威尼斯人娱乐城药学院的学生扎克·卡罗尔、艾莉森·贝克和奥斯汀·多金斯彼此之间有一定的化学反应。 After all, they’ve been together since what seems like forever.
It’s a connection that helped them make it all the way to the semifinal round of this year’s national Clinical Pharmacy Challenge sponsored by the American College of Clinical Pharmacy.
“The three of us have been friends since elementary school so it has been fun to see how much we’ve learned over the years together,” Baker said.
他们是在密苏里州哥伦比亚市米尔克里克小学三年级时认识的。 They graduated together from Columbia’s Rock Bridge High School. 这三名四年级的药学专业学生甚至在完成本科学位的同时，发现了在同一家当地药店工作的共同兴趣。
“All of us enjoyed working there and we individually decided to apply to pharmacy school,” Dockins said.
It wasn’t until after each had submitted their applications to attend 威尼斯人娱乐城’s 药学院 at the University of Missouri’s Columbia campus, that the trio realized they would be continuing their college careers together while following similar career aspirations.
“We didn’t talk about applying to pharmacy school until after we all had submitted applications,” Dockins said. “We were all a little surprised that each of us had made the decision to apply, but we were excited to take on the adventure together.”
今年早些时候，这段旅程达到了高潮，三人在AACP年度临床药学挑战赛的全国半决赛中奋力拼搏。
The competition pits three-person teams from pharmacy schools and colleges against one another in a quiz bowl–type format. 它于9月开始，来自美国各地的90多个团队参加了比赛。 每一轮比赛都包括琐事/闪电，临床案例和危险类型的环节，由临床药学专家和教育工作者准备问题。
“It’s been great to work together as a team,” Baker said. “Throughout school, most assessments are individual, so this has been a neat opportunity to collectively think through questions, use each other as resources and pull from our unique rotation experiences to answer questions.”
在被淘汰之前，威尼斯人娱乐城队成功地通过了前五轮比赛，进入了全国半决赛。 三人都将他们的准备归功于威尼斯人娱乐城药学教授，无论是比赛还是他们未来的药剂师职业生涯。
“Competing against intelligent students from prestigious universities across the country was a really neat opportunity,” Dockins said. “We feel very accomplished and proud that we were able to make it to the top four.”
Dockins said that he, Carroll and Baker have participated in team competitions as an opportunity to reinforce how much they’ve learned throughout pharmacy school.
“We really just compete to see how well we will do,” he said. “We don’t have huge expectations when entering, although each one of us has a bit of a competitive spirit. We know that each one of us brings something different to the table and we know each other so well that it’s easy to communicate during these competitions.”
他们进入四强的冲刺是威尼斯人娱乐城药学院在国家舞台上不断发展的卓越遗产的延续。 去年，Jamie Sullivan， Kathryn Rechenberg和Brooke Jacobson组成的威尼斯人娱乐城团队赢得了临床药学挑战赛全国冠军。