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WASHINGTON -- Retail and educational pharmacy advocates joined forces with a key Senate ally last month to launch a major campaign against a growing teacher shortage at U.S. schools of pharmacy. The move, prompted by an alarming rise in the number of vacancies among pharmacy school faculty and a continuing nationwide shortage of retail pharmacists, is expected to raise $12 million for scholarships and other assistance in recruiting new instructors.

The American Foundation for Pharmaceutical Education announced the campaign, called Investing in the Future of Pharmacy Education, at a press conference here July 29. Joining AFPE president Robert Bachman at the launch were Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., a lead sponsor of the Pharmacy Education Aid Act of 2003; Kurt Proctor, president of the National Association of Chain Drug Stores Foundation; and Lucinda Maine, executive vice president of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy.

The event was timed to coincide with a new move in Congress for passage of the bill. If signed into law, the measure would increase funding for pharmacy scholarships and boost classroom capacity and laboratory facilities at pharmacy schools throughout the United States.

With backing from corporations, foundations and individual donors, the campaign is aimed at attracting more students to pharmacy teaching careers and at boosting pharmaceutical research, according to Bachman.

AFPE's program will award up to 155 annual scholarships to students pursuing pharmacy degrees that qualify them for careers teaching at schools or colleges of pharmacy, he said. The organization already has raised $3.5 million for the program, Bachman noted.

In a recent survey, 67 of the nation's 84 pharmacy schools reported a total of 417 vacant teaching posts. Maine attributed the "brain drain" to several factors, including retirements and the lure of higher-paying jobs in clinical pharmacy and called it "a serious public health threat in the face of the rapidly growing consumer demand for prescription drugs."

Added Proctor, "Unless we attract more qualified teachers to the nation's pharmacy schools, the pharmacist shortage will seriously impact the entire U.S. health care system."

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