Attending the 12th Annual Pharmacy Legislative Day “Under the Dome” this March was not my first experience advocating for the pharmacy profession. I had the opportunity this past summer to meet with Illinois senators, representatives, and their staff on Capitol Hill. I remember feeling terrified in my white coat standing in front of the U.S. Capitol building about to meet with these powerful individuals. I felt so small. I then took a look around to see the other hundreds of student pharmacists standing alongside me and I felt how strong we were together. As I sat in the auditorium at Legislative Day this year, I had that same feeling of relief. As students, we have the power to make a difference whether it be through making phone calls, letter writing, attending events such as Legislative Day, or even just educating each other.

This year at Legislative Day we discussed the stance that we want to take as pharmacists on certain bills. A bill discussed that we were not supporting was HB5442 regarding the requirement of hospitals to report all controlled substances prescribed and administered to the Prescription Monitoring Program (PMP). The original purpose of the PMP is to identify patients “shopping” for controlled substances and obtaining large amounts of controlled substances. Based on my volunteer experience in a hospital, implementing this would be extremely difficult and a burden on hospital pharmacists. Also, it would be a burden for community pharmacists to have to search through unnecessary information in the PMP reported by inpatient pharmacists. A bill discussed of which we were supportive was HB5747 regarding the addition of prescribing and dispensing of hormonal contraceptives in the scope of pharmacy practice in Illinois. It is exciting to see this potential advancement for our profession. This bill is a perfect example of where pharmacy in Illinois is headed in the future.