Courtney Fletcher, Pharm.D., dean of the University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Pharmacy, will visit on May 7 four cities to meet members of the communities and give updates on what’s new in the college. He will travel to Fremont, Wayne, Norfolk and Columbus.
The trip is part of a series of visits in May to 12 cities in Nebraska.
Dr. Fletcher will address changes in the pharmacy education program and how the college is advancing the practice of pharmacy. He also will talk about service the college provides to the state and background on recent graduates and the entering class.
His schedule includes meeting with students, pharmacy college alumni and those who serve as preceptors in communities. Preceptors are volunteers who supervise and train pharmacy students during community rotations.
“As the only publicly supported academic health science center in Nebraska, we have a very important mission to meet the health care needs of Nebraskans. We need to find out how well we’re doing that,” Dr. Fletcher said. “I want to get to know the pharmacy community and find out what their particular needs are from us as a college of pharmacy.
“We need to assess health care needs and workforce needs, and determine how well our educational program is preparing pharmacists to meet those needs for Nebraska.”
Among those visiting with Dr. Fletcher during the tour will be volunteer faculty who help train UNMC pharmacy students.
“The 250 volunteer faculty across Nebraska who graciously share their time and effort to help train and mentor our students on pharmacy practice experiences are vital to the development of our students,” he said. “Our national rankings is absolutely a reflection of the willingness of these volunteer faculty to provide this experience for our students.”
The College of Pharmacy’s doctor of pharmacy program has consistently ranked in the top 25 percent in the nation. In the 2009 edition of U.S. News & World Report rankings of the country’s best graduate schools, the UNMC College of Pharmacy ranked 29th of 110 accredited schools and colleges of pharmacies in the U.S. Graduates also have performed above the national average on the pharmacy licensing examination annually since records first were kept.
The UNMC College of Pharmacy, which was established as a school in 1908, will celebrate its 100th year of educating pharmacists in Nebraska. The school became the College of Pharmacy in 1915 and was third in the nation to offer the doctor of pharmacy degree (Pharm.D.).
More than 55 percent of the practicing pharmacists in Nebraska graduated from the UNMC College of Pharmacy, with 77 percent of those practicing in rural areas being UNMC graduates. There are 1,365 college pharmacy college alumni living and practicing in Nebraska,” Dr. Fletcher said.
The UNMC pharmacy program, which accepts a class of 65 new students each fall, is a four-year program in which students earn a doctor of pharmacy degree.
Dr. Fletcher, who has more than 25 years of academic pharmacy experience, joined UNMC as dean six months ago. He also is director of the antiviral pharmacology laboratory at UNMC.
He received his bachelor’s degree in pharmacy in 1978 from the University of Wyoming and his doctor of pharmacy degree in 1982 from the University of Minnesota.
Prior to coming to UNMC, Dr. Fletcher was associated with the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver for the past five years. At Colorado, he served as professor with joint appointments in the department of clinical pharmacy, School of Pharmacy, and the division of infectious diseases in the department of medicine. In addition, Dr. Fletcher served as director of the Antiviral Pharmacology Laboratory.
Prior to going to Colorado, Dr. Fletcher held academic pharmacy positions at the University of Minnesota (1983-2002) and Drake University (1982-83). At Minnesota, he served as professor in the College of Pharmacy’s Department of Experimental and Clinical Pharmacology. He began his academic pharmacy career at Drake, where he held the position of clinical assistant professor.
Dr. Fletcher’s research experience is prolific. He has devoted his research and practice interests toward the clinical pharmacology of antiviral agents. His cumulative federal funding as principal investigator is approximately $9.3 million in direct costs, while the cumulative value of federally funded projects on which Dr. Fletcher has worked as a co-investigator is approximately $40 million.
Dr. Fletcher currently is principal investigator of a National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant for the study of concentration-controlled antiretroviral therapy and also is the principal investigator of two NIH grants for adult and pediatric AIDS pharmacology laboratories. He has authored or co-authored more than 120 manuscripts in peer-reviewed scientific journals and more than 140 research papers for presentation at national and international scientific meetings.
He is a member of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Panel on Clinical Practices for the Treatment of HIV Infection, and recently completed a four-year term as a member of the NIH AIDS Discovery and Development of Therapeutics Study Section. He also is a past member of the Food and Drug Administration Antiviral Drug Advisory Committee.
The visits are part of the outreach program of the UNMC Alumni Affairs and College of Pharmacy Alumni Association. For more information about the college, call 1-888-725-8664.
UNMC is the only public health science center in the state. Its educational programs are responsible for training more health professionals practicing in Nebraska than any other institution. Through its commitment to education, research, patient care and outreach, UNMC has established itself as one of the country’s leading centers in cancer, transplantation biology, bioterrorism preparedness, neurodegenerative diseases, cardiovascular diseases, genetics, biomedical technology and ophthalmology. UNMC’s research funding from external sources is now more than $80 million annually and has resulted in the creation of more than 2,400 highly skilled jobs in the state. UNMC’s physician practice group, UNMC Physicians, includes more than 460 physicians in 50 specialties and subspecialties. They practice primarily in The Nebraska Medical Center, UNMC’s teaching hospital. For more information, go to UNMC’s Web site at www.unmc.edu.
-30-