by Alex Boesch, Student Public Relations Writer
A team of students from Cedarville University’s School of Pharmacy placed third in the 2022 American College of Clinical Pharmacy (ACCP) Clinical Research Challenge (CRC). In total, 82 universities competed in the clinical research competition. 
Oregon State University won the competition, followed by the University of Connecticut and Cedarville. The University of Michigan placed fourth.
The annual competition, which started in 2016, allows teams of three students in their first two years of their pharmacy degree program to practice skills in research and scholarship. This experience helps future health care professionals achieve better health outcomes and make advancements in their field.
Cedarville team’s proposal, “Impact of Community Health Workers and Motivational Interviewing on Diabetes Outcomes for the Low English Proficiency Hispanic Population,” was inspired by a session about community health workers they optionally attended during the Global Health Missions conference. All Cedarville pharmacy students attend the conference each fall.
With a top-three placement, Cedarville’s team will participate and present its research as a poster presentation at the 2022 ACCP Global Conference in San Diego, California, October 12-15.
Through three phases of competition running from February 11 to June 13, teams participated in exams based on online journal club content, wrote letters of intent to articulate their project goals and submitted a clinical research proposal for panel review.
Cedarville’s team members included ND Nguyen, a second-year Pharm.D. student from Vietnam; Grace Hong, a first-year Pharm.D. student from Powell, Ohio; and Caleb Yoder, a first-year Pharm.D. student from Wheaton, Illinois. The team was advised by Dr. Stephanie Tubb, assistant professor of pharmacy practice.
“The skills they learned to work together to create a research project will be huge in their field,” said Tubb. “When they become pharmacists, what they learned in this competition will help them take care of their patients.”
Located in southwest Ohio, Cedarville University is an accredited, Christ-centered, Baptist institution with an enrollment of 4,715 undergraduate, graduate, and online students in more than 150 areas of study. Founded in 1887, Cedarville is one of the largest private universities in Ohio, recognized nationally for its authentic Christian community, rigorous academic programs, including the Doctor of Pharmacy (Pharm.D.), strong graduation and retention rates, accredited professional and health science offerings, and high student engagement ranking. For more information about the University, visit cedarville.edu.