PharmD Students Win First Place at SNPhA National Competition

Second-year PharmD students Isela Lopez and Rhea Misra in the class of 2026 won first-place honors at the Student National Pharmaceutical Association (SNPhA) National Clinical Skills Competition at the association’s annual convention held in Los Angeles on Aug. 9, 2024.

Lopez and Misra had previously competed together and won in the SNPhA’s local clinical skills competition for UCSF students. They decided to partner again for the SNPhA event after earning the opportunity to compete at the national level.

In the National Clinical Skills Competition, student teams are given a patient’s medication profile to evaluate and provide appropriate counseling in order to show their pharmaceutical knowledge and patient assessment skills.

The competition spanned two intense days, an experience that Lopez described as both nerve-wracking and exhilarating. “The patient counseling session was particularly intense because we were in front of a lot of people,” she said. “But it was also an incredible learning experience. Our skills classes at UCSF provided us with the assignments and the practice we needed to feel confident.”

Misra added that the skills she gained from Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) sessions at UCSF had prepared them well for the competition’s time constraints. “I used to worry about the 12-minute time limit during our OSCEs, but when we had just seven minutes in the competition, I realized how well those sessions had prepared me,” Misra said. “This competition has made me more aware of the importance of time management and efficiency, especially in clinical settings.”

Lopez said she also learned the most from the competition’s timed challenges. “The ability to quickly and accurately counsel a patient under time constraints is something I’ll keep working on,” she said. “This experience has shown me just how vital those skills are in real-world settings.”

Lopez’s first professional conference was an experience she found enriching beyond the competition itself. “It was great to network with professionals and students from other schools,” she said. “I realized that while our experiences may differ, our goals and motivations are very similar. It felt like a very supportive environment.”

Misra agreed that getting to meet pharmacy students and professionals from around the country was invaluable. “The bonus was getting to meet all these amazing people that I probably wouldn’t have met if it weren’t for this opportunity. It was very different than just going to class and coming home.”