New student award established to recognize leadership in medication safety

Melissa Sheldrick speaks at World Patient Safety Day conference in Geneva, Switzerland in September 2023 when the theme of the initiative was Engaging Patients in Patient Safety.

A new student award at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy honours Andrew Sheldrick, an eight-year-old boy who died in 2016 due to a medication incident. The award will support students who go above and beyond in demonstrating the importance of medication safety through their coursework and experiential rotations.

“This award is such a testament to Andrew’s legacy and to his caring and helpful nature. He was always helping his friends and family – it was very much ingrained in who he was,” says Melissa Sheldrick, Andrew’s mother. “To be able to continue helping in this kind of education setting is important and impactful, and his legacy will continue in perpetuity.”

Andrew Sheldrick was eight years old when he died after receiving an improperly compounded medication for a sleep disorder. At the time, mandatory medication incident reporting was not required by the Ontario College of Pharmacists.

Melissa has since become an advocate for patient safety and currently works as the Patient and Family Advisor at the Institute for Safe Medication Practices Canada (ISMP Canada), an independent pan-Canadian not-for-profit that works with partners to advance medication safety. Melissa shares Andrew’s story with policymakers, pharmacy professionals and pharmacy students around the world – including in the Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) program at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy – to advance incident reporting, enhance quality improvement and motivate health care professionals to elevate safety and quality in their practices.

Thanks in large part to Melissa’s advocacy, Ontario and several other provinces have changed regulations to mandate standardized medication safety programs and enhance patient safety. For example, the Ontario College of Pharmacists Assurance and Improvement in Medication Safety (AIMS) Program, a mandatory standardized medication safety program, is now in place for all pharmacies in Ontario, where pharmacists anonymously report medication incidents and “good catches” to learn from these events and develop and share recommendations to prevent future incidents.

Certina Ho, assistant professor – teaching stream at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy and medication safety advisor at ISMP Canada, has published research analyzing incident reporting from community pharmacies and developed recommendations to improve patient safety. Her third-year course in patient and medication safety emphasizes the importance of disclosing incidents to patients and families, and taking proactive steps to improve patient safety in pharmacy practice.

“When an incident happens, the patient wants to know what happened and why, but they also want to know what will be done going forward so it doesn’t happen again,” says Certina. “Medication incident reporting programs are continuous quality improvement tools and meant to help with understanding the incidents that occur. Regulators and pharmacists can then implement changes to improve the profession for everyone.”

Student award will raise awareness of Andrew’s story long into the future

A couple of years ago, Melissa met Doris Nessim, an alumna of the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy. Doris felt a deep sense of sadness upon learning about Andrew’s story and was inspired to create a student award at the Faculty in his memory. This award honours his legacy and aims to raise awareness about medication safety and its profound impact on patients, ensuring that his story resonates for years.

While all pharmacy students demonstrate their commitment to medication safety through both coursework and professional practice labs and experiential training starting from the beginning of the program, Doris and Melissa specifically wanted to recognize those who took on extra work or projects related to medication safety.

The award – Andrew’s Living Legacy Award for Medication Safety – will recognize a second-year student in the PharmD program who shows a strong interest in medication safety and its role in patient safety and demonstrates an understanding of medication harm prevention in class, experiential learning and extracurricular activities.

“The goal of the award is to share Andrew's story and raise awareness among students about the significant impact that our role as healthcare professionals has on patients’ lives,”

“The goal of the award is to share Andrew's story and raise awareness among students about the significant impact that our role as healthcare professionals has on patients’ lives,” say Doris. “It also serves as a reminder that as pharmacists, we must always consider the person behind the prescription and how the medication will affect them.”

ISMP Canada, on behalf of their board of directors and staff, kickstarted the fundraising for the award with a corporate donation at the leadership level.

“From ISMP Canada’s perspective, this student award shows the Faculty’s commitment to medication safety and how students can apply their learnings,” says Carolyn Hoffman, CEO of ISMP Canada. “We believe that it is essential for students to be well prepared to enter a very complex world where incidents happen, and they need to be supported to report and learn from them. This award is one important step of many to help make that happen. Most importantly, this is about Andrew’s legacy and sharing his story well into the future.”

As a former teacher, Melissa recognizes the importance of education and scholarships in making long-term change and sees the award as an opportunity to have an impact on future generations of pharmacists.

“For this award to support the education of a student who is helping advance medication safety is very important,” she says. “Those are the kinds of people who are going to make a difference in the pharmacy profession.”

Donations to the award can be made here.