USF pharmacy bill dies in Senate

The University of South Florida’s push for a pharmacy school hit a dead end in the state Senate. Some senators were reluctant to commit long-term funding to an expensive new program.

USF has made no secret of that fact that it considers FAMU pharmacy the benchmark for competition. It has proposed building a school that will match FAMU’s in size, operational funding, and research dollars.

And knowing that FAMU has the best pharmacy faculty in the state, USF rushed to hire a FAMU professor to lead its newly created Division of Clinical Pharmacy in 2007: Kevin Sneed (pictured).

Each year, about 6,500 students apply for a razor thin 800 seats at Florida’s five pharmacy schools. The Florida Pharmacy Association reports that of the 22,000 registered pharmacists in Florida, only 16,000 maintain an address in the state.

Florida’s failure to invest more money into creating additional satellite campuses of FAMU’s pharmacy is one factor behind state’s pharmacist shortage

UF operates 4-year pharmacy degree satellites in three cities: Jacksonville, Orlando, and St. Petersburg.

FAMU just received the money to open its first degree-granting satellite in Crestview last year. The university’s campuses in Jacksonville, Miami, and Tampa do not offer full degrees. They are used as clinical training divisions for advanced students.

Despite coming up short this year, USF will come to the next legislative session with much more momentum. Its pharmacy school bill passed the House, in large part, because the university raised $1M to cover start-up costs.

USF’s creative “no money down” lobbying strategy offers a useful model for FAMU to use as it pursues a dental school. FAMU will have a much better chance of picking up legislative support if it raises as many private dollars as possible to cover the start-up costs of the new college.

USF sees FAMU pharmacy as benchmark for competition

USF wants a pharmacy school