College of Pharmacy

Philip E. Johnston, Dean and Professor

Administration:

G. Scott Weston, Associate Dean for Assessment and Academic Affairs
Kelley Kiningham, Assistant Dean for Student Affairs, Associate Professor
Condit Steil, Chair Pharmacy Practice, Professor;
Andrew Webster, Chair Pharmaceutical, Administrative and Social Sciences, Professor;
Mark Chirico, Director, Experiential Education and Development, Assistant Professor.

Faculty

Ashton Beggs, Kristy Booziotis, Leigh Ann Bynum, Hope Campbell, Mark Chirico, Edgar Diaz-Cruz, Cathy Ficzere, Rachel Franks, Elisa Greene, Angela Hagan, Amy Ham, Eric Hobson, Michael McGuire, Adam Pace, Marilyn Thompson Odom, Traci Poole, Ken Reed, Elisa Spinelli, Steven Stodghill, Montgomery Williams, Kristina Wood.

DOCTOR OF PHARMACY

Mission, Values, and Vision Mission

Mission
The Belmont University College of Pharmacy is a community dedicated to rigorous and purposeful teaching, scholarship, service and leadership in pharmacy to develop pharmacists prepared to meet the demands of evolving contemporary practice. 

Values
Integrity, Inquiry, Collaboration, Service, Humility.

Vision
To excel at pharmacy education, scholarship, patient-centered care, and service.

Educational Goals

Fulfilling the College of Pharmacy mission and vision requires a philosophical foundation upon which are placed clear, mission-relevant goals in support of intellectual rigor and leadership responsibilities. The curriculum develops competent generalist pharmacists ready to meet the demands of entry-level practice. This vision guides curricular development and sets the educational standard for students and faculty. Students complete a curriculum that provides them a broad, solid grounding in the basic and clinical sciences, epistemologies, and values that define contemporary pharmacy practice.

A BUCOP graduate will be able to demonstrate the ability to:

1. Use knowledge from foundational science and clinical practice to solve complex problems
2. Use information systems and literature
3. Integrate pharmacy care within an interdisciplinary team
4. Provide patient-centered and population-based care
5. Safely and effectively manage pharmacy resources
6. Communicate effectively through both verbal and nonverbal means
7. Be a self-directed and lifelong learner
8. Behave professionally and ethically

Curricular Concentrations

Student development is extended by longitudinal interaction with five concentrations that define and guide the program:

1. Pharmacotherapy: Contemporary pharmacy practitioners benefit from learning about and how to manage diseases at levels of depth beyond that located in the core curriculum, as well as those not part of the core curriculum, so that they develop increasingly sophisticated pharmacy practice intervention and pharmacy service justification abilities.
2. Information Management: Information systems infuse health care delivery; career competence requires the ability to use and to develop systems that integrate and extend current and emerging technologies.
3. Pharmacy Management: Successful pharmacists require more than a solid base in the science of pharmacy; long-term career success and responsible patient care requires more-than-passing training in the art and science of management. This is one of the profession's greatest needs.
4. Pharmacy Missions/Public Health: Pharmacy is about serving others and what distinguishes fully developed pharmacists is their concern for others and commitment to service; leadership in the profession and one's community requires understanding and committing to health care access and equity for underserved populations.
5. Interdisciplinary Care Delivery: Contemporary health care is a team-based, complex enterprise, whereby professional effectiveness requires knowledge of and longitudinal experience collaborating with multiple health care partners to navigate complex health care systems so that all patients receive exceptional care.

Goals

Established goals for teaching, scholarship, community interaction and service, and resource development align to our mission, vision, and values.

Teaching

• Develop and execute a curriculum that reflects the disciplinary range on which contemporary pharmacy stands, and that expresses the five concentrations at our educational plan’s core.
• Develop students’ fundamental and advanced knowledge, skills, and attitudes, and provide them mentorship to become proficient in the science and art of contemporary pharmacy.
• Provide students intentionally-structured opportunities, under faculty and mentor guidance, to develop knowledge, skills, and attitudes as a theoretical and practical grounding for applying fundamentals of interdisciplinary care, business, informatics and health care policy, and service to pharmacy practice.
• Provide students experiential education programs that meet the profession’s core practice competencies and provide elective experiences, aligned with the evolving profession and health care.
• Provide didactic, laboratory and experiential programming to help students use the models and applications of pharmaceutical and interdisciplinary care that undergird contemporary patient-centric health care, and develop and advance care models and delivery systems responding to evolving needs and opportunities.
• Use a quality assessment and improvement plan to ensure curricular relevance to profession-based advances and student and faculty need.
• Integrate curriculum delivery to ensure logical instructional progression and integration across disciplines, academic departments and experiential education.
• Structure an environment and culture to foster an individual, self-driven philosophy of life-long learning, professional growth and ethical behavior among members of the school’s community.
• Foster a school-wide environment of visible and practiced professionalism and dedication to patients and the pharmacy profession.
• Foster stewardship of public health with connectedness and responsibility to the underserved and disabled.
• Foster sensitivity to society’s multicultural and multiethnic needs.

Scholarship

• Encourage scholarly inquiry and discourse among students, faculty by developing and supporting interdisciplinary programs and projects and encouraging interaction with the university’s broad base of enrichment programs.
• Facilitate faculty engagement in scholarly work, research and socially-meaningful activities to advance the knowledge, reputation and art of the profession, by creating relationships, programs and projects within Belmont, other academic institutions and with other public and private sector entities whose mission and vision align with our own.
• Provide students opportunities and resources to engage in guided, career-level and interest-appropriate scholarly inquiry.
• Foster an environment that supports faculty and staff career-level and talent-appropriate scholarly pursuits.
• Expose students to the breadth and range of biomedical research skills, techniques and opportunities as part of curricular design and special project work.
• Encourage and create an environment supportive of faculty involvement in appropriate basic, clinical, public policy, educational and administrative scholarship.

Community Interaction and Service

• Establish, support and encourage student participation in major professional and service associations.
• Establish, support and encourage faculty participation and student mentorship in major professional associations.
• Support faculty and staff service with on and off-campus organizations, particularly those that support the Belmont mission and serve the social good and the medically underserved.
• Support faculty and staff leadership through service and scholarship to the profession.

Resource Development

• Establish a culture of assessment to maintain quality across all School operations. The assessment committee structure, operating at the departmental/divisional level and the school leadership level, includes representation from major stakeholders in the school’s mission.
• Establish processes for students to provide the school’s leadership team and faculty committees their perspectives on curriculum, programs, policy and procedures as part of assessment activity.
• Create an environment and provide opportunities and resources for faculty and staff to grow in their professional disciplines and as teachers, scholars, and mentors.
• Design and offer in-house faculty and staff training and development programs, in collaboration with Belmont and extramural partners, to develop skills, organizational cohesion and effectiveness.
• Establish a stakeholder committee to review school physical facilities and technology resources, counsel senior school leadership, help to ensure adequacy of current resources, and guide resource needs and upgrades planning.

Requirements for Admission

The College of Pharmacy participates in the Pharmacy College Application Service (PharmCAS), a national centralized common application process (www.pharmcas.org). Individuals who wish to apply to Belmont University College of Pharmacy must complete the PharmCAS application process and the supplemental Belmont University Graduate Application. The deadline for application is March 1.

In addition to the minimum undergraduate academic pre-requisite requirements, application to the School of Pharmacy requires the following:

• graduate degree (supplemental) application (available on-line at http://www.belmont.edu/prospectivestudents/admissions/graduate.html).
• $50 application fee
• Official college transcripts from each institution attended, submitted via PharmCAS at the time of application. A second set must be submitted directly to Belmont University, Office of Admissions (1900 Belmont Blvd., Nashville, TN 37212), prior to matriculation.
• Minimum cumulative undergraduate GPA of 2.7 (on a 4 point scale)
• Two letters of recommendation from persons able to discuss the applicant's work ethic submitted via PharmCAS.
• Pharmacy College Admissions Test (PCAT) examination results (Belmont's PCAT code is 155).

Applications are reviewed, and selected individuals are invited for on-campus interviews. An onsite interview is an admissions requirement. The College uses a rolling admissions process.  

Transfer from Other Pharmacy Programs

Requests to transfer into the College of Pharmacy from another pharmacy program are considered case by case. Interested students must be in good academic standing (verified in writing by the Dean of that program) at an ACPE-recognized school of pharmacy, and present a compelling need to change institutions. Transfer inquiries are directed to the Assistant Dean for Student Affairs. Standard application criteria apply. The Admissions Committee and the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs will consider transfer feasibility based on such variables as seat availability, student academic strength, and program-to-program curricular match. A face-to-face interview with Admissions Committee members is required. Moves between pharmacy programs usually result in extended time to graduation.

Requirements for Matriculation  

Offer of admission into the Doctor of Pharmacy degree program is not a guarantee of matriculation. Admitted students are allowed to matriculate (i.e., officially join the BUSOP community and, thus, be allowed to attend classes and participate in school activities) following verified completion of all required tasks, including:

• Completion, by published deadline, of all pre-requisite courses at a final course grade of C or better from a regionally accredited college or university.
• Receipt, by published deadline, of official academic transcripts from all colleges/universities attended.
• Completion, by published deadline, of all required immunization activity and health tests.
• Filing with Belmont University, by published deadline, of all required health records.
• Successful completion, by published deadline, of required screening processes (e.g., background checks - employment and criminal, drug use, etc.)
• Receipt, by published deadline, of enrollment deposit.

Students who do not complete all of these tasks will not be allowed to matriculate, and their offer of admission to the program will be rescinded.

Technical Standards for Admission to Belmont University College of Pharmacy

Technical standards for admission ensure that pharmacists are trained to facilitate competent patient care in any and all pharmacy-relevant facets of healthcare. Admitted students must possess the intellectual, emotional, and physical abilities, with reasonable accommodations as needed for those with disabilities, to acquire the knowledge, behaviors, and skills needed to complete the curriculum. These standards are essential to ensure the competencies of the School's graduates. Each applicant will be assessed in the academic and technical standards set forth by the admissions committee, notwithstanding reasonable accommodations, prior to matriculation.

The doctor of pharmacy (Pharm.D.) degree identifies persons who have completed the curriculum necessary to perform the functions of a pharmacist in any and all areas of contemporary practice; thus graduates must convey and demonstrate abilities to preserve the safety and protection of the public. Moreover, pharmacy applicants must be able, with or without reasonable accommodations, to perform specific essential functions that the faculty deem requisite for the practice of pharmacy. These functions fall into several categories including: communicative, motor, conceptual, integrative, quantitative, behavioral and social. Applicants must have the physical and emotional stamina to perform competently in clinical settings that involve heavy workloads and/or stressful stimuli. Individuals impaired by alcohol or substance abuse do not meet the technical standards.

I. Communication: Candidates must be able to speak, hear, and observe patients in a clinical setting. They must be able to record information accurately and clearly, speak, read and write fluent English, and communicate effectively and sensitively with patients. Candidates must also be able to communicate effectively, accurately, and without error with other members of the healthcare team in oral and written form, and in patient care settings in which decisions based upon those communications must be made accurately and rapidly. Change and/or revealed deficiencies in student communication ability may create insurmountable barriers to matriculation or continuation of the curriculum.

II. Motor: Pharmacy students must possess sufficient visual, auditory, tactile and motor abilities required to gather data from written reference material, from oral presentations, by observing demonstrations and experiments, by studying various types of medical illustrations, by observing patients and their environment, by observing clinical procedures performed by others, by reading digital or analog representations of physiologic phenomena, and by performing basic patient physical examinations. Candidates must have sufficient motor function to gather information from patients by palpation, auscultation, percussion and other diagnostic maneuvers necessary to complete a general physical exam. Candidates must have the physical ability and manual dexterity to compound sterile and non-sterile products in an environment and manner compliant with existing regulations. Change and/or revealed deficiencies in student motor skills may create insurmountable barriers to matriculation or continuation of the curriculum.

III. Interpretative, Conceptual, and Quantitative: Pharm.D. candidates must have effective and efficient learning techniques and habits to master a complex curriculum. They must be able to learn through many modalities including, but not limited to, classroom instruction, small group activities, individual study, report preparation and presentation, and computer technology use. They must be able to memorize, measure, calculate, reason, analyze, synthesize, transcribe verbal messages accurately, and interpret written prescriptions accurately. Candidates must be able to read, comprehend and respond to serial information related to medical situations or patients. Change and/or revealed deficiencies in student interpretive ability may create insurmountable barriers to matriculation or continuation of the curriculum.

IV. Behavioral, Social and Emotional Attributes: Candidates must understand the legal and ethical aspects of pharmacy practice and function within guidelines established by the law and by the profession's ethical standards. They must relate to patients and their families, colleagues, and other healthcare team members with courtesy, maturity, and respect for individuals' dignity. They must place patient welfare foremost, and demonstrate honesty, integrity, dedication, compassion and nondiscrimination in their patient care. Candidates must, at all times, demonstrate the emotional stability to exercise good judgment, and carry out prompt completion of all responsibilities attendant to patient care with sensitivity and effectiveness. This sensitivity includes self-examination of personal attitudes, perceptions, and stereotypes so to avoid potential negative relationship and patient care consequences. Applicants must exhibit sufficient emotional health to adapt to changing environments, display flexibility and professional responsibility to their patients, and learn to function in uncertain environments, in which changes occur rapidly and without warning. Change and/or revealed deficiencies in student behavioral ability may create insurmountable barriers to matriculation or continuation of the curriculum.

V. Stamina: The study and ongoing practice of pharmacy involves taxing workloads and stressful situations. Pharmacy students must have the physical and emotional stamina to maintain a high level of function in the face of such working conditions. In the event of deteriorating behavioral, social or emotional function, pharmacy students are required to counsel with School officials if there is evidence that they are not meeting the technical standards. Pharmacy students whose actions or decisions pose a danger to self, patients and/or colleagues may not continue in the program unless they agree to accept professional help under conditions acceptable to the School of Pharmacy. Change and/or revealed deficiencies in student stamina ability may create insurmountable barriers to matriculation or continuation of the curriculum.

Should questions arise about an admitted and/or matriculated student's ability to meet these technical standards, the school may investigate to determine if a student can continue in the program. Course faculty, faculty advisors, school/college/university administrators and staff may raise concerns in this area. A written request for technical standards assessment is provided to the Chair, Academic and Professional Standards Committee. The Chair will notify any matriculated student in question and arrange for any assessment deemed necessary. Students are responsible for any costs associated with such assessment activity.

Individuals with a diagnosed disability may function as a pharmacy student as long as the above technical standards are fulfilled. Requests for accommodation must be made by the student through processes established by Belmont University. Students are responsible for maintaining all records needed to keep any accommodation requests current.

Accreditation

The Belmont University Doctor of Pharmacy is accredited by the Accreditation Council on Pharmacy Education (ACPE). ACPE granted Belmont University College of Pharmacy full accreditation on June 24, 2012.

University Accreditation