Pharmacy dean ready for challenge,
expansion
by
Heather WoolwinePublic Relations
A need for more pharmacists and higher expectations in pharmaceutical care required the state’s leaders in pharmacy education to make the call, and the answer to that call is the newly formed South Carolina College of Pharmacy.
Dr. Joseph DiPiroGuided by the new college’s executive dean, Joseph DiPiro, Pharm.D., the integration of the pharmacy schools at MUSC and USC serves as an example for states throughout the country when faced with a need to broaden and enhance pharmacy training with fewer state supported dollars.
To create this statewide approach to pharmacy study, the two schools combined staff, faculties, and resources to offer expanded educational and clinical training, national leadership in pharmacy education, and more opportunities for research collaboration and funding that will improve disease management.
“This integration is fairly unique nationally, and will help us become one of the top pharmacy colleges in the country, similar to Kentucky, Florida and North Carolina,” DiPiro said. “South Carolina is underserved when it comes to the numbers of practicing pharmacists, and instead of competing against each other or even with another new school, it was decided that our students, our citizens, and the pharmacy profession would be better served by bringing our expertise and resources together.”
DiPiro is no stranger to the world of academic and clinical affairs. Prior to his appointment as the executive dean of the South Carolina College of Pharmacy, he balanced time between the University of Georgia as an assistant dean and chairman of the Department of Clinical and Administrative Sciences in the UGA College of Pharmacy, and as a clinical professor of surgery and consulting clinical pharmacist at the Medical College of Georgia. DiPiro is also the editor for the American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education.
“The opportunity appealed to me for several reasons, but mostly the unique direction of the college and the challenge of doing more for South Carolina with essentially the same resources,” he said.
What DiPiro referred to is the subject of much conversation, even rumor across the state.
Contrary to some beliefs, the funding for the college has not changed since the integration; indeed, each university is bringing its original budget to the table. By combining resources, the new college will be more effective and efficient.
Class sizes for the college will continue an upward trend on both campuses, neither campus will close, and both campuses will offer a full four-year program. Students and faculty will not be forced from one campus to another, and by their fourth year, students will travel to different practice sites throughout the state for their practical experience.
“Combining the programs is not a cost-savings measure, it’s about making more out of low state appropriations and competing with benchmark institutions across the country,” DiPiro said.
But by simply getting on the same sideline, opportunities arose.
Offering its support for the integration, Greenville Hospital system agreed to contribute $5 million during the next 10 years for pharmacy education in the upstate and a private donor looking to aid with pharmacy education on the USC campus donated $5 million.
The South Carolina College of Pharmacy will promote collaborative research, thus bringing together top investigators from both institutions to better compete for much sought after federal and private funds.
One curriculum for all of the state’s pharmacy students, access to faculty at both campuses, and technological and educational upgrades are but a few of the benefits aimed at future pharmacy students.
The admission process was also integrated, with students applying to the South Carolina College of Pharmacy via one online system. But should a student apply to one campus and no open spaces exist, he or she would be eligible for acceptance at the other campus provided the space was available there. Even an effort to mirror pharmacy tuition costs on both campuses was made in the interest of equality between the two locations.
A campus dean will help manage the day-to-day operations of the individual locations, with administrative oversight of the college in the hands of DiPiro.
“This is an exciting time for pharmacy education. The demand for pharmaceutical services is expanding dramatically in community pharmacy, health-system pharmacy, as well as in managed health care and in the pharmaceutical industry,” DiPiro said. “Applications for pharmacy colleges nationwide have increased three-fold in the past few years. We are now in a wonderful position to place the South Carolina College of Pharmacy at the forefront of national pharmacy education.”
The new curriculum for the college will take effect on both campuses in fall 2006 when the first class of 190 students is admitted. Applications for the inaugural class of the South Carolina College of Pharmacy are now being accepted.
For more information about the college, visit http://www.sccp.sc.edu.
Joseph DiPiro, Pharm.D.
Graduating magna cum laude, Joseph DiPiro, Pharm.D., earned his bachelor of science degree from the University of Connecticut in 1978. He received his doctorate at the University of Kentucky in 1981. DiPiro completed a three- year pharmacy residency at the Albert B. Chandler Medical Center in Lexington, Ky., in 1981 and a Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship in Clinical Immunology at John Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md., in 1990. He also participated in the Management Development Program at Harvard University Graduate School of Education in 1997.
DiPiro has made 91 national, state, and local presentations and 12 international presentations. He has been invited to serve as visiting faculty at institutions such as Mercer University, Auburn University, University of Cincinnati, and Ohio State University and has published chapters in 25 books and has written or co-written 15 books in addition to numerous other publications. He has been awarded 45 grants. Honored with numerous awards, DiPiro is active in multiple professional organizations and maintains his pharmacy license in Kentucky and Georgia. He is married and has three children.
Friday, Aug. 19, 2005
Catalyst Online is published weekly,
updated
as needed and improved from time to time by the MUSC Office of Public
Relations
for the faculty, employees and students of the Medical University of
South
Carolina. Catalyst Online editor, Kim Draughn, can be reached at
792-4107
or by email, catalyst@musc.edu. Editorial copy can be submitted to
Catalyst
Online and to The Catalyst in print by fax, 792-6723, or by email to
petersnd@musc.edu
or catalyst@musc.edu. To place an ad in The Catalyst hardcopy, call
Community
Press at 849-1778.