Team outlasts other colleges in competition to test students’ knowledge of self-care

 

What natural product can you use to prevent migraines?

Other than death, what is the most common negative side effect of Loperamide (an antidiarrheal)?
What product can remove ear wax, and is also a laxative?

Pharmacists face such common — and, perhaps, not so common — questions every day when working in a community pharmacy. A pharmacist’s job is about much more than filling a doctor’s prescription; it is about providing whole health care to clients who visit their neighborhood drug store, including advising them about the various medications, lotions or ointments available on the shelf without a prescription.

URI College of Pharmacy students Hailey Connors and Timothy Amison are well versed in helping patients who seek such self-care, as evidenced by their recent win in the Student and Pharmacist Self-Care Championship, commonly known as the Pepto Bowl. The Jeopardy-style competition challenges students’ knowledge of self-care, which encompasses a person’s independent actions to prevent, diagnose and treat illness, of which over-the-counter medications and supplements are an important part.

Connors and Amison, both P4 students scheduled to graduate in the spring, competed against eight other collegiate teams from around New England and New York last week at Foxwoods Resort Casino. After advancing past the first round, the pair joined three other teams in the finals, a live Jeopardy-style quiz show. After outlasting two other teams, Connors and Amison faced last year’s champion, St. Joseph’s University in Final Jeopardy, correctly identifying cardio-vascular toxicity as a common side effect of Lopermide to capture URI’s fourth championship in the last decade.

“Tim and Hailey are extremely knowledgeable of self-care,” said Professor Virginia Lemay, who coached the pair along with Professor Kelly Orr. “They did extraordinary. It was unbelievable; they knew almost everything.”

Connors and Amison prepared for the competition by spending the week before reading their self-care text book cover to cover. The internships both have in area CVS pharmacies also helped give them the knowledge they needed, especially on one of the most obscure questions.

“Some of the questions I’ve actually gotten before,” Connors said. “When they asked what can be used for ear wax and is also a laxative, I couldn’t believe I knew that it is Docusate. Someone had just asked me that at CVS. That was the first time I had gotten that question; but it wasn’t the last.”

The Pepto Bowl is so-named because the contest is endowed by Proctor and Gamble, maker of the over-the-counter stomach medication, Pepto-Bismol. The national Non-Prescription Medicines Academy and the National Alliance of State Pharmacy Associations compile the questions, which cover a broad array of products and uses, doses, side effects and adverse reactions. Contestants have 20 seconds to respond to each question.

“The contest helps get us ready for the questions people might have when they walk into a community pharmacy,” Connors said. “You have to know how to answer their questions. And a lot of it is knowing when to refer them to a doctor. You can’t self-treat everything.”

By the way, those who choose to attempt to self-treat migraines can try the herb Butterbur. Just be sure to speak to your pharmacist first.