Belmont and Lipscomb Open Pharmacy Schools
Published May 23, 2008
The Gordon E. Inman College of Health Sciences and Nursing on the Belmont University campus will greet its first pharmacy class in fall 2008.
Philip E. Johnston says being the first Dean of the School of Pharmacy at Belmont University is a “dream come true.”
His longtime colleague, Roger Davis, echoes that comment. Only he’s talking about the Lipscomb University College of Pharmacy, where he, too, is the school’s first dean.
Both men are graduates of the University of Tennessee College of Pharmacy in Memphis and have been professional colleagues for many years.
While it is coincidental that the two are helping to launch pharmacy schools just blocks away from each other in fall 2008, it is also the result of necessity.
“There’s a national shortage of pharmacists on the order of 150,000 practitioners,” says Davis, who was most recently employed at sanofi-aventis pharmaceuticals. “It’s projected to last the next 15 years or so. There are new colleges of pharmacy starting across the country and existing colleges of pharmacy are increasing their enrollments.”
Johnston, who previously worked at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, notes that when he and Davis sought their Doctors of Pharmacy degrees, UT-Memphis had the state’s only program.
Subsequently, East Tennessee State University began offering a program in Johnson City.
In fall 2008, pending final accreditation, there will be schools at Union University in Jackson as well as at the two schools at either end of Belmont Boulevard in Nashville.
“It’s interesting that all five of us [the heads of the pharmacy schools] went to the same school, and we talk to each other. We’re friends,” Johnston says.
As friends, they share ideas and talk about professional matters.
“When we [Belmont] went up to Chicago to visit with the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education, they said ‘What’s going on in Nashville?’ because they had just gotten the letter from Lipscomb, too,” Johnston recalls. “I think the answer is you look at Tennessee and look at the growth in population and the growth in the health-care industry in the area.”
Those two factors are motivators in beginning both four-year programs, which each plan to have a class of about 75 students to start.
“Belmont had looked for years to grow in another health-care area,” Johnston says, noting the school already offers nursing, occupational therapy, physical therapy and medical social work training. “Nashville is driven by the health-care industry.”
At both schools, students will spend the fourth year doing what Davis calls “experiential education,” meaning hands-on work with pharmacies and health-care providers.
Both men say students only need look in their own backyards for work, if that’s what they desire.
“We have a lot of faith that the market is there and will remain strong,” Davis says.
Story by Tim Ghianni
Photo by Brian McCord
Current Weather Conditions In Nashville, TN (37201)
Partly Cloudy, and 56 ° F. For more details?
Click here...
