AMSA
AMSA's Local Chapter Project Directory
| PROJECT DESCRIPTION/CONTACT INFORMATION | |
| Project title | PharmaFree Week |
| Project type(s) | Speaker |
| Date completed | 04/06/2007 |
| Chapter | University of Arizona COM |
| Project Coordinator | Liz Gobble |
| Summary of project | We coordinated a week of lectures and action events to educate the student body about PharmFree. Three lectures covered the ethics of physicians and the pharm industry, possible guidelines being established here at U of A, and a former drug rep discussing his interactions with physicians. Dr. Steven Brown, a NoFreeLunch.org affiliated speaker, Dr. Philip Malan, Vice Dean of Academic Affairs, and Shahram Ahari, MPH, gave lectures, respectively. We also made our own "PharmaFree" pens to be distributed at lectures and at the student lounge. Every student received a copy of the PharmFree pledge in their mailbox. |
| Content area | Pharmaceutical Issues |
| Number of participants | 70 |
| Participant hours involved | 300 hour(s) |
| PROJECT PLANNING | |
| Coordinator roles | |
| Coordinator hours | hour(s) |
| FUNDING & ADVERTISING | |
| Total project cost | $700 |
| Project funding | Local chapter funds,AMSA grant |
| Funding breakdown of sources and/or donations: | |
| Project advertising | Flyers around the College of Medicine. Emails sent out to both student and faculty listservs. I also alerted the local newspapers, but no response. |
| PROJECT EVALUATION | |
| Success rating (1 = unsuccesful, 5 = very successful) |
5 |
| Lessons/suggestions | We were lucky in that there was a front page article in the local newspaper about this issue about 2 weeks prior to the PharmaFree week. Students from all ends of the political spectrum were very receptive to our information and these events have started a dialogue at our school. We are still collecting PharmFree pledges, so it is difficult to gauge the success on that arm of the project. I believe the pen distribution and exchange could have been set up better, but it was difficult given that this is the first year our school has done this sort of project any time recently. |
| ADDITIONAL COMMENTS | |
| Comments | Inviting the faculty was huge, as well as advertising the talks well in advance. Making your own pens is very cheap, and NoFreeLunch.org also has cheap pens. Gage your faculty opinion early and speak to your deans about any upcoming proposals (I had no idea that there had been a proposal put together here before the newspaper article was published). Costs include airline ticket and transportation for one speaker, 3 lunchtime lectures that fed 70 people each, and 200 PharmaFree pens. One day we bought brown bag lunch items from CostCo. and made bagged lunches for one lecture highlighting the idea that people should pack their own food to industry-sponsored lunches. Please contact me for any other suggestions, I'd love to help. |
