School Vision Statement

The School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences in the twenty-first century will continue to be dedicated to educating pharmacists so that they enter the profession providing pharmaceutical care to patients both as individuals and as populations. This will require a strong foundation in the pharmaceutical sciences to serve as the basis for problem-solving in professional practice. All instruction will take place in an environment that emphasizes curiosity, scientific method, creative thinking, problem-solving, and effective verbal and written communication. There will be an emphasis on functioning as a professional in pharmacy throughout the curriculum. Experiential instruction will be initiated in institutional settings where care of specific populations of patients is best learned and will be extended to community and long-term care facilities where most patients receive care. The administrative center for the Department of Pharmacy Practice at the Indiana University Medical Center will serve as the central site for coordination and instruction for the experiential portion of the curriculum, although individual sites will be located throughout the state.

A second thrust to be continued into the twenty-first century is the integrated interdisciplinary approach to research and graduate training in the pharmaceutical sciences. This thrust will be in two basic areas. The first is research at the interface between chemistry and biology that can be addressed using chemical and biological tools to investigate phenomena at the cellular and molecular levels. Much of it will be mechanism-based. The second area is more related to the physical sciences and will emphasize drug delivery, product development, materials science, processing, and manufacturing of pharmaceuticals. Graduate education in both areas will be based on a broad multi-disciplinary foundation with in-depth research into one or two specific areas. This will require a unification of the basic science faculty into one physical facility so that cross-disciplinary communication can be extended.

A third thrust will be for the School to serve as a catalyst to advance the practice of pharmacy within Indiana. It is our vision that each citizen will have access to pharmaceutical care that will be part of comprehensive drug therapy management. Every pharmacist will work together with physicians, nurses, and other health care providers to assure that optimal drug therapy is achieved. The school will work toward advancement of the state strategic plan through the Indiana Joint Commission on Pharmacy Practice. The Commission represents organized pharmacy in Indiana and is committed to this vision for pharmacy in the twenty-first century. In addition, faculty of the school will work with Medicaid and managed health care organizations to assure the delivery of pharmaceutical care to specific populations of patients. Part of the responsibility for advancing the practice of pharmacy in the state will be to educate practitioners to the level of our current Pharm.D. graduates in their ability to deliver pharmaceutical care. This will require an increase in traditional and non-traditional approaches to a Pharm.D. education.