APhA-ASP National Patient Counseling Competition

The goal of the APhA-ASP National Patient Counseling Competition is to encourage student pharmacists in their efforts toward becoming better patient educators. The competition is designed to reflect changes that are occurring in practice, to promote and encourage further professional development of the student pharmacist and to reinforce the role of the pharmacist as a health care provider and educator.

The competition begins on the local level as students compete to be the national representative from their school or college of pharmacy. The competition on the local level may be funded from a variety of sources such as official college funds, locally obtained funding, state association support, and student fund-raising activities. Both the locally awarded prizes and the travel expenses for the winner to compete in the national competition will be the responsibility of the school or college of pharmacy. Each of the top ten finalists that compete in the final round of local competition will receive an award, compliments of APhA-ASP.

Once the local winner from each school or college of pharmacy (one chapter, one participant) is decided, this individual will schedule an appointment to compete on the national level via virtual format for 2021. The national competition is divided into the preliminary round and final round. At the preliminary round, students select a simple practice scenario at random and are required to counsel a patient on the appropriate use of the drug involved. Students are then given time to refer to the reference sources available in the model pharmacy. After consulting the references and determining the appropriate information for the patient, the participants counsel the patient. Evaluations are based on the content and style of the counseling presentations. The ten highest scoring participants are then invited to the final round.

The final round involves a more complex counseling situation where the participants again select a prescription at random and are asked to counsel the patient on safe and effective drug use. In addition, the patient in the final round will display personality characteristics such as anxiousness, belligerence or apathy to challenge the participants' ability to convey pertinent information in a realistic situation. The top ten finalists in the national competition will be recognized during the APhA-ASP Awards Celebration and will receive a cash prize compliments of APhA-ASP and CVS Health.

NPCC materials are mailed to all chapter advisors in the fall membership box each year.

For questions or to schedule an appointment contact:
APhA-ASP NPCC Coordinator: Lynette Plowden
Phone: 800-237-2742, ext. 7514
E-mail: lplowden@aphanet.org