By: Megumi Barclay and Isabel Doshi
Mixing benzoyl peroxide and polyethylene glycol in a heated beaker might not sound like your typical high school summer camp activity. While it is a way of making lip balm, for Najih, a rising high school junior from Pittsburgh who attended Pitt’s RxPLORE camp in July, this activity served a greater purpose.
Najih was one of a group of 74 high school students who came from New York, Dallas and Washington, D.C., to participate in RxPLORE 2024, a free three-day summer camp held July 25-27 at the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Pharmacy. The camp is offered to rising high school juniors and seniors as an introduction to the pharmacy profession. Over three days, campers learned about specific pharmacy fields through lecture-style sessions and hands-on lab experiences taught by Pitt Pharmacy staff, alumni and students.
As members of the health care team, pharmacists are medication experts who provide critical services, such as counseling physicians and patients on the safest and most effective drugs to treat diseases. RxPLORE 2024 introduced campers to the basics of community pharmacy, hospital pharmacy, and the pharmaceutical industry to expand their understanding of the profession. Pitt Pharmacy, ranked ninth in the country in 2024 by U.S. News and World Report, offers various programs, such as the Doctor of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences graduate programs.
“I love that I’m going to be with so many other health sciences... so there’s so much collaboration, well-developed clinical experiences for us, especially being attached to UPMC,” Emma Reed, a fourth-year Pitt Pharmacy student working at RxPLORE, said in explaining why she chose Pitt Pharmacy. “We have access to all those rotations, which is great to have. People in the top of our field are teaching us in the classroom.”
In addition to making lip balm, campers visited the Peter M. Winter Institute for Simulation, Education and Research (WISER) of Pitt/UPMC—a world-class multidisciplinary research facility—where they simulated pharmacists’ roles in treating patients experiencing cardiac symptoms. Other camp activities included compounding IVs medication and administering naloxone, which can reverse an opioid overdose, on the SimMan, an advanced patient simulator, to learn how a patient would react, depending on the given dosage. Campers were also able to tour other pharmacy labs to further understand the research done within the school.
“I love helping people,” Brianna, a rising junior from New York City, said about choosing pharmacy, “and I feel like the whole process of being a pharmacist is pretty cool.”
Current Pitt Pharmacy faculty and alumni presented lecture-style sessions on community practice, independent pharmacy ownership, optimizing medications in palliative care, and careers in the pharmaceutical industry. In the closing session, campers participated in an escape room-type race where they used their new knowledge to solve puzzles and unlock boxes faster than their opponents. By forming relationships with current faculty and students, campers gained insights into the admissions process, experience, and career paths of Pitt Pharmacy.
Not only does RxPLORE provide an unforgettable experience for these aspiring pharmacists, but it also presents a unique opportunity for Pitt Pharmacy students to develop, teach and direct the camp.
Students began planning for the camp in November, meeting weekly to design the program from the bottom up. RxPLORE 2024 directors were current students who had planned the camp previously and first-year students who hope to lead it in the future. They built the agenda and contacted faculty and alumni they thought would provide the best experience for camp participants.
“The student leaders worked so hard putting it together and they deserve tons of recognition,” said Kelli Whalen, RxPLORE staff and enrollment and recruitment specialist for Pitt Pharmacy.
“There are many areas [in the field] that people don’t know about until they get to pharmacy school. I think this [camp] can delve into exposing students who haven’t decided on what they’re going to do in college to more than just what they typically think of a pharmacist,” said Reed.
More information about the camp is available here.