Community Education
The College of Pharmacy offers numerous co-curricular opportunities for students, with both patient and nonpatient learning initiatives. We offer hands-on learning and pharmacy-based events designed to immerse students into the medical and health care field.
Our service learning outreach includes community health events, community health fairs and public health initiatives designed to advance and further the education of our future health care innovators.
As our students and faculty gain valuable experience, we are able to provide a lasting impact on the health of our local communities in which we live.
Example Initiatives Impacting Our Communities
Student Community Service
Professional student pharmacists at the Rangel College of Pharmacy have had an impact on thousands of lives. The school has eight active student organizations that reach out to our community when they provide blood glucose and blood pressure screenings at health fairs, lead diabetes and smoking cessation education programs, clean up parks, help children with homework at the Boys and Girls Club, and are engaged in many community action projects in Kingsville and the greater South Texas region. This past year, our students participated in a total of 85 health-related events in Kingsville and the surrounding communities and a total of 17,564 community members attended these events.
Public Health Committee
College of Pharmacy students helped found and create a new public health committee aimed at developing new relationships and learning about the constructs that facilitate the social and physical environment in which pharmacy students are developing patient care skills. After students assisted in recovery and restoration events in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in 2017, a group decided to continue its momentum in the public health arena, leading to the official formation of the first committee.
Pharmacy Public Health Symposium
College of Pharmacy students, faculty and guests gathered for the first Pharmacy Public Health Symposium on March 2. Presenters shared their research on topics ranging from vaccination rates in dairy workers, Texas colonias outreach programs, rural health, disaster preparedness and the pharmacist role in these and other types of public health initiatives. The Pharmacy Public Health Committee hopes to follow up on these initiatives and more in the next academic year with the help of our pharmacy students and colleagues. Speakers included Jose Gutierrez (TAMU Colonias Program), Anabel Rodriguez (UT Health Science Center Public Health) and Dr. Michael Miller and Dr. Bree Watzak of the Rangel School of Pharmacy.
The REACH Project Health Fair
The REACH Project Health Fair – a partnership between the College of Pharmacy Classes of 2020, 2021 and 2022, and the REACH Project – took place March 1 in College Station. The event kicked off The REACH Project’s first round of High Impact Service Opportunities offered to Texas A&M Students and in the benefit of the Aggie family. This event enabled student volunteers from all levels to apply their skills in a way that provided interdisciplinary field-based application, as well as a philanthropic impact within our Aggie community.
Project SHINE, Free Health Screenings
During the past several years, the School of Pharmacy with the American Pharmacists Association-Academy of Student Pharmacists (APhA-ASP) Chapter, gives students the opportunity to serve the people of South Texas by providing free health screenings. Project SHINE is an interactive health clinic designed to meet the School of Pharmacy’s mission to serve the people of South Texas. The students were able to offer blood pressure checks, glucose, A1c testing, lipid panels, BMI readings and medication counseling. Students were able to treat more than 130 patients in March in Brownsville. The knowledge the students provided to patients is valuable; it goes beyond the results they give them.