It's
been a stellar year for UCSD's Skaggs School of Pharmacy.
The new $45 million Pharmaceutical Sciences building was
completed in the spring. And in June, 16 women and eight men
of the School’s charter class completed their four-year program
with doctorates in pharmacy (Pharm.D.). They’ve been prepared
for a multitude
of career choices including hospital or clinical pharmacy, community
pharmacy, pharmaceutical management, and drug
development in the pharmaceutical or biotech industry.
As the second public pharmacy school in the state, and the only
one in Southern California, the Skaggs School of Pharmacy
attracted top students from a variety of backgrounds. These 24
students, selected from a pool of nearly 500 applicants, arrived
to a school
housed in temporary quarters and using borrowed classroom spaces
spread across the campus. The 60 students entering this fall will
find their classrooms on the first floor of the new building, with
labs on the next three floors. The School offers unique classroom and clinical training in
conjunction with UCSD’s School of Medicine, with five courses
per class offered in the fall quarter. Second-year pharmacy students
share courses with first-year medical students, and in their fourth
year, pharmacy students participate in clinical training alongside
medical students. The School also offers a joint Pharm. D./Ph.D.
program— envisioned to bring the drug development process, therapeutic
practices and outcomes into closer alignment. It also offers postgraduate
residencies for Pharm.D. graduates.
Dean Palmer Taylor, Ph.D., notes that UCSD, with a diverse healthcare
system that includes the Moores Cancer Center and two major hospitals,
provides a variety of clinical settings for its pharmacy students
to hone their patient-care skills. In addition, leaders in the
San Diego-area biotech, pharmacy and pharmaceutical industries
have strong
collaborative ties to the Skaggs School. Many local pharmacists
serve as mentors to the students, who must fulfill 1,500 hours
of supervised
training before applying for
a pharmacist license. “Until we opened our School in 2002, San Diego was the
largest metropolitan area in the United States without an accredited pharmacy
school,” says Taylor. “The practice of pharmacy in the community
and in health systems is changing rapidly. The first UCSD graduating classes
can and will influence these trends.
I am proud that their presence
will impact California’s large and growing
biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry.” — Debra Kain
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