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Friday, February 22, 2008
ISU PSUB Ballroom
6:00pm

What is PPSA?

PPSA stands for "Professional Pharmacy Student Alliance." It is a professional student organization that combines the events, projects, and benefits of Idaho's two state pharmacy associations, the Idaho Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ISHP) and the Idaho State Pharmacy Association (ISPA), with the national American Pharmacists Association (APhA). By combining these three associations, students are able to see the benefits of all three associations, have a more significant effect upon the community, and associate with practitioners in varied practice settings at the state and national level.

PPSA has three major community care projects:

The goal of Operation Diabetes is to aide the community in screening for, maintaining adequate treatment of and increasing awareness about the disease diabetes mellitus. Diabetes mellitus is a disease where the body does not properly handle sugars from the foods we eat and can increase the risk of other life-threatening problems such as stroke and kidney failure. Diabetes mellitus can also lead to blindness and amputation of limbs if it is not controlled. This disease affects over 20 million people in the United States of America but many of them are undiagnosed because they don't recognize the symptoms in the early stages of the disease. Operation Diabetes holds or attends several health fairs each year to help screen for early signs of diabetes, answer questions people have about managing their diabetes, and help identify early signs of serious complications from diabetes.

More than 50 million Americans suffer the symptoms of heartburn more than twice a week. Approximately 10% of Americans suffer heartburn symptoms daily and more than a third of all Americans have heartburn on at least an occasional basis. These patients have problems sleeping, enjoying their favorite meals and activities and heartburn can make asthma worse in asthmatics, leading to a decreased quality of life. Operation Heartburn Awareness has helped the nearly 46% of patients who have improvement in their heartburn related symptoms with over the counter medications.

We enjoy the opportunity to help heartburn sufferers live healthier and more productive lives. This patient care project allows our student pharmacists to educate the public on heartburn and recommend lifestyle modifications to decrease the number of episodes and the severity of heartburn, recommend OTC medications sufferers can take and refer sufferers to their physician when medical attention is needed.

The goal of Operation Immunization is to increase community awareness of immunization information, advise patients where they can obtain the proper immunizations, promote immunization services in pharmacies, and increase the public's awareness of the important role both pharmacists and student pharmacists can play in public health. Since the campaign began, over 538,300 patients have been immunized by pharmacists and student pharmacists nation-wide! Our students gave hundreds of flu shots this year at pharmacies throughout the community and we even gave out 50 free flu shots at our open house this past October in celebration of American Pharmacists Month.

A very special thanks to our sponsors!