The Wayne State University Eugene Applebaum College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences is proud to announce that Director of Experiential Education and Clinical Professor Francine Salinitri, PharmD, has been selected by the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) as the 2021-22 recipient of its annual Award of Excellence in Experiential Education.

"Dr. Salinitri's outstanding contributions and achievements in experiential education speak to the pharmacy profession's commitment to providing equitable and accessible care to patients, as well as innovation in the experiences of pharmacy students and residents," said WSU Applebaum Department of Pharmacy Practice Chair Lynette Moser, PharmD. "Recognition of her work on the national level is well-deserved."

Salinitri, a 2003 graduate of the WSU Applebaum Doctor of Pharmacy program, is responsible for organizing roughly 1,000 rotations annually for P2, P3 and P4 PharmD students, in collaboration with 26 faculty and 300 volunteer preceptors at more than 112 different practice sites across Michigan.

Simultaneously, Salinitri has recently worked with community pharmacy practice organizations such as WSU Campus Health, Detroit Public Health, local hospital systems, independent pharmacies and chain drug stores to integrate WSU Applebaum PharmD students into COVID-19 vaccination clinics, increasing access to COVID-19 prevention in underserved areas across Michigan. In the first six months of 2021 alone, 310 students directly contributed to Michigan's vaccination efforts at 18 different locations.

For the past several years, Salinitri has led the Applebaum PharmD Leadership & Scholars Program. Supported by Applebaum Family Philanthropy, this fellowship program aims to demonstrate pharmacy students' impact on advancing pharmacy practice in diverse patient populations, and to support the development of leadership, entrepreneurship and independence skills through innovative practice transformation research projects in the underserved Detroit metropolitan area.

Salinitri also leads the WSU Applebaum Post-Graduate Teaching and Learning Curriculum, an effort to intentionally create a structured, layered learning model for introductory pharmacy practice experiences (IPPE). While enhancing the success of the IPPE integrative module in practice, the model allows residents to obtain mentoring experience in precepting, developing them into skilled preceptors themselves.

"Experiential education is one of the most important components of a successful Doctor of Pharmacy program, and I have not known anyone to be as passionate or dedicated to it as Dr. Salinitri," said 2021 alumnus David Gutenschwager, PharmD, who is currently a post-graduate resident at Henry Ford Health in Detroit. "I would not be the pharmacist I am today without the experiences and mentorship I had in the Wayne State PharmD program, and Dr. Salinitri had a major role in that."

Salinitri will be honored with the award at the 2022 AACP Annual Meeting this July in Grapevine, Texas.