The winners of the Best Poster Awards from the 2008 ACCP Annual Meeting were announced on Tuesday, October 21, 2008, at the conclusion of the day’s poster session in Louisville, Kentucky. In all, 338 abstracts were presented at the Annual Meeting. Of these, 229 were reports of original research, 46 described innovative clinical pharmacy services, 20 involved original research-in-progress, and 43 were student submissions. In addition, several papers were encore presentations of work that had been presented in abstract form at other scientific meetings.

Gregory Welder (right) accepts the
Best Student Poster Award from
ACCP President Gary Matzke (left).

Gregory Welder, from the University of Florida in Gainesville, won the Best Student Poster Award for “Atorvastatin regulates global inflammatory and anti-inflammatory gene expression in human endothelial cells.” Mr. Welder’s coauthor on the poster was Issam Zineh, also from the University of Florida in Gainesville. The runner-up in this category was Peter Poppens from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, for “Impact of the ica operon on biofilm formation and antibiotic susceptibility in Staphylococcus aureus (SA) and epidermidis (SE).” Mr. Poppens’ coauthors from the University of Wisconsin were Ryan Knier, Steven Ebert, Richard Proctor, and Warren Rose. The other finalists were Jonathan Lee from the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis, Suhani K. Patel from the University of Wisconsin School of Pharmacy in Madison, and Shu Zhang from Purdue University in Indianapolis.

Rani Patel (right) accepts the
Best Resident and Fellow Poster Award from
ACCP President Gary Matzke (left).

Rani P. Patel, from the State University of New York (SUNY) Health Sciences Center at Brooklyn’s University Hospital of Brooklyn, won the Best Resident and Fellow Poster Award for “Promoting pneumococcal immunization in medical inpatients through educational efforts.” Dr. Patel’s coauthor from SUNY was Roopali Sharma. The second runner-up in the Best Resident and Fellow Poster Award category was Ginelle Schmidt from the University of Iowa in Iowa City for “Evaluation of converting patients from insulin glargine to insulin detemir.” Dr. Schmidt’s coauthors were Deanna McDanel, Kathleen Horner, and Karen Farris from the University of Iowa Foundation and Erin Newkirk from Froedtert & The Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. The first runner-up in the Best Resident and Fellow Poster Award category was Elena Meeker from the University of California, San Francisco with the poster titled “Management of warfarin in a university-affiliated emergency department.” Dr. Meeker’s coauthors from the University of California were Steven Kayser, Ellen Weber, and Cathi Dennehy. The other finalists were Almasa Bass from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and Carleton B. Maxwell from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond.

Nathan Wiederhold (right) accepts the
Best Poster Award from
ACCP President Gary Matzke (left).

Nathan Wiederhold from University of Texas, Austin won the Best Poster Award for “CAS5 is required for fluconazole tolerance in Candida albicans.” Dr. Wiederhold’s coauthors were Katherine Barker, Jonathan Bain, and P. David Rogers from the University of Tennessee in Memphis and Vincent Bruno from Columbia University in New York. The first runner-up in the Best Poster competition was Marie Chisholm-Burns from the University of Arizona, Tucson with the poster titled “Pediatric renal transplant recipients’ characteristics associated with IST adherence.” Dr. Chisholm-Burns’ coauthors from the University of Arizona were Christina Spivey, Mona Zawaideh, and Rick Rehfeld. The second runner-up in the Best Poster competition was LaDonna Hale from Wichita State University in Wichita for “Kansas pharmacists’ knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs regarding over-the-counter emergency contraception.” Dr. Hale’s coauthors were Julie S. Shrack and Erin K. Stump from Wichita State University and Gina Berg-Copas from the University of Kansas School of Medicine in Wichita. The other finalists in this category were Joseph Dasta from Ohio State University, Melanie Joy from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Larry Dent from the University of Montana, and Brenna Button-Neumann from the University of Missouri–Kansas City.

Each winner received a plaque and $250 to help offset travel expenses associated with attending the meeting. Serving as finalist judges for the three competitions in Louisville were John Bosso, Cari Brackett, Susan Bruce, Julianna Chan, M. Lynn Crismon, John Devlin, Roland Dickerson, Curtis Haas, David Hoff, David Lourwood, Robert Lee Page, Terry Seaton, Charles Seifert, Robert Talbert, and Kim Tallian.

The next abstract award competition will be held at the 2009 ACCP/ESCP International Congress on Clinical Pharmacy, April 24–28, in Orlando, Florida. The deadline to submit abstracts for the International Congress is December 15. Abstracts should be submitted online at http://accp.confex.com/accp/2009sp/cfp.cgi.