Chain pharmacy execs assail six-year mandate

Drug Store News, Sept 12, 1994 by Ken Rankin

ORLANDO, Fla. - Chain drug industry frustration over the mandatory Pharm.D controversy sparked a sharp-edged confrontation with representatives of the American Council on Pharmacy Education at the NACDS Pharmacy Conference here late last month.

The sparks started flying during a special ACPE hearing at the onset of the meeting, when a parade of chain pharmacy execs challenged the Council's determination to withhold accreditation to pharmacy schools that fail to switch to the Pharm.D as their sole entry-level degree program.

Shifting from the current five-year B.S. degree to a six-year Pharm.D requirement would hike the cost of pharmacy services by nearly $1 billion a year, American Stores executive vice president and chief counsel Donald Holbrook told a stone-faced panel of ACPE representatives.

Vowing to fight the Council's Pharm.D mandate in Congress, state legislatures and the courts, Holbrook told the panel, "We won't back off." If necessary, he warned, American Stores and other critics of the universal Pharm.D plan will lobby to strip the ACPE of its authority to accredit colleges of pharmacy.

Janice Meikle, Thrift Drug's vice president for professional and public affairs, challenged the need for a six-year entry-level doctorate program.

"No evidence exists to suggest that pharmacists with an education of five years or less are unable to practice today and well into the future in a competent manner," she said.

NACDS academic affairs vice president Kenneth Kirk struck a similar note, calling ACPE's five-year-long campaign to eliminate the pharmacy B.S. degree "irrational and inconsistent with what is best for society.

"We also believe it is highly inappropriate for this movement to be marshaled along by the agency responsible for accrediting educational programs in pharmacy," Kirk said.

Kirk also accused ACPE leaders of attempting to stampede pharmacy colleges into dropping their B.S. degree programs by suggesting that they would lose accreditation if they failed to convert to an all-Pharm.D system by the end of this decade.

"Clearly, the impression is being given that the year 2000 is when B.S. programs will cease to be accredited, and we think it would be instructive, for ACPE to publicly clarify in the pharmacy press this growing misperception of the year 2000 as the mandated target date," Kirk told the panel pointedly.

In response, ACPE President Harold Godwin conceded that the deadline for withholding accreditation for pharmacy schools offering B.S. programs "has not yet been determined" - a statement that was subsequently echoed by ACPE panelist Dan Nona.

Indeed, Godwin told the chain pharmacy execs, ACPE may not withhold accreditation to non-Pharm.D schools "until [the year 2099! or even 3000."

Godwin also attempted to defuse growing retail pharmacy concerns over degree-transfer stumbling blocks by expressing support for alternatives that would enable at least some bachelor-degree pharmacists to upgrade to a Pharm.D without returning to a classroom.

This represents a shift in position for ACPE, which Godwin acknowledged came in response to the "outcry" from state pharmacy boards and many practicing pharmacists concerned that they may not be able transfer their B.S. to a doctorate degree without extensive re-schooling.