and Eustace serves as pharmacist for the Kiowa County Memorial Hospital .

Greensburg’s 5.4.7 Arts Center was the location for Operation Immunization: Greensburg. The center was designed and built in May 2008 by KU architecture students.

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