Posted: December 23, 2021
Four second-year pharmacy students have been selected to receive a Baxter Scholarship toward their fee for the Plein Certificate in Geriatric Pharmacy. The Plein Center Leadership Team was inspired by the motivation and vision of the scholarship recipients. Each scholarship winner shared compelling personal stories of experiences that inspired them...
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Posted: October 14, 2021
For Louise Baxter, M.D., the roots of health care and a commitment to geriatrics truly run deep.In 2011, Louise established the McPhee Geriatric Nursing Support Fund at the UW to honor her mother Sally, who, along with several relatives, devoted her life to a career in nursing. A few years later, Louise decided that a parallel fund to support geria...
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Posted: August 18, 2021
Congratulations to Professor and Plein Endowed Director of the Plein Center Shelly Gray, who was recently named winner of the 2021 George F. Archambault award by the American Society of Consultant Pharmacists (ASCP). This is the Society’s highest honor conferred to an individual for their outstanding contributions to the profession.
“... Read more...
Posted: May 27, 2021
A new video chronicles the Plein Center’s work and history.
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Posted: February 22, 2021
Joy (Bickmore) Plein, ’51, ’57, a beloved UW School of Pharmacy colleague, mentor and true pioneer in the field of geriatrics, passed away peacefully at Virginia Mason Medical Center on February 19, 2021. She was 97.
“For 48 years, Joy was the heart of the UW School of Pharmacy,” said SOP Professor and Dean Sean Sullivan. “Everyone who... Read more...
Posted: December 22, 2020
The Pharmacy Leadership and Education Institute has named UWSOP’s Jennifer Bacci the 2021 recipient of the Albert B. Prescott Pharmacy Leadership Award. Dr. Bacci is recognized for her outstanding leadership example in the Academia-CPESN Transformation (ACT) Pharmacy Collaborative Task Force by the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AA...
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Posted: December 18, 2020
Plein Center Assistant Director, Zach Marcum, PharmD, PhD, served as co-first author on a paper published in Neurology, along with Plein Center Director, Shelly Gray, PharmD, MS, and Plein Center faculty member, Douglas Barthold, PhD, which compared different antihypertensive sub-classes in their association with incidence of dementia using data fr...
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Posted: December 18, 2020
Plein Center postdoctoral fellow alumna, Laura Hart, PharmD, MS, along with Plein Center Director, Shelly Gray, Pharm D, MS, and Plein Center Assistant Director, Zach Marcum, PharmD, PhD, published a systematic review in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society to summarize literature on whether fall risk-increasing drug use is reduced follo...
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Posted: December 18, 2020
Plein Center faculty member, Melissa Barker-Haliski, PhD, was senior author on a paper published in Neurobiology of Disease studying the relationship between Alzheimer’s disease genes and seizures in a mouse model. In this paper, investigators from the University of Washington’s Departments of Pharmacy and Neurology adapted a model of chronic s...
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Posted: December 18, 2020
Plein Center faculty member, Abhi Nath, PhD, was a corresponding author on a paper published in PNAS examining small heat shock proteins, which play a vital role in preventing protein aggregation that can otherwise lead to Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders. In this paper, investigators from the University of Washington’s Departments of...
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Posted: December 18, 2020
Lena Chaitesipaseut, a Plein Scholar and class of 2021 PharmD-MBA student, was recently awarded a $4,000 scholarship from the UWRA. In addition to this prestigious honor, Lena has been selected to complete an APPE rotation in August at the ASCP national office in Alexandria, VA. Her focus will be on professional association leadership and education...
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Posted: December 18, 2020
Tesfahun Eshetie, PhD, MScClinPharm, began a 2-year fellowship with the Plein Center as of July 1, 2020. He received his PhD from the University of South Australia, School of Medical Sciences and his dissertation topic was on Medication Related Problems in People Living with Dementia. He has hit the ground running and has started several research p...
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Posted: December 14, 2020
For Abby Winter, the Plein Center’s new Assistant Director of Outreach, a passion for health care comes honestly. In addition to her mother being a retired registered nurse, the Chicago native has had a lifelong love of chemistry, which ultimately steered her into the pharmacy field. (READ MORE)
“My love of the profession has grown exponenti... Read more...
Posted: June 16, 2020
In an age of social distancing, ensuring our older adults have safe, convenient access to the medications they need is essential. In an effort to help educate seniors on best practices to consider when communicating with their providers and pharmacies, the Plein Center for Geriatric Pharmacy Research, Education and Outreach is developing a new ... Read more...
Posted: March 4, 2020
Lena Chaitesipaseut, a Plein Scholar and class of 2021 PharmD-MBA student, was recently awarded a $4,000 scholarship from the UWRA. In addition to this prestigious honor, Lena has been selected to complete an APPE rotation in August at the ASCP national office in Alexandria, VA. Her focus will be on professional association leadership and education...
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Posted: February 19, 2020
Imagine that your local grocery store announced they would start employing several nutritionists, each of whom had years of training to help people improve their diets and health. Excited, you go to the store to get your personalized diet plan. But when you get there, you discover that the nutritionists are all busy filling customers’ carts with ...
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Posted: September 24, 2019
Zachary Marcum, PhD, PharmD was recently awarded the Paul B. Beeson Emerging Leaders Career Development Award (K76) from the National Institute on Aging (NIA) and The John A. Hartford Foundation.
Notably, Zach is the first pharmacist to receive the grant, which is typically awarded to physician-investigators. This initiative is focused on clinic... Read more...
Posted: September 13, 2019
Never doubt the profound impact that our faculty and alumni have had on health care nationwide through decades of advocacy for increased access to patient care.
“Pharmacists are the medication experts on the health care team and in the community. Thanks to our work, in addition to improved care at hospitals and clinics, busy people can just pop ...
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Posted: July 1, 2019
Congratulations to Plein Center for Geriatric Pharmacy Director Shelly Gray who received the The American Geriatrics Society Editor's Choice Award for her paper that showed Protein Pump Inhibitors (PPI) are not linked to higher dementia risk.
Proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) are medicines commonly prescribed to treat acid-related digestive problems... Read more...
Posted: June 21, 2019
Jason Rusk, PharmD, BCGP, has been a UWSOP Preceptor for many years. Earlier in his career (2010-2013), he precepted UW students while working in community pharmacy at Bartell Drugs. And for the past two and a half years, he has been a Geriatrics Pharmacy Preceptor for our Plein Geriatric Certificate students. Jason works in Skilled Nursing Facilit...
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Posted: June 21, 2019
Grant Walker, PharmD, ’10, is a pharmacist at Mercury Pharmacy Services where he staffs the pharmacy and works as a consultant. He earned his Plein Certificate in Geriatric Pharmacy in 2010
Grant told us he chose to specialize in geriatrics because of the aging population and, “my awesome relationship with my grandparents. I like old people!... Read more...
Posted: June 21, 2019
Melissa is a Research Assistant Professor specializing in translational epilepsy research. She develops and implements preclinical models to support the early evaluation of novel investigational pharmacotherapies for epilepsy in discrete patient populations, including elderly patients with epilepsy and those with comorbid seizures associated with a...
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Posted: June 21, 2019
Nagham earned her BSPharm, Postgraduate Certificate in Research Pharmacy, and PhD at the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. Her dissertation focused on deprescribing in older New Zealanders.
Nagham began geriatric pharmacy as a specialty early in her career during her practice as a registered pharmacist in New Zealand. “I felt overwhel... Read more...
Posted: June 21, 2019
While competing the postdoctoral fellowship in geriatric pharmacy here at the UWSOP, alumna Laura Hart, PharmD, MS, BCPS, BCGP,’14, ’17, was awarded a research grant by the American College of Clinical Pharmacy (ACCP) Research Institute Futures Grants program. Her research focused on the impact central nervous system (CNS)-active medications ...
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Posted: June 21, 2019
We are so proud to celebrate this year’s class of Plein Geriatric Pharmacy Certificate graduates! Everyone was recognized at a special ceremony on Friday, July 14, 2019. Congratulations to the graduates on all their hard work!
Emily Archer
Kyle Bigham
Mackenzie Bredereck
Alex Chang
Jennifer Durand
Justin Fernando
Michael Fish... Read more...
Posted: June 14, 2019
The goal of the Plein Student Scholarship is to foster student interest in geriatrics-related research. Research areas may include but are not limited to, translational research projects that move evidence-based, aging research along the continuum from laboratory findings to treatment of disease and maintenance of health and well-being of communi...
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Posted: March 27, 2019
Marijuana use among older adults has soared in recent years despite little being known about the effectiveness and safety of the drug in people 65 and older. That’s resulted in more seniors asking health care providers about marijuana use: Is it safe? How much to use? Where to buy?
Now, a group of University of Washington professors has go... Read more...
Posted: December 17, 2018
Team seeks to improve the projections of the future burden of the disease.Anirban Basu, director of the CHOICE Institute at UWSOP, and professor in the schools of Pharmacy and Public Health at the University of Washington, received more than $230,000 from the National Institutes of Health to measure the current and future costs of care for people w...
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Posted: November 27, 2018
The newest researcher in The CHOICE Institute at UWSOP, Doug Barthold is taking a couple of approaches that use data and economic modeling to find potential treatments and trends in care of people with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD).
At press time, there are no known drugs that can prevent or delay the onset or progression of ...
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Posted: November 27, 2018
Last year’s flu season was one of the worst in nearly a decade. The people most susceptible to the flu are our most vulnerable people: infants and children, older adults, and people who are chronically ill or have suppressed immune systems.
As alarming reports about how virulent last year’s virus was, Era Living, a top-rated group of local s... Read more...
Posted: November 27, 2018
Neris M. Palunas, PharmD, BCGP, is a Consultant Pharmacist with Consonus Pharmacy, serving people in the Seattle area. Neris consults as a clinical pharmacist to senior living communities at all levels of care. "I love teaching and have been a preceptor in all my roles as a pharmacist, specifically as a Geriatric Pharmacy Preceptor for 4 years,"...
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Posted: November 27, 2018
Alumna Cara McDermott, PharmD, PhD, MSc, '11, '12, 16, is a K12 Scholar in the UW Implementation Sciences Training Program and Acting Instructor, Cambia Palliative Care Center of Excellence, UW School of Medicine.
A three-time alumna of the UW School of Pharmacy, Cara said she chose to pursue the Plein Certificate in Geriatric Pharmacy in 2011 ... Read more...
Posted: November 27, 2018
Learn the latest about the deprescribing education and outreach UWSOP faculty member Leigh Ann Mike provides to older adults and providers.
Leigh Ann Mike, PharmD, is Clinical Associate Professor, Department of Pharmacy and Assistant Director for Education, Plein Center for Geriatric Pharmacy Research, Education and Outreach at the UW School of ... Read more...
Posted: November 27, 2018
The prospect of developing dementia is terrifying for most people, particularly for those with family members who have had the disease. Many wonder what they can do to prevent the onset of dementia—which is where the research of the Plein Center for Geriatric Pharmacy has some answers.
Experts know there are healthy habits that will make a diffe...
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Posted: November 27, 2018
Our School’s faculty and students presented two posters at the ASCP Annual Meeting, and the abstracts are in the October issue of The Consultant Pharmacist.
Julia Yunkyung, Laura Hart, and Shelly Gray presented a poster titled, “Definition of fall risk-increasing drugs in the literature: Challenges and implications.” We know falls in olde... Read more...
Posted: November 27, 2018
People with Alzheimer’s disease can have up to an 87-fold increased risk of seizures. Patients with early-onset Alzheimer’s have the highest risk for seizures, but even patients with late onset Alzheimer’s disease are at high risk.
Despite the risks, little is known about how genes associated with Alzheimer’s disease may affect a per... Read more...
Posted: November 15, 2018
UW Pharmacy’s Shelly Gray and UW Medicine’s Elizabeth Phelan are teaming up to identify ways to prevent falls in older adults. Their study, “Reducing Central Nervous System (CNS)-active Medications to Prevent Falls and Injuries in Older Adults (STOP-FALLS),” will identify medication safety improvements to reduce fall-related injuries an... Read more...