Shenandoah University third-year Pharm.D. student Sheridan Herron ’26 won the American Pharmacists Association-Academy of Student Pharmacists (APhA-ASP) National Patient Counseling Competition during the APhA Annual Meeting that took place March 21-24, in Nashville, Tennessee.
Herron, who was recognized during the APhA-ASP Student Awards Celebration on March 22, is the third Shenandoah University student in the Bernard J. Dunn School of Pharmacy to win the APhA-ASP National Patient Counseling Competition, joining Joanna Lyon (2014) and Danielle Przychodzin (2003).
Shenandoah, which admitted its first class of doctoral pharmacy students in 1996, began participating in the National Patient Counseling Competition in 2000. Shenandoah University’s three national winners are the most of any pharmacy school over the last 25 years, and Shenandoah is tied with the University of California, San Francisco for the most in the history of the National Patient Counseling Competition, which debuted in 1985.
I am so proud of Sheridan! She embodies the best qualities of a Shenandoah graduate – pharmacists who have the compassion and communication skills to effectively use their knowledge and skills to improve their patients’ lives. I have always said that Shenandoah University student pharmacists can compete with any student at any school of pharmacy in the nation. Our student pharmacists’ unmatched success in the APhA-ASP National Patient Counseling Competition over the last quarter of a century is only one example that proves it.”
Robbie Kidd, Pharm.D., Ph.D., dean of the Bernard J. Dunn School of Pharmacy
Herron – who credited the guidance of Shenandoah adjunct associate professors of pharmacy practice Sarah Parnapy Jawaid, Pharm.D., and Renee Thomas, Pharm.D., for her success – won a local competition at Shenandoah University to qualify for the national competition, which featured 120 student pharmacists representing schools from all over the country.
The National Patient Counseling Competition, which is sponsored by CVS, is divided into preliminary and final rounds. During the preliminary round, each of the 120 students chose a practice scenario at random and were given five minutes to review the medication prescription and patient profile before counseling the patient on the appropriate use of the drug involved. Throughout the competition, students were scored based on the content and style of their counseling presentations, and the top 10 students from the preliminary national round advanced to the final round.
The 10 finalists were faced with a more complex counseling situation in the final round, which also began with students selecting a prescription at random before counseling the patient on safe and effective drug use. In the final round, the patient displayed a personality characteristic such as anxiousness, belligerence or apathy, challenging the students’ ability to effectively deliver the necessary information in a realistic environment.
Winning this competition meant so much to me, as counseling patients on their medications and alleviating their concerns is an area of pharmacy I am very passionate about. I am grateful to have had Dr. Sarah Parnapy Jawaid and Dr. Renee Thomas not only practice with me and coach me for this competition, but also to have had them in a communications class my first year of pharmacy school. They both were willing to meet with me various times throughout the week to practice counseling and offer feedback. I cannot thank them both enough for being there for me every step of the way! At the national competition, I just told myself to continue to be myself and pretend it was another counseling session with my professors, and it worked!”
Sheridan Herron ’26, Shenandoah University Pharm.D. student
Herron received her award from Joshua Cahill, senior adviser of talent acquisition for CVS, during the awards ceremony in Nashville, a moment made even more special by her parents’ attendance.
In addition to its three national winners, Shenandoah had a national first runner-up in 2020, a third-place finisher in 2002, and additional top 10 performers in 2018, 2013, 2004 and 2001.
To learn more about Shenandoah University’s Bernard J. Dunn School of Pharmacy, visit su.edu/pharmacy.
