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Accreditation dispensed to S.C. College of Pharmacy
By Shannon Cavanaugh
Contributing Writer
Erin Blackmon has finished the paperwork to enroll as a first-year student in the doctor of pharmacy program at the South Carolina College of Pharmacy. If all goes as planned, she and her 190 fellow classmates will graduate in four years as the inaugural class under the newly accredited South Carolina College of Pharmacy.
“I’ve always known I wanted to work in something in the medical field. I’m ready to get in there and go. You need a lot of passion to be a pharmacist,” said Blackmon, who worked in her father’s pharmacy outside of Florence while studying for three years at Francis Marion University. “Being a pharmacist is really hard work, but very rewarding.”
The Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education has awarded the South Carolina College of Pharmacy pre-candidate status and will begin the process toward full accreditation status next year. Accreditation is given to a college after it meets all ACPE standards, which includes graduating its first class.
ACPE is the accrediting body for pharmacy doctorate programs at colleges and universities in the United States and Puerto Rico. Until the South Carolina College of Pharmacy is fully accredited, college officials have retained the school’s independent status and the accreditations held by the University of South Carolina and the Medical University of South Carolina.
Merged experience
There are currently 99 accredited schools and colleges of pharmacy in the United States. In 2004, USC and MUSC merged more than 200 years of experience when they combined their pharmacy schools under the auspice of the South Carolina College of Pharmacy.
“When we merged, they considered us a new college,” said Executive Dean Joe DiPiro. “Receiving accreditation is a very intense process and requires a lot of effort. We had to re-examine everything: all classes, policies, faculty. Some states have a number of schools. We’re doing something unique in South Carolina. There is great potential here.”
Accreditation is no numbers game. Either a college passes or it fails. According to college officials, the South Carolina College of Pharmacy not only passed, but is doing quite well.
DiPiro and Arnold Karig, dean of the campus at MUSC, said the college’s 36 professors received excellent reviews by the ACPE. However, the college does have a checklist of areas in which to improve before the council’s next visit.
New way of teaching
The college is offering new classes, harmonizing policies and figuring out the best way to communicate between campuses that are about 110 miles apart. It is also offering classes through videoconferencing, which creates new technical and teaching challenges.
“It’s a whole new way of teaching and it’s the biggest concern for our faculty as they will have to learn how to teach in front of a camera,” Karig said. “They’re also responsible for more students. Instead of just 80, now it’s plus 110 at another campus. It’s one challenge at a time to optimize the quality of teaching between the (Charleston and Columbia) campuses.”
Blackmon, 21, is a bit unsure of what to expect in her first year at pharmacy school, which will include a full schedule of classes such as biochemistry, drug calculations and pathophysiology, as well as a community care lab three times a week.
“I asked some of the pharmacists I work with about that community care lab and they said they didn’t know what it was; they
didn’t have to take it,” said Blackmon, who works part time as a pharmacy technician at the Prescription Center on Rutledge Avenue. “I’m a little concerned about classes that you see on TV. How do I go to the teacher and ask questions if they’re in Columbia and I’m here in Charleston?”
To ease students’ jitters, the college is advising both faculty and students on the etiquette involved in distance learning, and the ACPE is keeping a close watch to see how students respond to videoconferencing classroom.
The South Carolina College of Pharmacy is also adding more clinical and practical training in hospitals, pharmacies and clinics in an attempt to move from “a product orientation to a patient orientation” curriculum, according to Karig. Thirty years ago, patients expected pharmacists to just hand them a bottle of pills across the counter, Karig said, but now they want more information.
Pharmacists are expected to use their expertise in a non-traditional role now, educating patients about medications to reduce risks and manage diseases such as diabetes and asthma, he says.
National shortage
National studies show there is a shortage of pharmacists. According to the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy’s Pharmacy Manpower Project, in 2001 there were 196,700 pharmacists working in the field. By 2020, the estimated need will be 417,000, but the estimated supply will be only 260,000.
Over the last four years, South Carolina’s pharmacy colleges—formerly MUSC in Charleston and USC in Columbia—reported a 30% increase in the size of their graduating classes.
The South Carolina College of Pharmacy plans to open a third campus in the Greenville area in the next five to seven years. That would require the college to go back to the ACPE for another accreditation.
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