Buies Creek, N.C.–Campbell University pharmacy professors, Jay Groce and Roy Pleasants, are working hard to raise awareness of Deep-Vein Thrombosis (DVT), a public health threat that affects up to two million Americans each year. With the support of the School of Pharmacy, they have joined forces with the national Coalition to Prevent DVT to participate in a symposium observing National DVT Awareness Month on Friday, Mar. 14, at the Friday Center in Chapel Hill. Dr. Jay Groce, associate professor of Pharmacy Practice and anti-coagulation specialist at Moses Cone Health System, will be a presenter at the symposium and Dr. Roy Pleasants, Campbell preceptor and clinical pharmacist in the Department of Pulmonary Medicine at Duke University Hospital, helped coordinate and promote the event. Melanie Bloom, wife of the late NBC war correspondent David Bloom, who died of complications from DVT while covering the Iraq War, will be the keynote speaker.A blood clot that forms in a vein deep within the body, DVT and related pulmonary embolism is the most common cause of preventable hospital death.”Since DVT Awareness Month began five years ago, we’ve raised the public’s understanding of the condition and its complications,” said Groce, a member of the national coalition and the national Council for Leadership on Thrombosis Awareness and Management (CLOT). “We’ve made strides in communicating that DVT can and does happen to people in all walks of life, at all ages. Working together, we can bring attention to the prevailing need for reducing risks and treating DVT.”Groce developed the first protocol for successful outpatient treatment for DVT in North Carolina and Pleasants, who specializes in pulmonary disease, was part of a team that developed a continuing education program for pharmacists on asthma management, another pervasive health problem.
Campbell professors help fight Deep-Vein Thrombosis