Investing in Graduate Students is Essential to Pharmacy's Future
This edition of the PAA newsletter profiles the Pharmaceutical Sciences Division, one of the four divisions that make up the UW School of Pharmacy of today (with Pharmacy Practice, Social and Administrative Sciences and Extension Services). Members of the Pharm Sci Division fill several key roles at the School. Very importantly, they provide the basic sciences underpinning for professional education upon which the clinical skills of our PharmD students are built. Of equal importance is their focus on graduate education, leading to MS and PhD degrees. This represents another key part of the School's academic mission and is intimately entwined with the research enterprise that generates and disseminates new knowledge in a variety of disciplines. In Pharm Sci, faculty, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and many technical support personnel investigate fundamental questions in the areas of drug discovery, drug action and drug delivery and lay the groundwork for new drug development. This is where the pipeline for new medications begins, defining the tools that the pharmacy practitioner will be working with into the future.
The Zeeh Pharmaceutical Experiment Station is just opening its doors within the Pharm Sci Division. This new version of the Station is envisioned to assist with drug development by providing an array of analytical services designed to rapidly identify "new chemical entities" that might have interesting pharmacological activity, but that lack the physicochemical properties to allow development into actual drugs. Academic programming leading to certificates or an MS degree is likely to be a key feature of the Station as well. The effort is being directed by Lynn Van Campen, a former graduate student with George Zografi, and we're very excited about the future of the Station and its role both inside and outside the School and the University. Welcome, Lynn!
The importance of the "graduate student" in these aspects of Pharm Sci cannot be overstated. Competition for the very best graduate students, who have the background, skills and personal qualities to become the academic and industrial researchers of the future, is brisk, to say the least. Not everyone is interested or trained appropriately to pursue new knowledge at this level or possesses the innate creativity or scientific curiosity for this kind of work. We need to recruit and retain those who do.
Offering competitive packages has become as important for the recruitment of graduate students as for faculty members themselves. Having graduate "fellowships" in place to cover the salary stipend and health benefits especially of first-year graduate students is key to attracting outstanding students to our PhD program. It is our investment in these scientists and faculty of the future and it is absolutely essential.
We hope to enhance many aspects of graduate education and the research enterprise in the School into the future. As one example, interweaving graduate and professional education benefits all our students. UW is a perfect place to offer a wide range of laboratory clerkships to PharmD students interested in exploring the Pharm Sci aspects of pharmacy. Another approach being considered is joint degree programs in which a student studies for both the PharmD and the PhD degrees in an integrated fashion. This is designed to train an entirely new type of clinician-scientist uniquely positioned to explore the biomedical and clinical problems we face. Again, UW is the perfect place for such a program, drawing on our strengths in professional and graduate education and research.
Enjoy the glimpse of Pharm Sci and stay tuned for future newsletter editions that will highlight the people and programs in our other divisions.
Thanks to all of you in Wisconsin and coast to coast who have attended Meet the Dean receptions or dinners. It's been a pleasure getting to know a small fraction of our alumni, and I look forward to much more interaction in the future. I wish all our alumni an enjoyable summer season, where ever you may be!