College of Psychiatric and Neurologic Pharmacists

For the sixth consecutive year, CPNP participated extensively in the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) National Convention held in Washington, D.C., June 30-July 3. The 2010 NAMI National Convention hosted several thousand consumers, caregivers and healthcare professionals.

According to Steve Burghart, PharmD, BCPP, MBA and Consumer Relations Committee Vice Chair, attendees at the NAMI Convention are “so grateful and appreciative making participation in this convention incredibly rewarding as a result.”

CPNP contributed the following to the 2010 NAMI Convention.

• Educational Programming: CPNP members Steve Burghart and Jerry Overman presented a workshop entitled “Modern-Day Mood Stabilizers: Let Your Pharmacist Introduce You to the Side Effects.” Burghart and Overman presented the workshop to a standing room only crowd on Friday, July 2.
• WellnessCenter: CPNP members provided many hours of one-on-one counseling to individuals concerning their questions on medications, medication interactions, side effects, and adherence strategies through the NAMI WellnessCenter.
• CPNP Booth:As a means to promote the profession and services of psychiatric pharmacists, CPNP members manned a CPNP booth for over 15 hours during the Convention. Members assisting in manning the booth and visiting with consumers, family members, and health professions included CPNP active members Steve Burghart, Valerie Oji, Jason Noel, Sujin Lee, Judy Curtis, Jerry Overman and CPNP student pharmacists including Fetihe Abdulwahab, Angela Johnson, Ruth Kim, Lamar Leslie (Howard University); Natalya Maslow, Niki Mehdizadegan, Sheryl Thedford, and Chris Price (University of Maryland).

In an effort to provide service to consumers and caregivers, CPNP continues to conduct the following activities in partnership with NAMI outside of the NAMI National Convention:

• Authoring of medication fact sheets for the NAMI website. View these at: http://www.nami.org/template.cfm?section=About_Medications
• Authoring of Ask the Psychiatric Pharmacist columns for the NAMI website. View these at: http://www.nami.org/Template.cfm?Section=Ask_the_Pharmacist&Template=/TaggedPage/TaggedPageDisplay.cfm&TPLID=61&ContentID=28925
• Availability of a CPNP member speaker’s bureau to local NAMI chapters.
• The annual CPNP Walks for NAMI Fundraiser conducted by CPNP at the CPNP Annual Meeting. Last year nearly $5000 was donated to NAMI thanks to generous attendee donations and a match from CPNP. 

The 2011 NAMI Annual Convention will be held at the Chicago Hilton Hotel, from July 6-9, 2011. CPNP anticipates continuing involvement in the Convention through many of the same activities as in 2010 and welcomes the involvement of Illinois CPNP members.