{"id":111241,"date":"2026-10-08T14:08:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T14:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/?p=111241"},"modified":"2026-10-08T15:02:49","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T15:02:49","slug":"uri-pharmacy-students-advance-to-elite-eight-in-national-clinical-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2026\/10\/uri-pharmacy-students-advance-to-elite-eight-in-national-clinical-challenge\/","title":{"rendered":"URI pharmacy students advance to \u2018elite eight\u2019 in national clinical challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">KINGSTON, R.I. \u2014 Oct. 8, 2026 \u2014 After winning preliminary competitions, placing them among the top eight teams in the country, three <a href=\"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/\">University of Rhode Island College of Pharmacy<\/a> students are headed to Salt Lake City, Utah, aiming to become the latest URI students to win a major national pharmacy skills competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Kayla Aquilante, Emma Brouillette, and J.T. Berard-Moore will represent the college at the national 2026 Clinical Pharmacy Challenge hosted by the American College of Clinical Pharmacy on Oct. 17 after beating out more than 100 teams in the preliminary rounds. They are hoping to join ranks of alumni Alex Chernov, Aidan Fischer and Andrew Webb, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2018\/10\/uri-pharmacy-students-win-national-competition\/\">who won the competition in 2018<\/a>. URI College of Pharmacy students also currently hold national championships in ACCP\u2019s Clinical Research Challenge, and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ashp.org\/clinicalskills?loginreturnUrl=SSOCheckOnly\">American Society of Health-System Pharmacists\u2019 Clinical Skills Competition<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Aquilante, of Johnston, Rhode Island; Brouillette, of North Kingstown, Rhode Island; and Berard-Moore, of Santa Cruz, California, will compete against the remaining seven teams through three rounds in the \u201cquiz-bowl\u201d type competition\u2014trivia\/lightning round, clinical case studies, and a \u201cJeopardy!-style\u201d contest. The competition began in September with four online preliminary rounds. All eligible teams competed in the first round, and the field was progressively narrowed to the top 64, 32, 16, and ultimately the top eight teams who advance to the live quarterfinals in Salt Lake City.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cCompeting in the Clinical Pharmacy Challenge has been a really exciting way to put everything we\u2019ve learned in pharmacy school to the test,\u201d Aquilante said. \u201cIt has also been a great opportunity to start reviewing material we\u2019ll need for the NAPLEX well before graduation. This is my second year competing, so it has been especially rewarding to see how much I\u2019ve grown since last year and even across the four rounds of this year\u2019s competition. Making it to the top eight nationally has made that experience even more meaningful, and I\u2019m excited to represent URI with my teammates in Salt Lake City.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To prepare, the trio is taking several practice tests to identify strengths and potential areas in need of more study.&nbsp;They divided up their research to focus on their areas of expertise, studying reams of material, including North American Pharmacist Licensure Examinations (NAPLEX), previous lecture slides, board certification textbooks, and more.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">All three are putting their personal experience to good use in preparing. Brouillette and Aquilante\u2019s extensive work experiences at pharmacies and hospitals have helped fill in real-life gaps in the study material. Berard-Moore\u2014who was also on the championship clinical research team last year\u2014is using his competition experience to help prepare for the questions they are likely to face and making about 1,200 corresponding flashcards to quiz himself and his teammates. The team is also meeting with Webb and Fischer to learn from their 2018 experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe are incredibly grateful and excited to represent URI and how strong a program it is&nbsp;on a national level,\u201d Berard-Moore said.&nbsp;\u201cAchieving top eight out of an original pool of 100&nbsp;is already so exciting.&nbsp;I remember Kayla and myself shaking, answering each question during the fourth round when we realized we were on our way to Salt Lake City. No matter what happens it is so great to know how well supported we are by the College of Pharmacy and all the incredible people that make it happen.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>KINGSTON, R.I. \u2014 Oct. 8, 2026 \u2014 After winning preliminary competitions, placing them among the top eight teams in the country, three University of Rhode Island College of Pharmacy students are headed to Salt Lake City, Utah, aiming to become the latest URI students to win a major national pharmacy skills competition. Kayla Aquilante, Emma [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":111242,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1907,41,1906],"class_list":["post-111241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives","tag-academic-excellence","tag-college-of-pharmacy","tag-experiential-learning"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111241"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":111243,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111241\/revisions\/111243"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}