STATEWIDE ENGAGEMENT
High School Partnership Inspires Next Generation of Pharmacists
Students gain hands-on experience, explore career paths and earn college credit through innovative pharmacy program
Connor Stone, Samantha LeTourneau, Matthew Morgan and Addy Hoch are all students in the Introduction to Pharmacy Course who plan to apply to UMKC after graduation.
High school students in eastern Jackson County are getting an early glimpse into the world of pharmacy, thanks to a new course offered at the Career Innovation Center (CIC) in Blue Springs. The “Introduction to Pharmacy Practice” class, launched this past fall by the School of Pharmacy, aims to inspire future pharmacists while addressing the growing nationwide shortage of pharmacy professionals.
Developed in partnership with the CIC, the course was spearheaded by Maqual Graham, Pharm.D., associate dean of academic affairs and professor at the School of Pharmacy. Graham envisioned the course as a “crash course” in the world of pharmacy.
“I wanted to open their eyes,” Graham said. “You're so limited at that age. What you see in a community pharmacy kind of becomes your view of pharmacy, and you don't know that there are 99 other career paths that you can take.”
Throughout the semester, students spent 75 minutes, five days a week, immersing themselves in the fundamentals of pharmacy practice. The course featured instruction from 21 School of Pharmacy faculty members and eight guest lecturers, offering a wide range of expertise and perspectives.
“I really liked hearing the different point of views and the different roles in pharmacy,” said Addy Hoch, a senior from Blue Springs South who just completed the class. “I feel like that was kind of eye opening. Not that I wanted to do everything that they were talking about, but because of how there is an important role anywhere in the field for you to do what you want and like to do.”
In addition to classroom learning, students also took field trips to observe college-level classes and create compounds in the compounding lab at the School of Pharmacy. Another highlight was a visit to Walgreens’ micro-fulfillment center in Liberty, Missouri, where two School of Pharmacy alumni demonstrated how prescriptions are processed and distributed using advanced technology.
Johan Rojas and Nicholas Turney enjoy creating a value board designed to visually represent and reinforce values.
“They can see how prescriptions come in, how they actually get filled by all these machines and how they go back out to all the different Walgreens for patients to pick up,” Graham said.
The course is open to juniors and seniors from Blue Springs High School, Blue Springs South High School, Grain Valley High School, Oak Grove High School and Fort Osage High School. Students must apply for the course and complete an interview process to be selected. Those who complete the class also earn two hours of college credit, giving them a head start on their collegiate journey.
Hoch, who was initially considering nursing school, took the course to explore other healthcare careers. After completing it, she decided pharmacy was a better match for her interests and career goals. She plans to study chemistry at UMKC next fall and has been accepted into the Pharmacy Assurance Program, which means she will be on track to earn a seat in the School of Pharmacy through priority academic and first choice Pharm.D. campus site selection.
“It's a class that I really enjoyed, and I’ll definitely look back on it because not only did it motivate me to go into pharmacy and my future career, but because it was just an awesome class with an awesome teacher,” Hoch said.
Leaders at the School of Pharmacy plan to offer the course each fall, and hope fostering an early interest in the profession will build a stronger pipeline of future pharmacists. Graham would like to expand the course regionally, partnering with schools in Columbia, Springfield and the Kansas City metro area, including across the state line into career-focused programs offered by some districts in Kansas.
“Not only do we want to expose them to grow our recruitment here, which I think is important, but it's also important from a nationwide perspective, because of the shortages that we are going to see within the next two to five years,” Graham said.
Student Gianna Graham shares a moment with her instructor (and mom) Maqual Graham (Pharm.D. ’94) as she works on a team-building activity with a classmate.
"One of our aims is to build an army of people willing to speak positively about the profession and get them out there in the public. We’re trying to arm them with whatever they need to promote pharmacy careers."
RUSSELL B. MELCHERT, PH.D.
Coalition Comes Together to Combat Pharmacist Shortage
UMKC School of Pharmacy among groups working to address the looming crisis
The UMKC School of Pharmacy and Dean Russ Melchert, Ph.D. are sounding the alarm about an imminent shortage of pharmacists, especially in community pharmacies. According to Melchert, Missourians are facing a significant decline in access to pharmacy-based health and wellness services that will get far worse in the near future. Closures of community pharmacies are already happening at a concerning rate.
There is no single issue causing the shortage. Melchert stated the reasons are complex and multi-faceted, but they include a rapid decrease in pharmacy school enrollments, an aging pharmacy population and a significant increase in the percentage of graduates who have not sought licensure in their graduation year.
To find solutions, the School of Pharmacy is joining forces with another pharmacy school and leading pharmaceutical organizations in Missouri to form the Coalition to MOve Pharmacy Forward. The innovative collaboration comprises the UMKC School of Pharmacy, St. Louis College of Pharmacy, the Missouri Society of Health-System Pharmacists, the Missouri Pharmacy Association and the Missouri Board of Pharmacy. The group was formed to ensure the pharmacy change-makers in Missouri are working together to address the looming pharmacy challenges for the state.
“In the past decade, most schools of pharmacy competed with each other for potential students, but the pie was getting smaller and smaller,” Melchert said. “We all agree this is a significant issue for the health of Missourians. The data speaks for itself. We're not going have enough pharmacists by 2026, and we don't have enough pharmacists right now.”
Front of mind for the two schools involved is a crisis-level shortage of pharmacy graduates within the next couple of years. In 2018 and 2019, the 140 fully-accredited pharmacy programs in the United States produced about 14,000 new pharmacists nationwide. Based on data from the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP), the number of pharmacist graduates will drop below 8,000 by 2026.
"One of our aims is to build an army of people willing to speak positively about the profession and get them out there in the public. We’re trying to arm them with whatever they need to promote pharmacy careers."
RUSSELL B. MELCHERT, PH.D.
In correlation with that decline, there is a decrease in aspiring pharmacists compared to bordering states, meaning Missouri may be hit harder by the shortage than surrounding states. According to AACP data, Nebraska, Kentucky and Arkansas have far more applicants when adjusting for state population. While the coalition doesn’t know exactly what’s working for schools in those states, it does know the support of current practicing pharmacists is critical to increasing interest.
According to Melchert, a priority for the coalition is recruiting Missouri pharmacists to spread the word about the benefits of their careers. “One of our aims is to build an army of people willing to speak positively about the profession and get them out there in the public,” Melchert said. “We’re trying to arm them with whatever they need to promote pharmacy careers.”
According to data compiled by the coalition, an aging pharmacist population is another challenge. About 25.9% of Missouri-licensed pharmacists will be at least 50 years old in 2026, while 14.8% will be at least 59. With eligibility for Social Security benefits beginning at 62, the group speculates nearly 15% of Missouri pharmacists will be social security eligible in 2028.
According to Melchert, one of the more interesting data points is the significant increase in the percentage of graduates who have not sought licensure in their graduation year. Data from the National Boards of Pharmacy shows the percentage of non-test-takers rose from 1.9% in 2018 to 8.3% in 2023. If the trend continues on its current trajectory, instead of the approximately 8,000 pharmacy graduates projected for 2026, the number could drop to even lower, with only 6,880 graduates sitting for the NAPLEX.
The coalition believes that if the industry works together it can begin to reverse the trend and get more highly educated and well-trained pharmacists and pharmacy technicians into the healthcare workforce in Missouri.
Nicole Gorsuch gives a patient a vaccine in his home.
Resident Brings Vaccines into Homes Through Grant
UMKC School of Pharmacy resident Nicole Gorsuch recently received a grant that funds in-home immunizations for low-income, elderly and immobile patients, working to fill a healthcare gap that exists in parts of rural Missouri.
Gorsuch’s final step after pharmacy school at the University of Tennessee was a one-year community pharmacy residency. She was matched in Charleston, Missouri, through a partnership between UMKC and the town’s L & S Pharmacy. Charleston is an underserved town in rural southeast Missouri, and Gorsuch is exactly the kind of candidate UMKC hopes to send into these areas.
“Nickie came to our program ready to be molded, excited to learn and ready to practice her skills,” said Sara Opronovich, Pharm.D., the school’s residency program director.
Gorsuch quickly witnessed the lack of accessible and robust healthcare when she arrived in Charleston.
“We have, like, one doctor that comes to town once a week,” she said.
The lack of healthcare facilities, combined with limited transportation and insecure housing, means that residents are often at higher risk of developing a condition that goes untreated, potentially turning serious without intervention. Gorsuch had her work cut out for her.
Along with being the only pharmacy in Charleston, L & S Pharmacy is a community pharmacy with clinic days to vaccinate residents. Gorsuch noticed several patients weren’t able to come into the pharmacy on these days to receive their vaccines.
“I was like, ‘well, why don’t we just go to them?’” Gorsuch said.
The program started small.
“One day, we had a few patients, so we just lined them up on our calendar to go to them to give them their vaccines,” she said. “We don’t have Ubers or taxis or anything.”
As the demand for in-home vaccinations grew, Gorsuch began to think bigger.
“That’s why we applied for this grant through the Missouri Pharmacy Association,” Gorsuch said.
“In rural and underserved locations like southeast Missouri, these problems are amplified,” Opronovich said. “The seemingly simple intervention of giving a shot is also more difficult with fewer providers and more challenges with social determinants of health. Nickie’s work points out the added challenge of providing this health resource and shines a light on the need to provide funding for such interventions.”
The funding from the $60,000 grant was received in late 2023 and enabled L & S Pharmacy to conduct transportation screenings to assess which patients can travel to the pharmacy and which patients need in-home or delivery care. The funding also covered transportation fees for the pharmacy team as well as vaccines for some uninsured patients.
Gorsuch’s in-home immunization program has shed even more light on the existing healthcare challenges that rural communities face.
“We had a patient who has been to the pharmacy a lot, and I never knew he didn’t have transportation, but he walked to the pharmacy,” Gorsuch said. “I never knew because I never asked. The more we ask, the more we know.”