Frequently Asked Questions

Preliminary round (local-level) competition eligibility criteria are determined by each individual school or college of pharmacy. Advancement to the national-level competition at the ASHP Midyear Clinical Meeting & Exhibition is limited to ASHP student members enrolled in a full-time ACPE-accredited (or candidate status) Doctor of Pharmacy program who have not yet been licensed to practice or who hold a license but have not yet practiced.

The CSC is designed to test problem-solving skills. To be successful in the competition, participants should be knowledgeable in the following areas:

• Pathophysiology
• Clinical pharmacology and therapeutics
• Clinical laboratory data interpretation
• Medical terminology and abbreviations
• Basic pharmacokinetic principles

The competition is not designed to test knowledge, but to evaluate ability to apply knowledge in these areas in solving drug therapy problems. Participating in the competition should be considered a learning experience and is open to students in all years of pharmacy school.

Participants develop their clinical skills, expand their professional network, make new friends, and learn market and industry information that may be useful during an upcoming job interview. There are also prizes for winners at both the local and the national levels. The winning team of the locallevel competition receives a free registration to the ASHP Midyear Clinical Meeting.

Preliminary Round (local-level)

• The winning team members from each school/college of pharmacy receive a complimentary ASHP Midyear Clinical Meeting registration to compete at the national-level competition.

Semi-Final Round (national-level)

• The top 10 national finalist team members receive a 3-year subscription of UpToDate® Lexidrug^TM (generously provided by Wolters Kluwer), a $150 Amazon gift card (generously supported in part by Wolters Kluwer), and a choice of 1 ASHP SelfAssessment Resource.

Final Round (national-level)

• The first, second, and third place winners each receive a cash award ($500, $250, $100 per team member respectively).
• The national winners also receive individual first place trophies and one large first place trophy for their school or college of pharmacy.

There is no registration fee to compete in the preliminary round (local-level) competition; however, it is expected that the winning team will participate in the semi-final round (national-level) competition at the ASHP Midyear Clinical Meeting. While the winning team of the local-level competition receives free registration to the Midyear Clinical Meeting, students may incur some travel and lodging costs associated with participation at the national-level.

The date of the preliminary round (local-level) competition is at the discretion of the local coordinator at each school or college of pharmacy but must be held between August 1 - November 1. The national-level competition is held on the Saturday and Sunday before the ASHP Midyear Clinical Meeting officially starts. Check www.ashp.org/ClinicalSkills for the dates of this year’s competition.

Students are encouraged to register as self-selected teams of two. However, individual students may sign up to be placed on teams by their school.

The number and type of references available during the preliminary round (local-level) competition is at the discretion of the local coordinator at each school or college of pharmacy.

Students competing in the semi-final round (national-level) competition will have electronic access to AccessPharmacy (generously provided by McGraw Hill) and UpToDate^® Lexidrug^TM (generously provided by Wolters Kluwer). They will also have unrestricted internet access throughout the semifinal round. Students are welcome to visit additional websites such as UpToDate or Micromedex if they have those available (either personally or through their school). Students are encouraged to review access instructions for AccessPharmacy and UpToDate^® Lexidrug^TM in advance of the national-level competition. The use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools or applications, personal or classroom notes, or other collaborative documents are prohibited at the national competition.

The way in which the Pharmacist’s Care Plan is prepared for the preliminary round (local-level) competition is at the discretion of the local coordinator at each school or college of pharmacy.

For the semi-final round (national-level) competition, the Pharmacist’s Care Plan is hand-written, and only information included directly in the care plan will be reviewed and scored by the judges.

The use of personal electronic devices during the preliminary round (local-level) competition is at the discretion of the local coordinator at each school or college of pharmacy.

Students competing at the national-level are encouraged to bring a fully-charged personal laptop and/or tablet (maximum 2 per team) to the competition room for the purposes of conducting research and ensuring access to UpToDate^® Lexidrug^TM, AccessPharmacy, and other online materials. Other computer software and/or electronic devices (e.g., smart phones, PDAs, etc.) are prohibited at the national competition. Competition proctors will monitor usage throughout the 2-hour competition. Additionally, ASHP will not provide electronic devices for student use.

Please confirm with the local coordinator at your school or college of pharmacy for guidelines around the preliminary round (local-level) competition.

At the national-level competition, students may only bring one electronic device per teammate (maximum two devices per team) and writing utensils to their workstation. ASHP will provide all other necessary materials (e.g., calculators, scratch paper, pencils, etc.) for student teams to complete their written Pharmacist’s Care Plans. No other personal items may be on the students’ desks during the competition without permission of the competition proctors. Additionally, teams may not take anything from or bring anything into the competition room while the competition is in progress. Students may use the restroom and/or get refreshments (i.e., water) without permission from the competition staff.

Students participating in the national-level CSC who previously purchased a meeting registration to the ASHP Midyear Clinical Meeting (Midyear) will receive a refund at the time their complimentary meeting registration is processed. Students do not need to provide any additional information for the refund to take effect.

Please note:

• The refund can only be executed in the same method the original registration was purchased (e.g., refund will appear on the credit card used for purchase)
• Although ASHP will automatically refund the meeting registration and process a complimentary meeting registration, any additional workshop charges will not be refunded
• Please allow a few weeks for the refund to be reflected in your account/credit card statement due to the high volume of customer requests in the fall

Team timeslots for the semi-final round on Saturday are assigned prior to the meeting and will be available on the ASHP website (www.ashp.org/ClinicalSkills) by September. Typically, assignments are made based on location, with the schools and colleges of pharmacy in closer proximity to the ASHP Midyear Clinical Meeting being assigned to the earlier timeslots. However, all students should be prepared to compete in any timeslot; the earliest being from 8 – 10 a.m. with registration at 7:15 a.m. (local time)

The Top Ten teams advancing to the final round on Sunday are announced on Sunday morning. All team members are required to report back to the competition room between 11 – 11:30 a.m. The final round begins promptly at 12:10 p.m. with the final team competing from 2:55 – 3:10 p.m.

Competition times are randomly assigned for the final round, and teams are required to sequester until they finish presenting their oral defense.

Teams are not permitted to take anything from or bring anything into the competition room, including notes of any type. Furthermore, the use of personal or classroom notes and collaborative documents are prohibited at the national-level competition.

Before making their oral presentation, teams will have fifteen minutes to review the contents of their forms and papers which were collected from the semi-final round. These may be taken in and used during the final round.

The purpose of the CSC is to assess and test the problem-solving skills of student pharmacists. As such, the use of advanced automated tools – e.g., AI or machine learning (ML) tools, including but not limited to ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, etc. – or similar applications is prohibited.

Teams compete by demonstrating their skills in assessing patient information and current therapy, identifying and prioritizing drug therapy problems, identifying treatment goals, and formulating a comprehensive pharmacy care plan. Teams are evaluated on the clinical relevance, effectiveness, comprehensiveness and practicality of their written recommendations as well as the clarity and logic of the oral presentation. A panel of judges score the Pharmacist’s Care Plan and the oral presentation using a standardized set of evaluation criteria provided by ASHP. To view the evaluation scoring sheets, please see the Coordinator Handbook on the ASHP website (www.ashp.org/ClinicalSkills).

Starting in 2026, priority 1 recommendations for therapy at the national-level CSC will also be graded against the NCC MERP Index for Categorizing Medication Errors with points being deducted for errors with potential to cause harm or death (categories E-I). While it is possible for competitors to receive 0 points, negative points will not be enacted.

Each student team will have their case evaluated by at least two clinical pharmacy faculty persons. On Sunday afternoon following the completion of all oral presentations, each team will be able to pick up their case packet, which includes their returned patient care plan, score sheet, and general answer key (note: the fully graded rubric will be emailed to each team once staff have returned from the Midyear Clinical Meeting). Following the conclusion of the oral presentations (around 3:30 local time), the national case writer will be available in the competition room to discuss the national case in more detail and answer questions. Although ASHP will not publish the ranking of each school individually, we will provide a mean, median, range and standard deviation for the scores from all the schools to give context on each team’s performance.

The top ten teams are announced during the student opening session on Sunday morning. Signs with the top ten teams are posted outside the CSC competition room as well as at the ASHP Meeting Info and Membership Info booths. An email will also be sent to all student participants with this information.

The winning team of the National CSC is announced by the ASHP President during the Opening Session of the ASHP Midyear Clinical Meeting on Monday morning.

Handbooks can be found at www.ashp.org/ClinicalSkills. The Student Handbook containing helpful information about what the CSC entails and outlines the process for anyone interested in competing. The Coordinator Handbook contains comprehensive information on all aspects of the CSC, including a timeline, the format of the competition, sample case and answer key, and more.

Register for the competition through your local coordinator. If you don’t know who that is, you can ask your SSHP Faculty Advisor, student activities director, or email ASHP at students@ashp.org.

For more information about the CSC:

• Contact your SSHP Faculty Advisor, or
• Explore our online resources at www.ashp.org/ClinicalSkills, or
• E-mail us at students@ashp.org