Cougars Leap to Top at TSHP

TSHP 2015 Annual Seminar Brings Competition and Recognition Awards for Students, Office Installations for Alumni

UH College of Pharmacy students captured three competition awards, while a participant in the M.S./PGY1-PGY2 Pharmacy Leadership & Administration program was named the top resident/fellow at the Texas Society of Health-System Pharmacists 2015 Annual Seminar & Meeting April 24-26 in San Antonio.

In the Clinical Skills competition, the team of Sunny Bhakta and Salman Farooqui won the P3 division and Marissa Blumenthal and Eric Kao won the P2 division (which Bhakta and Farooqui won last year). In addition, Bhakta was crowned the winner of the Disease State Management Competition.

Phuoc Anne Nguyen, Pharm.D., who will complete the M.S./Residency program this summer, was honored with the 2015 TSHP Leo F. and Ann Godley Residency Fellowship Award. Nguyen, who earlier this year received TSHP's Special Recognition Award, also was installed as a director of the Gulf Coast Society of Health-System Pharmacists Board of Directors.

The UH Student Society of Health-System Pharmacists also was recognized as being among the top three chapters in collecting teddy bears and books for donation to a San Antonio children's hospital. More than 1,100 items were collected and donated by the participating chapters. 

Among UHCOP alumni news from TSHP:

Craig Frost, R.Ph. (B.S. '92), MBA (Bauer '06), assistant vice president of Pharmacy & Research at CHI St. Luke's Health-Baylor St. Luke's Medical Center, was installed as president of the TSHP Research & Education Foundation, succeeding fellow alumna Sarah Lake Wallace, Pharm.D. ('00), pharmacy manager at TIRR Memorial Hermann;

Mallory Gessner-Wharton, Pharm.D. ('11), M.S. ('13), clinical pharmacy manager at Kingwood Medical Center, was installed as president-elect of Gulf Coast Society of Health-System Pharmacists (Gulf Coast SHP); and

Thani Gossai, Pharm.D. ('08), inpatient pharmacy manager at Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Houston, was installed as president of the Gulf Coast SHP.

In addition, alumnus Quintin Broussard, Pharm.D. ('14), PGY1 pharmacy practice resident at CHI St. Luke's Health-Baylor St. Luke's Medical Center (BSLMC), was recognized with an Honorable Mention in the PG1 Resident category of the Research Poster Competition. Broussard's project, "Feasibility of converting individualized, outsourced parenteral nutrition products to standardized parenteral nutrition products at a large, tertiary academic medical center," was coauthored by William Lloyd Jr., MSHA, MSHI, BSLMC Department of Pharmacy administrative manager; Greg Laine, R.Ph., M.S. ('87), Critical Care clinical pharmacy coordinator; and Kimberly Putney, Pharm.D. (00'), MPH, BSLMC director of Clinical Pharmacy, Policy, Research and Education.

Any additional student and alumni news from the meeting will be published as details are made available.