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A South ��ֱ���� State University pharmacy student organization is making a state-level impact through its experience reaching the public and providing health-related services. 

The Student Collaboration for the Advancement and Promotion of Pharmacy is a pharmacy student organization at SDSU that recently been nationally recognized. 

Ryan Johnson, the organization’s incoming president, said, “SCAPP is a student-led pharmacy organization at SDSU that provides a variety of opportunities to better prepare students in their profession as future pharmacists through advocacy, leadership, community outreach and patient care.” 

The Student Collaboration for the Advancement and Promotion of Pharmacy isn’t your typical student organization. Every year, the SDSU chapter gets involved in South ��ֱ���� communities, providing free health screenings to the public at the South ��ֱ���� State Fair. 

“For almost a decade now our students provide health screenings and education at no cost to all who attend the South ��ֱ���� State Fair,” Alex Middendorf, an assistant professor and a faculty adviser for for the group, explained. More than 200 free health screenings are provided to the public each year at this event. 

The impact of this student organization has not gone unnoticed. As a result, that impact is starting to grow. 

Over the past several months, the student group has been forming relationships with the South ��ֱ���� Heart Disease and Stroke State Plan, also called the Cardiovascular Collaborative. 

South ��ֱ���� Cardiovascular Collaborative  

The Cardiovascular Collaborative was established in 2017 and actively works to “improve the quality of life for all through the prevention and management of cardiovascular disease and its associated risk factors.” 

The idea for a potential partnership between SDSU’s Student Collaboration for the Advancement and Promotion of Pharmacy and the Cardiovascular Collaborative came from Austin Block, a pharmacist at Haisch Pharmacy in Canton and the managing network facilitator for the state’s Community Pharmacy Enhanced Services Network. 

The Cardiovascular Collaborative is currently engaged in its 2022-2026 Strategic Plan. This strategic plan is broken into four main goals. Goal IV is “Support Cardiovascular Disease Management” and includes objectives like increasing the percentage of adults with high blood pressure who regularly check their blood pressure. Block serves as a co-lead for this goal. 

“As co-lead, my charge is to help our group review our objectives and develop key activities that support progress toward achieving goals. An important part of moving toward these objectives is having key players at the table. One key group I felt was missing was the students — especially the pharmacy students,” Block continued. 

Block explained that through its work including providing health screenings at the State Fair, the Student Collaboration for the Advancement and Promotion of Pharmacy is already doing work that contributes to Goal IV’s objectives, like increasing blood pressure readings for adults with hypertension. 

Block, an alum of the SDSU pharmacy program who regularly precepts SDSU pharmacy students at her pharmacy, reached out to Middendorf with the idea for a potential partnership between the student group and the Cardiovascular Collaborative. 

'SCAPP 101' 

The first step was to introduce the Cardiovascular Collaborative’s Goal IV to the Student Collaboration for the Advancement and Promotion of Pharmacy and the work they do. 

Cali Beyer and Emily Williford are pharmacy students who are actively involved in the student group. Beyer is its patient care coordinator, and Williford is its Open Heart Committee chair.  

Beyer and Williford were tasked with presenting to the Cardiovascular Collaborative’s Goal IV team, providing a “SCAPP 101” that introduced members of the collaborative to what the student group does. 

Beyer explained that in the presentation, she and Williford “shared with the collaborative many different patient care screenings and events that we provide that relate to not only cardiovascular health but to the health of other disease states as well.” 

Most of all, Beyer felt, it was “important to highlight how much SCAPP tries to do for the community.” 

The presentation was a success, the collaborative was impressed, and the Student Collaboration for the Advancement and Promotion of Pharmacy was invited to present at the Cardiovascular Collaborative’s full annual meeting on May 1 at the South ��ֱ���� Department of Health building in Sioux Falls. 

Cardiovascular Collaborative Annual Meeting 

Four student members attended the Cardiovascular Collaborative annual meeting: incoming President Ryan Johnson, incoming President-Elect Maggie Kamnikar, incoming Patient Care Coordinator Raegen Kimbler and incoming Operation Diabetes Co-chair Zander Gilland. 

At the meeting, the collaborative was set to plan objectives and outcomes for the 2025-2026 year. The four students, along with Middendorf, joined the collaborative’s Goal IV group’s breakout session. 

Johnson explained that during this session, the Goal IV group and students met to form a plan for how the student chapter and the Cardiovascular Collaborative can mutually benefit each other while accomplishing objectives of the Collaborative’s Goal IV. 

Following this breakout session, Johnson presented to the entire collaborative. “We highlighted the significant patient care events and community outreach that our chapter does each year and the opportunity that this collaboration between our chapter and the Cardiovascular Collaborative could bring in the future,” Johnson said. 

In addition to the patient care events the student group has led, Kamnikar explained it was also important to them to “emphasize our members’ passion for the pharmacy profession and for helping patients. As the next generation of health care professionals, we’re eager to expand our knowledge of cardiovascular health and explore the role we can play in its prevention and management.” 

The presentation concluded with the suggestion for a formal partnership between the Student Collaboration for the Advancement and Promotion of Pharmacy and the state Cardiovascular Collaborative. “By working together with the Cardiovascular Collaborative, we will be able to provide high-quality care and education to patients across South ��ֱ���� and develop creative ways to support our community through cardiovascular health,” Johnson said. 

The collaborative’s reception to the students’ presentation was overwhelmingly positive. 

Block said the students’ participation in the meeting “sparked excitement not only in our group but throughout the entire collaborative. I lost count of how many people commented on how exciting it was to have the students there.” 

Partnership between SCAPP, Cardiovascular Collaborative 

Middendorf explained that the full extent of a partnership between the Student Collaboration for the Advancement and Promotion of Pharmacy and the Cardiovascular Collaborative is still in the works, but that there is desire from both ends. The student group and the Cardiovascular Collaborative will work together on select events in the coming year, with further opportunities to expand the partnership to be established at the next annual meeting, in May 2026. 

Middendorf explained that conversations are already being held. “We’ve discussed having Cardiovascular Collaborative members and their partner organizations join the pharmacy students under the tent at the State Fair to provide additional resources, education and other services to make that existing impactful event much more robust and comprehensive in its offerings. This would be a huge win for SCAPP in that this already great event gets even better, and also a huge win for the collaborative in that they are able to be engaged in an already successful event that cares for so many patients each year.” 

Kamnikar said she is excited about a potential partnership “because it gives us an opportunity to expand our patient outreach efforts, not only to help more patients, but also to better educate our current patients about their cardiovascular health in ways we haven’t before.” 

For Kamnikar, the experience of attending the annual meeting and talking with the Cardiovascular Collaborative has been “truly inspirational. … It was really inspiring to watch how the professionals in the room planned and worked together; it gave us a glimpse of what collaboration looks like in the real world. It was a very educational day, and we are so excited to see what the future holds for this promising partnership!” 

Learn more about the Student Collaboration for the Advancement and Promotion of Pharmacy.  

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