FYI for COP: April 9, 2012

Modern streetcar construction to kick off in our backyard
A news conference and celebration to formally kick off construction of Tucson’s modern streetcar will be held Thursday, April 12 at 11 a.m. near the BIO5 Institute, on the northeast corner of North Warren Avenue and East Helen Street.

Many dignitaries and visitors are expected to attend. Traffic congestion and difficulty finding a parking space are predicted. For more information and to RSVP, visit the Modern Streetcar website.

Live simulcast of TEDMED starts tomorrow
The Arizona Health Sciences Center is the primary sponsor of a free, live simulcast of eight 2-hour TEDMED sessions that will be presented at the Thomas W. Keating Bioresearch Building, Room 103, beginning April 10 at 2 p.m.

TEDMED will gather 1500 adventurous thinkers and doers, from a wide array of medical and nonmedical disciplines, at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. For three and a half exciting days, this uniquely diverse community will explore the ideas, innovations and challenges that will help shape the future of health and medicine for 300 million Americans...and the world.

The sessions will be streamed live to UA from the Kennedy Center and will be followed by UA expert moderator-led discussions. The sessions are free and open to the public, but space is limited to 100 seats per session and pre-registered attendees will have priority. For registration information, visit the UA TEDMED website.

Fisher Scientific vendor show set for April 11
Fisher Scientific will host its spring vendor show Wednesday, April 11:

• 9-10:30 a.m. on the Bioscience West north patio; Nico’s breakfast burritos will be available.
• 1-3 p.m. on the BIO5/Medical Research Building patio; El Guero Canelo hotdogs and tacos will be served.

Vendors will include Fisher Chemical, BioTek, Corning, Wheaton Science Products, eppendorf and Thermo Scientific. Attendees will be eligible to win a new iPad. For more information, contact Edward Parkin, 520-784-3033, or visit the Fisher Scientific website.

Student Technology Challenge Awards available
Students are invited to apply for a $2,000 award that will be given by the Student Technology Challenge program to students who submit the best proposals for the use of technology to promote interprofessional learning. The deadline to apply is April 16.

The goal of this challenge is to generate new ideas about how to use any widely available technology, such as smart phones, webinars, video conferencing and others, to educate health profession students (nurses, physicians, pharmacists, social workers and others) about working together effectively in teams.

This is an interprofessional curriculum project that has been funded by the Macy Foundation. It will provide four awards: two to UA students and two to Arizona State University students.

For details on how to apply, visit the ASU College of Nursing and Health Innovation website.

Students spread the word about drug interactions
COP students Clarissa Sema, Stephen Karpen, Tayna Kent and Marti Larriva are applying what they’re learning in their quality improvement course. They are doing their share to improve awareness about how over-the-counter medications can interact with prescription medications. At the Safeway store at Oracle and Ina roads, the students have placed signs alerting customers to the possibility of drug interactions while also encouraging patient-pharmacist conversations.

What’s happening at the College of Pharmacy?
How do you know what’s happening at and because of the College of Pharmacy? Easy: Check the COP’s online calendar on our external website home page.

Anyone may submit an event related to the college, and those events need not be “public.”  If an event is private, just note in the description field that it is for members only or by invitation only. The more college events that are listed on the calendar, the better informed our college community is.

It also helps you and other folks who plan events avoid conflicts on activities, so enter your meeting, workshop or health fair as soon as you have a date.  With Spring Semester 2012 winding down, now is the time to post events that are planned for the summer and fall. Just go to the calendar and click “Add an event.”