Featuring: Erica Kohen, PharmD Candidate c/o 2024 By: Isabelle Lim, PharmD Candidate c/o 2024 Erica Kohen is a sixth-year pharmacy student at St. John’s University, College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. During her time at St. John’s, Erica served as the Secretary and President-Elect and is currently serving as President of the Student College of…

By: Omar Elhoriny, PharmD Candidate c/o 2024 and Nancy Yousry, PharmD Candidate c/o 2024 The therapeutic space of solid organ transplantation holds great relevance to practicing pharmacists and yet is rarely a topic of discussion in didactic teaching. The field of renal transplant therapeutics has made remarkable strides over the years, offering new hope to…

By: Bhojranie Brahmanand, PharmD Candidate c/o 2025 Traditionally, a prescription has always been required for contraceptives such as birth control. However, on July 13, 2023, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Perrigo’s Opill®, a daily progestin-only oral contraceptive (POC) as the first over-the-counter (OTC) birth control pill.1 This drug was originally approved for prescription…

By: Ariella Zadrima, PharmD Candidate c/o 2026 Since coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) first made its appearance in December of 2019, its pathology has been a topic of research for many years. COVID-19 is a respiratory illness that can be spread through droplets. It is known that COVID-19 is caused by infection of severe acute respiratory…

By: Jennalynn Fung, PharmD Candidate c/o 2025 Drug shortages are not new; however, their frequency has significantly increased over the years. Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease doctor and professor at the University of California, San Francisco, stated, “[i]t’s something that I’ve seen from time to time since I started practice about 20 years ago,…

By: Maha Sohail, PharmD Candidate c/o 2024 In the United States, about 6.5 million, or 1 in 50 people, have an unruptured brain aneurysm, with one rupture occurring every 18 minutes.1 Worldwide, there are almost half a million deaths each year from this medical emergency, of which half the victims are younger than 50 years…

Featuring: Janelle Derbis, PharmD By: Serina Lin, PharmD Candidate c/o 2024 Janelle Derbis is a PharmD graduate of Drake University, College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, located in Des Moines, Iowa. She is currently the Director of Regulatory Affairs at Merck & Co., Inc. She has prior extensive experience in the U.S. Food and Drug…

By: Ashley Medina, PharmD Candidate c/o 2025 After decades of trial and error, science is ready to offer preventative measures against the respiratory syncytial virus, better known as RSV. Utilizing RSV vaccination tools that have become available will allow for a healthy, fun, and safe transition from winter to spring, often when RSV cases rise.…

By: Sandra Jojo, PharmD Canddiate c/o 2024 The United States (US) is in the midst of an opioid overdose epidemic. All across the US, opioids continue to be abused regardless of strict laws. Communities suffer the consequences as more and more individuals become addicted to illicit drugs. The Philadelphia Department of Public Health reported that…