Pharmacy school would alleviate shortage

Valerie Miller

Tuesday, April 11, 2000 | 11:43 a.m.

For info

Anyone interested in attending the pharmacy school should contact Southern Nevada Educational Services at 990-4433.

Pharmacists at University Medical Center as well as drugstores around the Las Vegas Valley hope a school proposed in Henderson will help end an area-wide staffing shortage.

The new pharmacy school is tentatively set to open this fall in temporary quarters. It is projected to grow into a major tenant of the $100 million Fountain Plaza in the city's redevelopment area.

Dr. Harry Rosenberg, former dean of the Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona, Calif., will head the school. He said he plans to place students as interns at area pharmacies while using some pharmacy staff from UMC to teach at the school.

UMC officials support the idea of a pharmacy school.

"We absolutely want to be involved," said Gail Sieren, UMC's assistant pharmacy director. "We have had discussions with Rosenberg, and we will probably be taking interns right away. We will likely take eight to 10 students a year from his school and other schools that train pharmacists."

UMC operates a main pharmacy and five pharmacies at Quick Care facilities. It employs 55 full- and five part-time pharmacists.

"We have about three full-time openings for pharmacists constantly," Sieren said. "As soon as I fill them, somebody retires. So definitely, the pharmacy school will help."

The need for pharmacists continues to grow as the population of the state and the number of pharmacies opening increases, said Keith Macdonald, executive director of the state Board of Pharmacy.

"While the number of pharmacies has risen from around 174 to close to 300 in Nevada from 1996 to 2000, the number of pharmacists has not kept pace," Macdonald said. "During that same time period, the number of pharmacists has grown only from close to 1,000 to around 1,500."

Macdonald said a pharmacy school is needed.

"I think that it is a very productive and outstanding idea," he said.

Walgreens Co. spokesman Michael Polzin said, "While we are fully staffed right now, in the next 12 months we will have eight more stores in the valley, and that will create a need for 30 more pharmacists."

Walgreens has 28 stores in Nevada and employs 120 pharmacists statewide, Polzin said. Nationwide, Walgreens has 12,000 pharmacists at 3,000 stores.

Polzin said a new pharmacy school will help meet the demand.

"Long term, that school will be an asset," he added. Polzin said the shortage is not only in Nevada, but nationwide.

As of the end of 1999, there were 81 pharmacy schools in the United States with accredited professional degree programs, according to the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy.

"The pharmacy school will make recruiting easier, too, because we won't have to go as far to get pharmacists," Polzin said. "We'd prefer to recruit in Southern Nevada."

Walgreens has a policy of limiting the number of hours a pharmacist can work to reduce the risk of fatigued pharmacists making potentially dangerous mistakes when filling prescriptions, Polzin said.

"Our policy is to limit the pharmacists' scheduled hours to between 40 and 42 hours," he said.

While some pharmacies such as Walgreens limit pharmacists' hours for safety reasons, those in the industry believe that the shortage of pharmacists still poses a potential danger.

"There's definitely a shortage, and that shortage forces pharmacists to work more hours and increases the likelihood of error," said Scot Silber, the owner and chief pharmacist of Green Valley Drugs.

Silber said the new pharmacy school will help alleviate the strain on overworked pharmacists in Nevada and create a source of employees.

"Once their program is up and running, I'm sure that we will get some interns and pharmacists from the school," Silber said. "There are so few pharmacy schools in U.S. that the shortage is definitely a nationwide problem."

Rosenberg is hopeful that the school can start accepting applications by the summer. He said he expects the first class to have between 40 and 60 students.

Initial classes would likely be held at the offices of Southern Nevada Educational Services at 1701 Whitney Mesa Drive in Henderson.

Before the school can accept any applications for admission, Rosenberg said, the pharmacy school must be licensed by the Nevada Commission on Post Secondary Education and receive temporary accreditation from the American Council on Pharmaceutical Education.

Students would need to take two years of the required pre-pharmacy courses at a university or college before being admitted for the intensive three-year program, Rosenberg said.

"We are holding informational meetings right now for potential students, so that they can find out what they would need to have ready if they were applying," he said.

Valerie Miller is a reporter for the Sun. She can be reached at (702) 259-2319 or by e-mail at valerie@lasvegassun.com