February 20, 2020

Three first-year pharmacy students recently won third place in the 2020 U-M Munger Graduate Residencies Case Competition. This year, Munger partnered with Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) to ask teams of students to address issues impacting student wellness on the University of Michigan Campus. The student teams were given four months and a fictional $100,000 of seed money to create an innovative and relevant plan of action. Sunny Jung, Alex Kim, and Simon Cheng presented their case titled ‘Peer Mental Health Specialist Training: Normalization and Increasing Accessibility’.

“Our case in the competition was about requiring Residential Assistants and Advisors (RA's) to receive Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) training.” said Jung, “We promoted the collaboration between the School of Medicine, Social Work, and the College of Pharmacy to create an interprofessional opportunity for future healthcare professionals. The team of students, overseen by faculty members of the schools, would create a training protocol for Mental Health First Aid geared towards undergraduate students. Having received training from our interprofessional team, the RAs would be conducting check-in's and check-out's for residents every semester to gauge their mental wellness. Additionally, the RAs will be able to be a point of contact for the residents when their roommates or friends are experiencing/experienced panic attacks, traumatic events, overdose, or a psychotic person who is perceived to be threatening. In order to ensure the program’s sustainability, we would strive to integrate this program into each of the schools' curriculum and update the MHFA training accordingly throughout the years.”

Congratulations Sunny, Alex, and Simon!