Members of the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy competed in the 2015 North Carolina Health Professions Diversity Conference’s poster competition, with School teams bringing home first, second and third place.
The conference was held August 27 and 28 at the Grandover Hotel and Conference Center in Greensboro. Clinicians, researchers, faculty and students from across North Carolina attended the event, which was hosted by the North Carolina Alliance for Health Profession Diversity, North Carolina Area Health Education Centers and the Winston-Salem State University School of Health Sciences. The conference featured speakers, panels and educational sessions to emphasize the importance of promoting diversity and diverse thinking in health care. The conference is hosted every two years, and this year included the first poster competition to promote student involvement and heighten awareness of scholarship in the field of diversity.
Carla White, assistant dean for innovative leadership, said she was ecstatic that the School teams were so successful in the competition.
“What this does is really heighten awareness of the scholarship associated with diversity and inclusion,” White said. “When people think about diversity-related matters, I think they all too often think about it in the realm of social justice or representation, but they really don’t look at is as a way to fuel creativity and innovation and to get a variety of perspectives.”
The first place team winners included Victoria Everette, Jill Zaccardelli and Felicia Britt, who presented “Mentoring Diversity: Influences of the Mentoring Future Leaders in Pharmacy (M-FLIP Program).”
Second place included Amber Bivins, Seyram Fudzie and Cheryl Wisseh, who presented “Impact of Student Led PCAT Review 2015 (Read-Only).”
Third place included Frank Tillman III, Nakiya Whitfield and Jade Mills with their presentation, “The Undergraduate Students for Diversity in Pharmacy (USDP): An Approach to Advancing Diversity in Pharmacy and the Pharmaceutical Sciences.”
Jeremy Overton, Bianka Patel and Daniel Hellmann also presented at the conference with their project, “The Role of Leadership Academy in Cultivating Leadership Development: Perceptions of Prospective Students.”
Staff member Victoria Hammett, M.S., also presented the project, “Rethinking Pharmacy Education: Expanding the Educational Reach.”
White said the conference was also an opportunity to highlight student work that is different from typical pharmacy student research and awards.
“They wanted to give students an opportunity to present their work and to create a platform for them to share some of the things they were doing programmatically,” she said.
One fellow, one staff member and several professional students attended the two-day event. White said the UNC presence at the conference shows the School’s commitment to diversity to the larger health-care community.
“At the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy we really want to reflect diversity of thought,” she said. “Intellectual diversity and people’s backgrounds and experiences and how to bring all those things together to create really meaningful work that will have value for all people.”