Rachael Tollerton of Evans City joined two Cedarville University pharmacy students who placed third out of 82 teams at the American College of Clinical Pharmacy (ACCP) Clinical Research Challenge.

With their strong placing, the Cedarville students have the opportunity to present at the 2019 ACCP annual meeting, a national event that takes place Oct. 25 to 29, in New York City.

The challenge pushed pharmacy students Tollerton, Brianne Potter and Nicole Stute to develop a research proposal for implementing practice-based improvements for patient care.

“The challenge allowed me to practically apply the skills I learned in a research course to an assigned patient population,” said Tollerton, a second-year professional pharmacy student. “We were able to critically look at existing literature to establish a gap in current services offered by pharmacists using this as a framework to establish an innovative new service proposal.”

Knowing that thyroid disorders are common but often untreated in type 2 diabetics, the Cedarville students proposed a way to utilize pharmacists to test thyroid hormone levels to make medication adjustments.

The challenge consisted of three stages. First, all 82 teams competed against each other online. The second round required the teams to write a letter of intent for their health care solution, and from that letter, a national panel of experts — in the third round — decided which teams could submit a full proposal detailing their solution that would decide the finalists.