Pharmacy Students Visit Albany for Advocacy Day
April 11, 2019
On Tuesday, April 9, students from the Wegmans School of Pharmacy, joined by faculty, pharmacists, and other student groups from around New York, traveled to Albany to meet with legislators.
“Pharmacy Advocacy Day” has become an annual event permitting students a guided opportunity to meet with their Senate and Assembly representatives do discuss legislation that will affect their lives as practicing pharmacists, and perhaps more importantly improve patient care.
A total of 83 pharmacy students, three post-graduate residents, three faculty, and six practicing pharmacists from the Pharmacy Society of Rochester met with elected officials and staff to discuss modernizing the scope of professional practice in New York.
Topics included comprehensive medication management, expanding patient access to vaccines, and permitting pharmacists to provide “point-of-care” testing in their community pharmacies.
“These are all important topics that will further an ethical responsibility to expand access to care by patients,” said Dr. Karl Williams, professor of pharmacy ethics and law, who organized Fisher’s involvement in Advocacy Day. “Students and faculty are particularly proud that the point-of-care testing bill began as an innovative idea of a student in our pharmacy program.”