A prescription to be filled Official: State desperately needs capacity to produce more pharmacists
By JUDY JENKINS, Gleaner staff 831-8339 * jjenkins@thegleaner.com
January 11, 2006
It didn't take a local visit by Kenneth Roberts, UK College of Pharmacy Dean, to convince Henderson pharmacist John Marshall that the state has a pharmacist shortage.
Marshall, owner of T&T Drug Store, has for the last year been seeking an additional full-time pharmacist for his staff of three full-time and three part-time pharmacists, and still hasn't filled that position. "I've had feelers out trying to find somebody," he said.
After going online in his search, he's been contacted by a pharmacist in India, a "fellow of retirement age on the other end of Kentucky who isn't sure he wants to relocate," and a Louisville resident who is considering coming for a "look-see."
The state, Marshall said, "absolutely" has a pharmacist shortage. He noted that a number of local pharmacies are using retired pharmacists to help fill the gap.
It's estimated that Kentucky has a shortage of about 400 pharmacists, and the UK College of Pharmacy -- the state's only college of pharmacy and recognized as one of the top 10 programs in the U.S. -- is hoping to correct that problem.
Roberts, who was in Henderson on Tuesday as part of a statewide effort to meet with pharmacists and hospital administrators, said the problem isn't a shortage of applicants to the college.
For the 2005 fall semester, the college had 998 applicants. Only 131 could be accommodated, and that number represents a 30 percent increase over the prior year. Of the 131, more than 90 percent are Kentucky residents. Eighty-one percent of the 2005 graduating class planned to stay in this state.
Already, there are 1,100 applicants for the college's 2006 fall semester.
The dilemma, Roberts said, is that the college -- which has a total of 425 professional students, 60 graduate students and 31 postdoctoral fellows -- doesn't have room for more students.
His travels, which included several western Kentucky stops Tuesday, are intended to persuade pharmacists, other health care professionals and the public in general to urge the state legislature to allocate additional funding for a new 250,000-square-foot, $120-million College of Pharmacy facility.
If funding is granted during the current General Assembly, Roberts said, the college can double classroom space and significantly increase enrollments when the building is completed. Targeted date for completion is July, 2009.
The 2005 General Assembly approved $40 million in first-phase funding for the facility, and the college is now requesting the $80 million remainder.
"It would be tragic," Roberts said, if the college doesn't receive that funding. He pointed out that a quarter of Kentucky's population is made up of aging "Baby Boomers" whose numbers are going to strain the health care system.
The dean said that each year it's necessary to "import" about 70 pharmacists from out of state to augment Kentucky's estimated 4,000 registered pharmacists. "Isn't it a shame," he said, "that we've had to bring people in from out of state to fill positions though we have well-qualified young men and women who wanted to go to pharmacy school here but couldn't because we didn't have the capacity (for them)."
Currently, three Henderson County residents are enrolled in the four-year pharmacy college, and there are eight from Daviess County and one from Webster County. Roberts said graduates start out at $90,000 to $100,000 a year.
Pharmacists are staying busy, he said. In 1993 there were 2 billion prescriptions filled in the U.S. "This year that number will reach 4 billion."