News & Media

As this issue of Academic Pharmacy Now arrives in your digital inbox, most colleges and schools of pharmacy have celebrated the virtual commencement activities of the Class of 2020. The final weeks of their Pharm.D. education have been like no other class before them. Hopefully, no other group of students, faculty and preceptors will ever have the same experience.

Community-based pharmacy is evolving from a place of product distribution into a healthcare destination. Many pharmacists who spend time filling prescriptions keep hearing of a future where their role will be more focused on the patient, not the product.

As data science changes the way drugs are discovered and developed, pharmacy schools are exploring the possible benefits for research and patient care. At the Quantitative Biosciences Institute at the University of California San Francisco School of Pharmacy, there were hints in January that the world was changing.

Dr. Melanie A. Felmlee, an assistant professor of pharmaceutics and medicinal chemistry at University of the Pacific’s Thomas J. Long School of Pharmacy, has received a four-year, $1.15 million grant for research that focuses on the differences in the way males and females process GHB.

University of Kentucky College of Pharmacy festival brings scientific literacy to the community. Science is all around us, from the photosynthesis of our houseplants to our WiFi connection to the medicines we take. Yet many people take for granted the scientific principles that influence every facet of our lives.

Following the tragic deaths of George Floyd and others,

and the public outcry about the manner in which they died ...

In the midst of a national pandemic, pharmacy schools face extraordinary challenges as they work to make alternate arrangements for rotations, determine how students will graduate on time and ensure that learning continues.

Pharmacy schools are taking a closer look at addressing mental health and well-being among faculty, staff and students. Well before the recent coronavirus pandemic began, addressing mental health and well-being in the pharmacy community and among healthcare students and professionals had taken on some urgency.

Results from the 2019 National Pharmacist Workforce Study (NPWS) indicate that the profession’s demographics continue to rapidly change, with notable gains in racial and gender diversification.

Pharmacy organizations representing the interests of all pharmacists in the United States have released a joint set of policy recommendations critical to addressing the COVID-19 pandemic.

As I write this letter, the chaos of the coronavirus pandemic is absorbing virtually all our time and attention. At this point no one knows what the true impact of the virus will be here in the United States or across the world. Certainly there are lessons to glean from those countries that saw the infection earlier than others, but incomplete scientific and public health information—along with too much misinformation—compromises our best efforts to prevent the spread, identify cases in a timely and reliable way and treat those whose health has been seriously affected.

Pharmacy schools are focused on providing accessible healthcare to underserved populations. How do most Americans receive healthcare? The answer used to be fairly straightforward: people would see a physician for checkups, go to the pharmacy for prescriptions and visit the hospital only in the event of an emergency or major procedure such as surgery.