Heidi Wicks

Poster Competition
9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m., Glass Atrium, Faculty of Medicine
Judging panel: Dr. Amy Clarke, Dr. Hu Liu, Dr. Reza Tabrizchi.
Kristine Day will act as the moderator, to ensure judges remain on time.

Undergraduate Student Summer Research Program oral presentations:
9:00 – 10:00 a.m., Main Auditorium

These are the presentations for the oral component of the Undergraduate Student Summer Research Program.

- Michael Coombs “Pharmacist Supply and Demand – How do we get the right balance?”  
For a long time, a pharmacy degree and licence represented guaranteed employment anywhere in Canada.  However, times are changing.  Business model changes, changes in pharmacy practice, and changes in the supply of pharmacists have made for a much more competitive job market for pharmacists.  This poster examines the state of workforce planning in Canada as part of a quest to find the right balance between supply and demand for pharmacists.
Supervisor: Dr. Shawn Bugden

- Rebecca Druken “Balancing the Burden: Do Frail Patients Have More Opportunities for Deprescribing?”
Seniors taking too many medications: it’s a story told time and time again. This is a problem tackled daily by the pharmacists at the School of Pharmacy’s Medication Therapy Services Clinic completing medication reviews. But are recommendations being implemented? Is a patient's frailty a factor in the number of unnecessary medications they take? This summer research project takes a look.
Supervisor: Dr. Debbie Kelly

- Nicole Head “Assessment of ethanol withdrawal and its effects on ethanol-induced behavioral dysfunction”
Did you know binge drinking before the age of 25 can cause long term impairments such as decreased motor coordination and increased risk-taking behavior? Alcohol withdrawal tests show that these behavioral changes may be present even sooner than expected. Find out more to see if a fun night out is worth the potential long-term risks associated with binge drinking.
Supervisor: Dr. John Weber

- Rebecca Norman “E-Cigarettes With Nicotine: Friend or Foe?”
There is a current debate on whether e-cigarettes can help smokers to quit, or facilitate continued smoking. This research will examine the role of e-cigarettes with nicotine in helping smokers to quit smoking.
Supervisor: Dr. Hai Nguyen

- Jessica Noseworthy “A New Vein of Pharmacy Practice”
In October 2017, an Adult Outpatient Thrombosis Service Clinic (TS) staffed by clinical pharmacists and hematologists opened in Eastern Health. The Emergency Thrombosis Clinic of the TS offers specialized care to newly diagnosed VTE patients and allows pharmacist to utilize their full scope of practice to complete patient assessment, medication management and follow-up.      
Supervisor: Dr. Stephanie Young

- Sasha Power “Blueberry Rich Diets and Brain Inflammation in a Mouse Model of Parkinson’s Disease”
Parkinson’s Disease is characterized by immune cell activation in the brain leading to local inflammation and damage to brain tissues. In a well established mouse model of Parkinson’s Disease we investigated the effects of a diet enriched by blueberries picked in Fogo Island, Newfoundland, on behavioral measures and cellular inflammation markers associated with Parkinson’s Disease severity.  
Supervisor: Dr. John Weber

- Omar Shogan “Pharmacists as front-line clinicians in the Thrombosis Clinic of the new multidisciplinary Thrombosis Service”
The non-urgent thrombosis clinic of the thrombosis service assesses patients for a variety of thrombosis and anticoagulation related questions, for example duration of anticoagulation, appropriateness of anticoagulant, and requirement for additional laboratory testing. Through a retrospective chart audit, patient characteristics, pharmacist’s activities and workload, wait-times for services, and outcomes of visits were collected. It was evident that pharmacists used their knowledge and skills to effectively deliver specialized patient care in a multidisciplinary clinic, and maximize the efficiency of the Thrombosis Service.  Supervisor: Dr. Stephanie Young

- Malcolm Snow “Bariatric Surgery – (Almost) Throwing All of Those Pills Away”
After bariatric surgery, patients undergo a variety of changes. Research shows that bariatric surgery offers patients sustained weight loss, improvements in obesity-related comorbid conditions, and quality of life. Typically, research focuses on improvements in conditions such as type 2 diabetes, hyperlipidemia, and hypertension. These improvements can lead to patients to drastically reduce or stop taking medications to manage these conditions, sometimes as early as one month after surgery. These findings are extraordinary; however, this research seeks to understand the less commonly known medication changes patients undergo after bariatric surgery.
Supervisor: Dr. Laurie Twells

- Anna Thomas “Prescribing Opioids 101: A Collaborative Approach”
Apparent opioid-related deaths are continuing to rise in this country. Health care providers can help reduce access to prescription opioids through more diligent opioid prescribing. This presentation will highlight a collaborative interdisciplinary program that can be used as a model in other primary healthcare settings as a way to facilitate evidence-based care for pain management and help with the opioid crisis.
Supervisors: Dr. Lisa Bishop and Dr. Hai Nguyen

- Stephanie Tracey “Perioperative Ph.C.: How Pharmacists in the Thrombosis Service Use Innovative Ways To Manage Medications”
Pharmacists are equipped with the knowledge and skill to provide effective patient care in specialized settings, including perioperative management. Pharmacists take the lead in the Thrombosis Service and expertly utilize their expanded scope of practice to develop, implement, and review anticoagulation management plans with patients subsequently undergoing surgery or procedures. 
Supervisor: Dr. Stephanie Young

LUNCH: Noon, available outside the Main Auditorium

Snappy Synopsis: Graduate Research in a Nutshell
12:30 – 1:30 p.m., Main Auditorium

Judging panel: Dr. Lisa Bishop, Dr. Laurie Twells, Dr. Lili Wang, Nicole Pittman.

- Mike Chong: "A Conceptual Adventure of Pharmacy Education." 
Join me on a walk, or perhaps a run, through moments of pharmacy education. Will repeat what’s been done, discover something new, or re-think something familiar?

- Sunisha Aryal: "Natural products as prospective alternative treatments for neurodegemerative diseases"
Neuroinflammation can potentially contribute to chronic neurological disorders. Will bioactive constituents, polyphenols from berries, or saponins from sea cucumber, protect cells of the nervous system from inflammation and degradation and be a dietary alternative for treatment of Parkinson's disease?

- Bronwyn Bridges: "Blueberries? More like brainberries!" 
Parkinson's disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disease worldwide. A clinical study will be conducted on residents of Newfoundland whom have been diagnosed with PD as well as some healthy individuals to assess the protective effects blueberries may have on the dopaminergic neurons. Hopefully this research will provide new avenues of treatment and preventative measures of nutraceuticals in PD.

- Zahed Khatooni: "Cell structure, death and life of cells by cytoskeleton fibers"
I will present the results of my Molecular Dynamics (MD) study; the purpose of the study has been to analyze the effects of various cations and their concentrations on structural folding and conformational changes.

- Shweta Mital: "Will a Drug in Development Eventually be Worth It?" 
Blending Economics, Pharmacy and Genetics for an Answer How should a new high efficacy-high cost drug be priced and who should have access to it? Turning to economic evaluation and genetic testing for an answer.

- Ha Tran: "Next generation sequencing unlocks value in precision medicine in epilepsy: is it worth it?"
Next generation sequencing (NGS), which deciphers millions of DNA strands in parallel, has been increasingly adopted in clinical practice. Despite its promise of identification of genetic etiology, there is limited evidence on the cost effectiveness of NGS in unlocking the value of precision medicine in epilepsy care. 

KEYNOTE SPEAKER: Dr. John Weber, "Concerning cannabis"
1:30 – 2:30 p.m., Main Auditorium