Contact: Jennifer Hollingshead
Office: (573) 882-0601
E-mail: hollingsheadj@umsystem.edu
What: Press opportunity/Formal signing of memorandum of understanding to extend the Doctor of Pharmacy Program from the UM-Kansas City campus to the UM-Columbia campus
When: 9:30 a.m., Sept. 22, 2004
Where: 321 University Hall, President's Conference Room, Columbia, Mo.
University of Missouri officials today announced a plan to generate greater numbers of pharmacists across the state. The University of Missouri-Kansas City and the University of Missouri-Columbia have established a "Board of Curator's Cooperative Degree Program" to extend the Doctor of Pharmacy Program from the UM-Kansas City School of Pharmacy to the UM-Columbia campus.
"This cooperative program allows the School of Pharmacy to address two key issues in pharmacy education in our state," said Robert Piepho, dean of the UM-Kansas City School of Pharmacy. "Specifically, these are access for Missouri residents to pharmacy education and the pharmacist shortage that currently faces our state and nation."
The new program uses existing campus resources and expertise, and will not require any additional state funds. The doctor of pharmacy six-year program includes pharmacy courses taught by UM-Kansas City faculty located on both the UM-Columbia campus and at UM-Kansas City, and UM-Columbia courses that will be taught by UM-Columbia faculty.
"The need for pharmacy graduates is a very significant problem in the state," said Richard Oliver, Dean of the UM-Columbia School of Health Professions. "The School of Health Professions is delighted to assist the University of Missouri's efforts to increase pharmacy student capacity to meet this critical need."
The program expands the number of mid-Missouri pharmacies and hospitals serving as clinical training sites, generating more pharmacists to address the pharmaceutical care needs of rural Missourians.
The Pharm.D. degree allows graduates to become not only registered pharmacists after successfully completing the State Licensure exams, but also health care professionals with expanded opportunities in the provision of pharmacotherapy and the clinical sciences. The cooperative program also creates a new elective track for students interested in nuclear pharmacy, the first time such a track is available in the state.
University officials believe that the combined efforts in enrollment management at UM-Columbia and UM-Kansas City will increase the entering Pharm.D. class size by 65 percent by 2007.
Reviewed 2010-06-17