SU Pharmacy Students Debate for Final Exam and $1K Service-Learning Prize
Two first-year Doctor of Pharmacy students from Shenandoah University’s Bernard J. Dunn School of Pharmacy earned a $1,000 cash prize for the Daniel Morgan Middle School in Winchester, Va.
In May, two first-year Doctor of Pharmacy students from Shenandoah University’s Bernard J. Dunn School of Pharmacy, Muzammil Razvi and Derek Parvizi, earned a $1,000 cash prize for their service-learning site, the Daniel Morgan Middle School in Winchester, Va., for a math game they created to help students prepare for the Virginia Standards of Learning (SOL) exam in mathematics.
The winning team of Razvi and Parvizi competed with 30 of their classmates from Shenandoah University’s Bernard J. Dunn School of Pharmacy's first-year service learning course. The competition was actually a final exam of sorts for the students, who presented persuasive arguments on Monday, May 5, in the Omps Auditorium of the Health Professions Building on the campus of the Winchester Medical Center.
Fourteen organizations participated as service learning sites this semester including: Aids Response Effort, Blue Ridge Hospice, Boys & Girls Club, Compassionate Pharmacy, Daniel Morgan Middle School, Edge Hill, Free Medical Clinic, Northwestern Regional Adult Detention Center, NorthWest Works, Quarles Elementary School, Shenandoah Oncology Associates, Shenandoah Valley Westminster Canterbury, T.E.A.M. Grace After School Program and Winchester Medical Center Child Life.
“The class was less about studying the nuts and bolts of pharmacy practice and more about understanding the populations our graduate students will eventually serve,”Schultz explained.
“This class provided first-year pharmacy students with ways to approach and reflect on their service-learning experiences, from developing after-school programs for the Boys & Girls Club, to creating a game-show exercise that helps middle-school children study for their standards-of-learning math test, to assisting adult patients undergoing chemotherapy treatments and more,”said Assistant Professor Karen Kennedy Schultz, Ph.D., MBA.
“The class was less about studying the nuts and bolts of pharmacy practice and more about understanding the populations our graduate students will eventually serve,”Schultz explained.
According to Schultz, strict rules guided the final-exam debate. Fourteen student teams had six minutes each to convince a panel of judges –volunteers from Winchester, Frederick and Clarke Counties –why their service-learning sites should earn the $1,000 prize.
For more information about service learning programs in the pharmacy school, contact Karen Schultz at 540-678-4385 or kschultz@su.edu.