Vanderbilt Medical Center joins growing list of Lipscomb educational partners

Janel Shoun | 

Lipscomb University College of Pharmacy announced today the completion of an educational affiliation agreement with Vanderbilt University Medical Center, marking Lipscomb’s 12th such agreement with various Middle Tennessee health care facilities.

Lipscomb dean of the College of Pharmacy Roger Davis (left, seated) and Lipscomb Associate Dean of Experiential Education Greg Young (left, standing), join Dr. David F. Gregory, assistant director for education and research at VUMC pharmacy department (right, standing) and James R. Knight, director of pharmacy at VUMC (right, seated) to sign an affiliation agreement.
As part of the partnership, Vanderbilt University Medical Center Pharmacy Department will offer its world-class facilities and pharmacists as teaching resources, to provide potential opportunities for joint research faculty and to expose students to future graduate study programs.

“We are very excited about the opportunity to have an affiliation agreement with a local college of pharmacy. Having a local college is a benefit in providing more resources to optimize patient care. The presence of pharmacy students compliments our overall mission to provide the best care for our patients,” said Dr. David F. Gregory, assistant director for education and research at VUMC pharmacy department.

Lipscomb’s current group of community partners will provide a variety of on-site learning opportunities in independent community pharmacies, corporate chains, hospital pharmacies, managed care, practice management, long-term care, home infusion and ambulatory care facilities.

The Lipscomb College of Pharmacy will use its community partners for all experiential education, an essential component throughout the four years of the pharmacy program. Early in their first three professional years, students will learn pharmacy practice weekly in a variety of practice settings. In their final year, each student will complete 10 one-month advanced practice placements, each requiring a minimum of 160 hours of practice experience.

“Vanderbilt is one of the few facilities that can accommodate a significant number of our student pharmacists in a wide array of advanced practice experiences, so it is a strategic participant in our program” said Roger L. Davis, Dean of Lipscomb’s College of Pharmacy. “We plan to enroll 75 students in our first class next fall, and we’ve already seen a great deal of interest in our program. More than 40 Tennessee students participated in a pharmacy college admission practice test at Lipscomb this summer, so we are expecting a large response.”

The partnership between Lipscomb and VUMC will be mutually beneficial. Vanderbilt will provide clinical practice sites for Lipscomb students and Vanderbilt will be able to develop relationships with potential future employees who already know the Vanderbilt procedures and patients. That’s an important benefit in a field expecting a shortfall of as many as 157,000 pharmacists by 2020.

“This agreement signifies Vanderbilt’s continuing commitment to quality medical education,” said James R. Knight, director of pharmacy at VUMC.

In response to a growing need for highly qualified pharmacists throughout the nation, Lipscomb University announced in November that it would create the third pharmacy college in the state, the first in Middle Tennessee. The College of Pharmacy is following the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE) process to be considered for pre-candidate status by June 2008.