A Sylvan Lake pharmacist and his pharmacist daughter both went home with awards from APEX Awards held March 3 in Edmonton.
Val Langevin, former owner of Sylvan Lake Value Drug Mart, was awarded the M.J. Huston Pharmacist of Distinction and Ashten Langevin, a clinical pharmacist at Calgary’s Foothills Hospital, received a Future of Pharmacy Award.
APEX awards, presented by the Alberta College of Pharmacists and the Alberta Pharmacists’ Association, recognize excellence in pharmacy practice in Alberta.
The distinction award is given to pharmacists who demonstrated leadership and advanced the pharmacist profession through a long-time commitment to innovation, continual professional development, and quality patient care.
Val owned Sylvan Lake Value Drug Mart for over 30 years and sold the business to Shoppers Drug Mart in 2015 where he remains on staff as a part-time pharmacist.
Val helped create innovative clinical programs within his pharmacy. He established pharmacy services that provided residents with pharmaceutical care plans when Bethany Sylvan Lake opened, along with quarterly medication reviews, and a pharmacist to attend interdisciplinary rounds and family conferences.
He was an early adopter of pharmacist injection services; developed a community-based Anticoagulation Management Service in collaboration with local physicians; and participated in EPICORE’s Rural RxAction study, a randomized trial using pharmacists with additional prescribing authority to manage hypertension.
The Future of Pharmacy Award, presented to Ashten, is awarded to pharmacists who exude a passion for pharmacy and offer extraordinary promise to the profession. Recipients exhibit strong leadership skills and the initiative to become one of the profession’s role models.
Ashten works at the Internal Medicine Medical Teaching Unit at Foothills Medical Centre. The unit’s team — consisting of one doctor, six to 10 trainees, and one clinical pharmacist — work collaboratively to care for about 20 complex, and often very sick patients.
Ashten contributes to the profession as a preceptor for pharmacy students, having taken on at least one student each year since starting at the teaching unit more than three years ago.
She is also actively involved with the Canadian Society of Hospital Pharmacists and is chair of the education committee.