Hello everyone! I hope you all have an excellent Thanksgiving weekend. I am excited to announce our newly elected E-board for the upcoming year. Our president-elect is Ashley Blanchette, our secretary is Brad Miller, and our new E-board members will be Kristina Stoncius, who will be rejoining the E-board, and new members Bryan Homberg and Megan Van Baren. Congratulations, everyone!

As it is December, this will be my final announcement for everyone. I will be sticking around on the E-board next year as the Immediate Past President, but all presidential duties will pass on to our new president, Jessie Prociv, who will be taking over starting in January. Thank you everyone who helped make this year a success. It has been my pleasure to serve as President, and I look forward to seeing everyone in the coming years. Have a nice holiday season, everyone!

Hello WMSHP members! Can you believe it's already November? This is actually the final President's Corner you'll receive from me as president. WMSHP will be on a bit of a break for December before I pass the reigns off to Jessie Prociv as the incoming president. I will still be serving as the immediate past president. So, feel free to reach out to me still if needed!

As for November at WMSHP, we just had our monthly CE meeting last week where Devon Stonerock, PharmD gave a fantastic talk on Car-T therapy. As a immunotherapy lay-person, it was an incredibly helpful overview about how to manage side effects from these medications. Thank you Devon for sharing your expertise with us, and thank you Kristina Stoncius for coordinating the event!

As a reminder, elections are currently open for voting through the end of the month. If you haven't already, be sure to vote at the following link: WMSHP E-board Voting - 2024. Finally, WMSHP currently has our yearly Midyear scholarship applications open. if you know any P4 students in the state of Michigan that are going to Midyear, send them our application link here: WMSHP Midyear Scholarship 2024 Application.

That brings us to the end of this month's President's Corner. It's been an amazing year, and I appreciate everyone's support. You'll hear from me one last time when I announce our new E-board in December. Until then, have a nice month, everyone!

Hello WMSHP Members! It's that time of year again. Voting is now open for next year's E-board. Voting will remain open throughout the month of November 2024, and can be completed at the following link: WMSHP E-board Voting 2024. We will announce your new E-board members in December 2024. Please see below for the biographies of our nominees.

President-Elect:

Ashley Blanchette has served as a board member of WMSHP for the past two years and as the Resident at Large member from 2020-2021. She is currently serving as the Co-Chair of the MSHP Organizational Affairs Committee, Vice Chair of the MPA Government Affairs Committee, and working to improve transitions of care as the Manager of the Corewell Health Medication History team. She has previous experience as President of the Macomb County Pharmacy Association, board member of the Oakland County Pharmacists Association, and committee member of the MPA Local Association Development Committee. If elected, she hopes to apply her passion for advocacy and team-building to further strengthen our region's professional community.

Secretary:

Brad Miller is an Informatics Pharmacist at Corewell Health in Grand Rapids. He graduated from Ferris State University over two decades ago. After working as an Emergency Medicine Pharmacist at Spectrum Health Butterworth for several years, he joined the pharmacy informatics team. Brad has been the secretary of WMSHP since 2004.

E-board (3 Openings):

Bryan Homberg is a 2021 graduate from Ferris State University College of Pharmacy. He started his pharmacy career in independent pharmacy practice as Pharmacist Manager, PIC, and LTC Coordinator for Flint Family Pharmacy. In 2022 he joined Genesee County Pharmacists Association as a board member at large, and was involved in legislative action and MPA house of delegates. He has since started work at Bronson Battle Creek as an Inpatient Clinical Pharmacist in September of 2024, and looks forward to bringing his experiences to the west Michigan area.

Hi everyone! My name is Kristina Stoncius and I am interested in continuing as a WMSHP board member. I have been a board member since 2021, beginning as the PGY1 resident board member and after that continuing on as an E-board member! I am currently a pharmacist at Corewell Health Butterworth Hospital in Grand Rapids, where my clinical interests are internal medicine and oncology! 

Megan Van Baren is a clinical pharmacist with Corewell Health in Grand Rapids. She completed her pharmacy school education at Ferris State University. After graduation in 2021, she completed a PGY-1 residency with Corewell (Spectrum) Health. Post residency, she has worked as a clinical pharmacist for Corewell Health Butterworth. Her current areas of practice include cardiology and oncology. In her free time she enjoys attempting to stay on track with her Goodreads reading challenge. In pharmacy school she was involved with multiple student organizations and is looking forward to becoming more involved with professional organizations in the future.

Hello everyone! We're right in the middle of spooky season, but things are still looking bright here at WMSHP! This past month has been a good one. We started off with our October meeting, which was hosted at the Four Roses Cafe in Plainwell. Our very own Kelsey Ernst, PharmD gave a presentation on pharmacogenomics. As a known pharmacogenomics hater, I must say she did a great job presenting clinical evidence showcasing how we can use this in real world settings. Thank you Kelsey!

We also successfully hosted our in-person mock interviews. Thank you e-board member Tara McAlpine for coordinating that, and thank you to all of our volunteers who helped out. We will be holding a virtual mock interview event on Wednesday (10/30), and spots are still available. If you are interested in being interviewed or know someone who is, sign-up here: https://wmshp.net/event-5906243!

We are still accepting applications for e-board members. If you are interested, please email me (pontefb@ferris.edu). All you need to include is your name and a short 1-5 sentence summary of who you are for us to share with our voting members. I am also happy to answer any questions regarding this. Voting for e-board members will open up in November. So, get those applications in ASAP if you are interested!

Finally, our last WMSHP meeting of the year will be held in November. Devon Stonerock, PharmD will be presenting on how to manage patients who have received T-cell directed therapies. Speaking as someone who is a transplant amateur, I'm incredibly excited to hear his pearls on how to better serve these patients. The event will be held in Grand Rapids, and if you are interested in joining us, you can sign up here: https://wmshp.net/event-5890903.

That's it for this month's president corner. As always, feel free to reach out if you have any questions, comments, or interest in getting more involved with WMSHP at pontefb@ferris.edu. Have a nice end to your October, everyone!

Welcome back, everyone! The e-board at WMSHP hopes you all had a nice summer and are ready to hop back into some more pharmacy-related goodness in the coming months. There's quite a lot to catch up on and look forward to. So, let's get to it!

To start, our summer outing Whitecaps game had the greatest attendance it has ever had with 41 people! Thank you everyone who came out. It was great to see everyone and spend some time relaxing at the field. Over the summer, we also elected our Resident-at-Large E-Board member, Kyle Brillantes! Kyle is currently a resident at Corewell West, and he is excited to help keep the e-board hip and with it during his time with us. If you know Kyle, send him a congratulations!

Earlier this week, we all met together for the September WMSHP meeting, which was held at Trinity Health in Grand Rapids. Dr. Sarah Leonard, PharmD, BCPPS gave an excellent presentation of Enneagrams and how they can be used to help improve communication among colleagues. As someone who had never heard of this concept, I thought it was a fascinating way to have discussions about the way we communicate. Thank you Sarah!

To round out this update, we have a few opportunities to make everyone aware of in the coming months. First, e-board nominations are open! If you (or someone you know) is interested in getting more involved with WMSHP, please send me an email at pontefb@ferris.edu for more details. The open positions include, 4 e-board members, 1 secretary, and 1 president-elect. Come join our team!

The other opportunity I want to make everyone aware of is our Mock Interviews. Many pharmacy students have never had a professional interview and can greatly benefit from going through one with a professional. If you are a pharmacist, pharmacy resident, or administrator, we'd greatly appreciate your willingness to volunteer your time as a mock interviewer. We currently have 2 dates we need volunteers for, 10/21 from 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM in person at Ferris Grand Rapids, and 10/30 from 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM virtual over Zoom. If you are interested in volunteering please email either Tara McAlpine (Tara.McAlpine@trinity-health.org) or myself (pontefb@ferris.edu).

That brings us to the end of the Corner. If you have any thoughts or questions about WMSHP, please do not hesitate to send them my way at pontefb@ferris.edu. Otherwise, I look forward to seeing everyone in October, for our next meeting in Kalamazoo. Have a nice end to your week, everyone!

Summer is finally here! It was great seeing everyone at this year's Spring Seminar. A special thank you to Susan DeVuyst-Miller , Autumn Neff, Nick Rademacher, Kyle Schmidt, and Deeb Eid for providing their time and expertise to provide some fantastic CE's for us. Also, thank you to all of our exhibitors for helping make the event happen. If you haven't already, don't forget to fill out your WMED Evaluations to get your CE credit!

The WMSHP e-board has our yearly planning meeting coming up in June. If you have suggestions for speakers, topics, or events for the coming year, please reach out. I am always available by email at benjaminpontefract@ferris.edu.

I hope everyone has a lovely summer as WMSHP takes a bit of a break to recuperate and prepare for the year ahead. I look forward to seeing everyone again at our annual Whitecaps game on August 8th! Have a nice day!

Hello WMSHP Members! It's wild to think it's already April; 2024 is flying by! We just hosted our April Meeting at Founder's, which continued our tradition of inviting 2 local pharmacy residents to present on their research projects. Keitasha Arnold at Corewell Health and Mackenzie Miller at Trinity Health gave a fantastic overview of the work they have been doing this past year. Thank you to them both for all of their hard work!

Our meeting next month, on May 7th, will be our annual Spring Seminar! Sign in and breakfast will start at 7:15 AM with the first CE starting at 8:30 AM. If you have not heard, we have a fantastic line-up of speakers! They are listed below:

• Susan DeVuyst-Miller - Implicit biases with sexual orientation and gender identity healthcare
• Autumn Neff - Anticoagulation in Special Populations
• Nick Rademacher - Treatment of Opioid Use Disorder in the Emergency Department
• Kyle Schmidt - Updates on Ischemic Stroke Management
• Deeb Eid - Law Update and Pharmacist Prescriptive Authority

Personally, I am incredibly excited for this event. Our speakers are all brilliant, and I'm sure they will have a lot of interesting ideas to bring to our group.

Lastly, the e-board has our planning meeting in June. If you have suggestions for speakers or topics please reach out to myself (benjaminpontefract@ferris.edu). Otherwise, we will see everyone at the Whitecaps game on August 8th. Have a nice weekend, everyone!

Benjamin Pontefract, PharmD, BCPS
WMSHP President

Hello again WMSHP members! I hope everyone is having a nice end to their week. It was great seeing some of you yesterday for our March Monthly Meeting. We were fortunate to have Alicia Lane, NP give a fantastic presentation regarding the use of buprenorphine in the management of opioid use disorder.

This past month, our resident member, Abby Poort, led an incredibly successful volunteer event at Renucci House in Grand Rapids where members of the e-board were able to connect with Ferris pharmacy students and provide a great service for the community. Based on the large amount of interest we saw from students, we are looking into hosting similar events in the future, which we will open up to our general membership!

Looking forward, there are two remaining meetings for Spring 2024. First we will host our annual resident research presentation on April 11^th at Founder’s in Grand Rapids. The following month, we will be hosting our annual WMSHP Spring Seminar where we will have a full day of CE presentations. This year's Spring Seminar is scheduled for May 7^th at the Prince Conference Center. Make sure you register for both great events.

I hope everyone have a fantastic weekend,

Benjamin Pontefract
WMSHP President

It was great having everyone hop on for our February meeting. We want to give a special thank you to Megan Leigh, PharmD for her fantastic presentation surrounding managing patients with medication overdoses. Our meeting in March will be held at the fan favorite restaurant, Martell's, in Kalamazoo! Keep and eye out for registration as seats will be limited.

There is also still time to register for the Michigan Pharmacists Association (MPA) Annual Convention & Exposition (ACE). There will be live CE at the Detroit Marriott Renaissance Center from Friday, February 23 to Sunday, February 25.

We look forward to seeing everyone in person again in March. Have a nice weekend, everyone!

Benjamin Pontefract, PharmD, BCPS
WMSHP President

Hello everyone! I hope you are all enjoy a great end to 2023. If we have not met, my name is Ben Pontefract, and I will be serving as president of WMSHP for 2024. I look forward to working with the fantastic people on the e-board as well as our members in the coming year. As president, I am hopeful that our team can continue to not only provide but also improve upon the services we offer all of our members, focusing on continuing education programs for our pharmacist members and residency preparatory events for our student and resident members. If anyone has thoughts on what they would like to see from WMSHP in this upcoming year, do not hesitate to reach out to me via email to let me know: benjaminpontefract@ferris.edu.

We plan to kick off the new year with a virtual CE event so everyone could enjoy some education while not having to brave the winter Michigan roads. Ryan Tomlin, PharmD, BCPS, AAHIVP is putting together a fantastic CE for January 11th on HIV Pre-Exposure Prophlyaxis (PrEP). 

Lastly, do not forget to register for the Michigan Pharmacist Association (MPA) Annual Convention & Exposition. ACE will be held starting February 23^rd through the 25^th at the Detroit Marriot Renaissance Center. You can register at the following link: https://www.michiganpharmacists.org/education-events/annual-conference-exhibition/.