Dear Colleagues,

It is my honor to serve as Chair of the Section for the coming year. During my term I will need the advice and support of the members and I encourage you to contact me or ASHP staff with your suggestions for improving the Section and ideas on how ASHP can continue to serve you.

Membership in the Section continues to grow with strong interest from student and new practitioner members. This presents our Section with a unique responsibility to demonstrate our value to these new members. We must continue to work to deliver programming and services, and provide opportunities for leadership, that will ensure that these members will maintain their primary ASHP home in our Section.

The efforts of our section are particularly evident in the Preceptor Information Resource Page and the new Evidence-Based Practice Resource Page (to be launched shortly). Our members are the backbone of pharmacy student and pharmacy resident education and many of them contributed to the Preceptor Resource Page. Take a look for ways to flourish in this role while making it as painless as possible. The ASHP 2015 Initiative makes it clear our future lies in evidence-based practice so do make a trip to our Resource Page to review the materials.

Our members make important contributions to the Section by serving on our advisory groups. These groups are created to facilitate member networking and meet particular needs identified by the membership. We currently have an Emergency Care Advisory Group that is helping to develop an ASHP position statement as well as an Investigational Drugs Advisory Group. An Advisory Group on Gene Therapy will be formed in the next year with a goal of developing resources on this topic for our membership. These three groups are in addition to our long-established Specialty Networks. Volunteers are invited for these important groups or to serve as a Network facilitator.

During the coming year we will also focus on outreach to pharmacy faculty and work with ASHP to advocate for the recognition of pharmacists as providers and improve reimbursement for pharmacy services. Our section is particularly poised to respond to President Silvester’s call to promote interdisciplinary relationships and connect with other members of the health care team. We can start by working as a Section to advance our established goals and setting ambitious new ones. I look forward to a productive year.

Sincerely,
Michael Kelly, PharmD, MS
Chair, Section of Clinical Specialists and Scientists (2007-2008)
sections@ashp.org