Future Pharmacists Get Coats
August 9, 2009
TTU School of PharmacyBy Carl Kieke
Abilene Reporter News
Long Lam puts on his white pharmacist coat during a ceremony Sunday at the Paramount Theatre, welcoming new students to the Abilene campus of Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Pharmacy.
The role of the pharmacist has changed over the past few years, the incoming class of the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Pharmacy was told during the “White Coat Ceremony” at the Paramount Theatre Sunday.
The job is more than just verifying what the doctor wrote and dispensing the right medicine, Dr. Kevin Jones of CVS Pharmacies told the students. Now, “You are to help them (patients) overcome those obstacles that stand in the way of good health care.
“It’s a new concept of pharmacy, a new position for us. It is a confrontation with reality. Gone are the days when the pharmacist’s only responsibility was to verify that the label matched what the doctor ordered.”
Dr. Hal Miller and Dr. Carol Fox echoed those statements during their presentations. Miller stated that the duty of the pharmacist has gone “from a chemist to an advocate of patient care.”
“The profession of pharmacy has changed from being a product-focused one to a patient-focused one,” Fox said.
The 40 students in the class of 2013 comprise the third class at the Abilene campus, bringing total enrollment to 120 students. The full capacity of 160 should be reached next year, Dr. Kim Powell, regional dean, said. At that time, the campus will have 32 faculty, 20-plus on staff, six pharmacy residents and a half-dozen graduate students in master’s and doctoral programs.
The first Texas Tech School of Pharmacy opened in Amarillo in 1996. Campuses have also been opened in Lubbock and the Dallas area. The Abilene campus was authorized in 2004 and opened in the fall of 2007. Approximately 500 students graduated from the Texas Tech SOP campuses last year, Powell said.
After every student received their white coat, they signed a copy of the pharmacist’s code of ethics and also accepted the Oath of the Pharmacist.
Students arrived at the Abilene school by a variety of paths. Candis Massingill of Waco changed direction before arriving.
“I started off with an interest in doing something in the medical field,” she said. “This led me to go to the University of Texas and do biomedical engineering. In my psychology classes, I got introduced to the interaction of drugs in the brain. That really interested me and kind of spurred me on to go into pharmacy school.”
Jacob Jameson of Southlake saw the pharmacy field up close all his life his father is a pharmacist.
“The prestige of the position and the involvement with patients has been near and dear to my heart,” he said. “Just being able to do that and fulfill myself is primarily why I wanted to become a pharmacist. My whole college experience (at the University of Texas), I’ve been going towards pharmacy school.”
Devin Millis of Bridgeport also has a father in the medical field, as a physician assistant. But he did not commit himself to the field until he was already in college at University of Texas-Arlington.
“I went on some mission trips with him that got me interested in health care,” he said. “I’m more interested in the chemical side of helping patients. I’m thinking probably clinical pharmacy, in a hospital or something.”
