University of Maryland, Baltimore, aims to meet demand with new four-year programs at Shady Grove
This fall, the pharmacy school of the University of Maryland, Baltimore, will offer its four-year degree programs at the university system’s Shady Grove campus for the first time.
The school’s expansion into Montgomery County will help meet a shortage of pharmacists in Maryland and nationwide by enrolling 40 pharmacy students each year, said university officials. The school is also planning to double the size of its classroom and laboratory facilities in Baltimore.
‘‘The move to Shady Grove is also giving the school of pharmacy a foothold in Montgomery County to establish economic development here in collaboration with the biotech community and other health care organizations,” said David A. Knapp, dean of the pharmacy school. ‘‘That can only be facilitated by moving our program down here.”
The school’s doctorate of pharmacy program requires four to six weeks rotation in a community hospital, pharmacy, company or health care agencies such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration or the National Institutes of Health.
Rockville, Prince George’s County and Southern Maryland are among the areas in Maryland running short of pharmacists, according to a July 2006 survey of 63 drugstore chains by the National Association of Chain Drug Stores. The survey also revealed shortages in Baltimore, Arnold, Prince Frederick, the Eastern Shore and Eldersburg.
On a scale of 1 for a large shortage to 5 for large oversupply, the state of Maryland scored 1.91 on the survey, compared with its score of 2.19 in the same survey in January 2006.
Knapp said the pharmacist shortage, which began several years ago, is likely to grow bigger as the leading edge of baby boomers age and require more medications.
‘‘The need for professional pharmacists trained in the discovery, development, and use of medicine rivals the need for nurses and other health care professionals,” William E. Kirwan, chancellor of the University System of Maryland, wrote in an e-mail,
Extension of the pharmacy curriculum to the Universities at Shady Grove campus will ease a logjam of students applying in Baltimore for the 120 slots open each year, while offering a more convenient location for students in and around Montgomery County.
‘‘This came together when the Board of Regents encouraged us to deal more dramatically with the pharmacy shortage,” Knapp said. The curriculum at Shady Grove will be ‘‘a hybrid” of distance learning and live instruction.
‘‘This is a sizable expansion into this region and will expand the number of pharmacists statewide,” he said.
Maryland hospitals had a 10.5 percent vacancy rate for pharmacists in 2005, up from 8.5 percent in 2004, said Nancy Fiedler, a spokeswoman with the Maryland Hospital Association. She said 2006 figures are not yet available, ‘‘but we see no indication from the data that the vacancy rate did not continue last year.”
While the drugstore association survey showed an increase of vacancies for full-time pharmacists nationally from 3,941 in January 2006 to 4,044 in July 2006, the trend radically reversed for part-time vacancies. The survey showed only 389 vacancies for part-timers in July 2006, versus 3,558 part-time vacancies only six months earlier.
As more male pharmacists ‘‘prepare to retire and men and women opt for part-time work” the U.S. pharmacy profession ‘‘could face a worsening shortage,” according to the National Pharmacist Workforce Study in the May⁄June 2006 issue of the Journal of the American Pharmacists Association, sponsored by the nonprofit Pharmacy Manpower Project Inc.
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