The School’s Phi Lambda Sigma chapter receives two national awards for cultivating and recognizing leadership

By Logan Underwood

When Emily Phillips stood in front of a national audience to accept two Leading the Way Awards from Phi Lambda Sigma (PLS), she wasn’t thinking about the spotlight. She was thinking about the team that made it happen.

“This is truly the work of the board before us,” says Phillips, the PharmD student president of the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Beta Alpha chapter of PLS, also known as the Pharmacy Leadership Society. “It’s an honor to receive the award on behalf of them.”

Those awards — one for Transformational Change and the other for Leadership Recognition — celebrate the chapter’s unique programming during the 2023-24 academic year, including a new initiative called DiveRxsity Dialogues that brought the School of Pharmacy community together to explore the real-world impacts of patient identity and equity in care.

The School’s chapter is no stranger to national recognition from PLS. In 2022 and 2024, the chapter was honored with Charles Thomas Leadership Challenge Awards and was recognized as the Chapter of the Year in 2020. However, this is the first time the chapter was honored with a Leading the Way Award.

”Our students are truly exceptional leaders. I am inspired every year by their drive to innovate, develop new initiatives, and promote a culture that fosters creativity and moving ideas into action.”
—Ed Portillo

“Our students are truly exceptional leaders. I am inspired every year by their drive to innovate, develop new initiatives, and promote a culture that fosters creativity and moving ideas into action,” says Associate Professor of Pharmacy Practice Ed Portillo (PharmD ’14), Beta Alpha’s faculty advisor. “They are so deserving of these national honors.”

For Phillips and her peers, the accolades are secondary to the mission: cultivating inclusive, thoughtful leaders who are prepared to shape the future of pharmacy.

“It’s great to be part of a community that really cares about what we do and how we’re perceived on the national level,” says Phillips, who was a third-year PharmD student at the time of the honor. “It definitely means something to be in PLS at UW.”

Transformational change

The student chapter earned the Transformational Change Award for its innovative DiverRxsity Dialogues event, which debuted in December of 2023.

While PharmD students are taught how various factors can influence patient care, the PLS student chapter sought to expand their understanding of how disparities and differences in race, gender, economic status, and physical ability can affect care.

“We get education about health equity in our curriculum, but there’s so much to learn for us to confidently be inclusive providers,” says Phillips.

PLS partnered with the student organizations PRIDE in Healthcare and SNPhA (Student National Pharmaceutical Association) to create the event that united students and faculty to explore how pharmacists can adapt to patients’ diverse backgrounds and needs.”

Keynote speaker Sally Arif, professor of pharmacy at Midwestern University, discussed how pharmacists can cultivate inclusivity through recognizing implicit biases and acknowledging identities.

Afterward, attendees chose two of three breakout sessions to dive deeper into specific patient conditions through expert-led discussions. Topics ranged from learning about housing instability to treating patients needing gender-affirming care.

By gaining a better idea of how economic, environmental, and social factors affect a patient’s health, pharmacists are more equipped to provide patient-centered care. The event was an overwhelming success, with 100% of surveyed attendees saying that the event’s content inspired change in their professional practices.

The PLS student chapter presented the details of their event at the 2024 Pharmacy Society of Wisconsin (PSW) Educational Conference. Using the feedback from participants and attendees of the PSW conference, the chapter hopes to expand the event to be part of a larger event series.

“I definitely found my home within the School of Pharmacy and within PLS. It’s been a great opportunity for me to grow as a person, as a pharmacist, as a leader.”
—Emily Phillips

“We are using that feedback to develop a framework for a longitudinal experience that we’re calling the Inclusive Healthcare Program,” says Phillips.

Through the national PLS Charles Thomas Leadership Challenge award that the Beta Alpha chapter earned in 2023–24, the chapter is hoping to fully implement the program next year, offering the School’s PharmD students the opportunity to earn a specialized certificate.

The national grant also allowed the chapter to host DiveRxsity Dialogues for a second time in 2024, which Phillips hopes will play a role in winning another national PLS award next year.

“The work done in 2023 was truly fundamental to kind of get that event off the ground and hopefully have it for years to come,” says Phillips.

Cultivating leadership

The chapter’s dedication and focus on providing leadership opportunities for its members earned them the Leading the Way for Leadership Recognition Award.

The award recognized the chapter’s sustained focus on empowering members to grow as leaders. For example, to encourage leadership recognition, the Beta Alpha chapter’s executive board chooses “leaders of the month” to be celebrated and showcased on their website. 

Additionally, the PLS student chapter hosts an annual Leadership Gala — an expansive event that brings together organizations and individuals who have demonstrated leadership in outreach, event planning, and innovation.

“It’s just a way to bring all of the leaders together, recognize all the great things that everyone’s doing at the School, and give credit to all of the people in their organizations doing such hard work at the School of Pharmacy,” says Phillips.

Liam O’Neil (PharmD ’25), chapter vice president and fourth-year PharmD student when the awards were given, recognizes that building strong leaders comes from small moments and opportunities. The PLS student chapter is designed to provide these opportunities, with every member of the chapter being part of a specific committee. These experiences give student pharmacists the chance to get comfortable in leadership roles and build skills that they will use in their future career.

“It’s really neat to see people coming to PLS who are very shy and reserved,” says O’Neil. “Within a year or two, they’re leading a gala and speaking on stage.”

He says that his time with PLS has taught him how to manage time and projects on a longer scale than typical school work — skills he hopes to use in a residency in informatics, mental health care, or substance abuse pharmacy.

Phillips values her time at PLS for helping her build critical skills in organization and conflict resolution, making her a more confident leader. She says the student organization has helped her to grow her own skills while learning from the leaders around her. Planning to pursue a residency after graduation, she hopes to use the leadership skills she developed in PLS in a career in clinical or administrative pharmacy.

“I definitely found my home within the School of Pharmacy and within PLS,” says Phillips. “It’s been a great opportunity for me to grow as a person, as a pharmacist, as a leader.”