Pharmacy school joins UB’s community outreach at Lighthouse medical clinic

BUFFALO, N.Y. — On a Friday night in mid-June, two patients came to the Lighthouse Free Medical Clinic in Buffalo with serious conditions that required medication.

One had been prescribed an antibiotic that failed to treat her infection. The other had surging blood pressure.

Adia Vazquez, a third-year student at the University at Buffalo School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, collaborated with students in UB’s Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences to assist both patients in getting the medications they needed.

The students stayed on the phone with one pharmacy for two hours until they were able to get the right antibiotics. For the client with high blood pressure, they not only helped her obtain the right medication, but they also educated her on its proper usage.

“She told us she was taking it like candy when she got stressed, instead of every day, which isn’t good,” Vazquez  says. “We also changed one of her medications because it had a higher risk for the blood pressure dropping too low, and we scheduled a follow-up appointment.”

Beginning in late May, third-year pharmacy students joined students in the medical school and the School of Public Health and Health Professions as volunteers at Lighthouse, which provides free medical care every Friday evening to uninsured and underinsured adults and children.

“We decided that this would be a great professional yearlong service-learning opportunity for our third-year students because they’re closest to rotation to an interprofessional clinic,” says Gina Prescott, PharmD, clinical professor and director of global and community outreach in the pharmacy school. “It’s a nice, short-term exposure to interprofessional relationships in the clinical setting and part of our strategic plan and mission to provide care to underserved populations.”

Student-led initiative

A group of medical students founded the clinic in 2001, and in the ensuing years, public health students joined the weekly rotations. Students from the School of Dental Medicine and School of Social Work have also participated.

Located in the Community Health Center of Buffalo at 34 Benwood Ave., the clinic is open Fridays from 5 to 9 p.m. and offers general health care, including work and school physicals, as well as OB/GYN and dermatology care (by appointment only). All care is supervised by licensed physicians.

“Lighthouse directly serves our neighboring Buffalo community, which is a very important goal for UB,” says Kalpesh Desai, PharmD, assistant dean for inclusive excellence in the pharmacy school. “Everyone involved is learning how to provide health care as a team and learn from each other’s training to fulfill the immediate health care needs of patients. This type of collaboration should translate post-graduation where they know, for example, if a patient has needs to address the social determinants of health, they can contact social work or public health for assistance.”

During his shift in May, third-year pharmacy student Ryan Ni worked with fellow students to provide medication counseling, identify low-cost generic options for medications and help the medical team conduct patient assessments and medication reconciliation.

“My experience gave me the chance to apply what I’ve learned in class to real patient care and strengthened my drive to serve communities in need,” Ni says. “Many clients I encountered came from diverse cultures, which helped me better understand how to communicate with empathy and cultural awareness. I learned that quality care is more than clinical knowledge. It depends on trust, listening, and meeting patients where they are. That lesson will stay with me throughout my career.”

Every student works at least one Friday night shift in tandem with the medical students, who are overseen by at least one faculty member, along with the clinic licensed medical doctors and pharmacists.

“My main hope is that pharmacy students with this invaluable experience will be inspired to ‘pay it forward’ when they graduate and serve their communities where they work and live,” Desai says. “When a patient with limited resources who is struggling with their health is so grateful for your free service, it is truly the most uplifting, rewarding experience.”

Experience fulfills three goals for pharmacy students

Prescott identified three main goals for pharmacy students’ work at Lighthouse: to apply their pharmacy expertise to improve the overall patient care experience, to expose them to underserved populations, and to introduce them to interprofessional communication and collaboration.

“We do a lot of teaching on underserved populations in the classroom, but I don’t think students equate that in the same way with what they see in an actual patient,” Prescott  says. “I think having this exposure prior to their last year in the program helps them to ask questions such as, ‘What are some limitations of care that the patients have? Why are they showing up at a free clinic? What are some of the social concerns that we need to address?’”

The third goal, she says, is paramount.

“I don’t think there’s anything like having students work together,” she says. “They need to rely on each other and recognize the role of a doctor, the role of the public health student, and how clinical practice looks in real time. With this experience, they can self-evaluate and say, “Hey, I did really well in these areas and I need to work on this area over the next year before I hit my clinical rotations.”

Interprofessional communication rewarding

Tyler Leote, a pharmacy student who also serves as the UB collegiate chapter president of the American Association of Psychiatric Pharmacists (AAPP),  says the interpersonal communication part of her Lighthouse experience exceeded her expectations.

“I didn’t realize how much students of different disciplines could teach and learn from each other,” Leote says.

During her shift, she helped a medical student input prescriptions into the electronic prescribing system.

“I was able to help interpret signa codes, select the correct Albuterol product, and help calculate a day’s supply of a complex taper medication, while also catching a prescription error written for the incorrect strength of a drug,” she says. “The experience also helped me realize how much our professions have in common and how important a positive connection between health care professionals is.”

Vazquez, Ni, and Leote all say they would like to repeat a shift at Lighthouse if they had the chance.

“The more you’re exposed to the public and different types of experiences, the more eye-opening it is,” Vazquez  says. “And we’re working as a team with medical students who are also learning, along with preceptors who are there as guides if we need them. If we make a mistake, we learn from it and grow. But we have so many people working together, saying, ‘OK, let’s collaborate. How are we going to do this?’”