Fall 2020 - College of Pharmacy Newsletter

College of Pharmacy honours preceptors

Congratulations to all the College of Pharmacy preceptors who received preceptor of the year awards this fall.

Welcome, new PharmD students!

The College of Pharmacy was pleased to welcome our Class of 2024 to their first week of orientation starting August 31, 2020.

New graduate students

The College of Pharmacy would like to welcome the following new students who joined our graduate program in fall 2020:

Jessica Meza

Laila Aboulatta

Geng Zhang

Convocation and virtual graduation celebration

The University of Manitoba hosted its first-ever virtual Convocation on June 29, 2020 to honour our graduating students.

Disruption of all forms of racism

The Rady Faculty of Health Sciences’ Faculty Executive Council has approved the Disruption of all Forms of Racism policy. It’s the first anti-racism policy passed by a faculty or post-secondary institution in Canada.

College of Pharmacy’s 2019-2020 annual report

The College of Pharmacy has released our 2019-2020 annual report. Although much of 2020 has challenged us to become more creative in how we adapt to COVID-19, we are pleased to share our College’s accomplishments and highlight our students and our community’s resilience during these challenging times. We would like to thank our alumni, our pharmacy community, and our local communities for their continued support.

New concentration in pharmacoepidemiology

New this year, the College of Pharmacy is pleased to offer an MSc and PhD concentration in pharmacoepidemiology.

Safety matters:
Trends and learnings from the medical examiner

On September 29, 2020, the College of Pharmacists of Manitoba hosted an event via Zoom that included presentations by faculty on important pharmacy-related trends.

Dr. James Bolton (Department of Psychiatry) presented research examining the trends and demographic profiles of overdose death cases in Manitoba. Dr. Christine Leong presented on specific case examples from the medical examiners office of dispensing patterns that contribute to the risk of overdose deaths involving prescription medication. Dr. Shawn Bugden and Dr. Jamison Falk presented on the Manitoba Opioid Atlas.

International study to look at effects of COVID-19 pandemic on pregnancy

Dr. Sherif Eltonsy, assistant professor in the College of Pharmacy, and Dr. Dan Chateau, assistant professor of community health sciences at the Max Rady College of Medicine, lead the Manitoba portion of a major international study designed to determine the effects a pandemic has on pregnant mothers and infants.

Congratulations!

Congratulation to Dr. Hagar Labouta, assistant professor at the College of Pharmacy, on being accepted to serve in the Young Scientists Committee (YSC) of the Controlled Release Society (CRS) for three years. The YSC is a team dedicated to bringing stimulating education workshops and new networking concepts to meet the needs of CRS member young scientists.

The dangers of the Benadryl TikTok challenge

The Benadryl Challenge is the latest social media fad where young people on TikTok are attempting to take as much diphenhydramine as possible until they experience hallucinations.

Dr. Leong appeared on CTV Morning Live on September 8, 2020 to warn about the potentially serious consequences of this challenge.

Left to right: Rachel Lagace interviewing Dr. Christine Leong.

Recently funded projects

The College of Pharmacy is pleased to be a part of a number of recently funded projects.

Welcome

We welcome back Dr. David Collins, professor and former dean of the College of Pharmacy.

Dr. Christine Leong and Dr. Ruby Grymonpre begin their research and study leave this summer, as we welcome back Dr. Xiaochen Gu from his leave.

Congratulations to Dr. Silvia Alessi-Severini who was promoted to professor in 2020 and to Dr. Jamison Falk who has been granted tenure and promoted to associate professor in 2020.

The College of Pharmacy welcomes Alexandra Cooper as she joins the college as an interprofessional education coordinator.

College of Pharmacy undergraduate research awards

The College of Pharmacy awarded eight 2019/2020 undergraduate research awards this summer. Despite the unique COVID-19-related circumstances that presented many challenges to their research experiences, below are but a few of the comments from our undergraduate research award recipients.

Students experience the North through Structured Practical Experiential Program

This summer, two pharmacy students travelled to northern communities to complete their experiential education rotations. Kathleen Klippenstein and David Fuss, both in their third years, travelled to Thompson and Norway House respectively as pandemic restrictions were lifted just in time for their arrival.

Leadership series

The College of Pharmacy is pleased to once again offer their leadership series to students beginning this fall. We invite all pharmacy students to register and join virtually to this visionary initiative that will bring a variety of leadership training and knowledge through seminars and workshops.

Leading self and others:
Knowing yourself as a leader, and the power of collaboration for leadership in pharmacy

Monday, October 26, 2020
3:45 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.

Additional events can be viewed in the college's events listings under "College of Pharmacy important dates."