MUSC, USC to expand pharmacy program
In joint announcements Jan. 12 at the Greenville Hospital System and the State House in Columbia, USC President Andrew Sorensen, Ph.D., and MUSC President Ray Greenberg, M.D., Ph.D., announced that the South Carolina College of Pharmacy is adding a new location, the Greenville Hospital System. Although the integration of the USC and MUSC pharmacy programs is still in progress, the program is already expanding beyond Columbia and Charleston.
Dr.
Joseph DiPiro, executive dean of the South Carolina College of Pharmacy,
Dr. Ray Greenberg, MUSC president, and Frank Pinckney, president and CEO
of the Greenville Hospital System, left to right, chat prior to the announcement
in Greenville of the expansion of the South Carolina College of Pharmacy
to the Upstate.
To support the expansion, the Greenville Hospital System Endowment will invest $5 million in the South Carolina College of Pharmacy during the next 10 years. The money will be used to hire additional faculty and secure other necessary resources. The gift is seen as a multi-purpose investment: supporting the expansion of the state’s pharmacy program, increasing educational and job opportunities in the Upstate, and enhancing the intellectual infrastructure of the state of South Carolina.
“The important institutional and geographic addition of Greenville makes the South Carolina College of Pharmacy a true statewide program. As such, it will increase access among those interested in a well-paying career in the pharmaceutical industry to the exceptional faculty, facilities, and institutional activities afforded by MUSC, USC, and our clinical partners, the Greenville Hospital System and Palmetto Health,” Sorensen said. “The Greenville Hospital System gives us a much-needed venue for clinical training, which in turn provides us with the capacity and the flexibility needed to train the pharmacists our state needs now and will need in the years to come.”
Commenting on the announcement, Greenville Hospital System chief executive officer Frank Pinckney attributed the addition of the College of Pharmacy to the system’s other academic programs to Health Sciences South Carolina, a public-private collaborative partnership between MUSC, USC, the Greenville Hospital System, and Palmetto Health. He also credited the system’s recent recognition as a University Medical Center as a factor in attracting the College of Pharmacy to GHS. “Our association with Health Sciences South Carolina continues to provide exciting new ways to advance health sciences education, research, and improved public health in the Upstate. It is unique and also very powerful that we are using the existing infrastructure of our state’s colleges and universities and its health systems to transform South Carolina’s economy.”
The expansion of the combined MUSC/USC pharmacy program in the Upstate is critical for several reasons, says USC’s Sorensen. Prescription drug use is at an all time high—an estimated three billion prescriptions will be written in 2005, and with the aging of baby boomers, demand is expected to surge. There is a national shortage of pharmacists. Currently, one in five hospital pharmacist jobs is unfilled and 6 percent of retail pharmacy positions are unfilled. Growing prescription drug use combined with a lack of pharmacists to fill them has created demand for pharmacy programs with the appropriate faculty, facilities, and resources to train pharmacists to safely dispense medications.
While a specific date has not been set for the Greenville Hospital System to begin training pharmacy students, Greenberg said the South Carolina College of Pharmacy is targeting the fall of 2006 for its first class of 150 students.
“The process of integrating the two programs will take several years. Right now we are focused on completing the paperwork and addressing the very real tasks of establishing a single curriculum, admissions process and calendar,” Greenberg said. “However, we are taking advantage of every opportunity to create a leading pharmacy program. The addition of the Greenville Hospital System as a clinical training site is one such opportunity.”
During the pharmacy school announcement, Greenberg introduced Joseph
T. DiPiro, Pharm.D., whose hiring as executive dean of the South Carolina
College of Pharmacy was approved by the MUSC and USC Boards of Trustees
in December. DiPiro currently holds the position of assistant dean for
both the University of Georgia College of Pharmacy in Athens and the Medical
College of Georgia in Augusta. A nationally recognized expert in pharmacy
education, DiPiro will assume his new role in South Carolina in May.
Friday, Jan. 20, 2005
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