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A nation-wide shortage of pharmacists means graduates of UW's proposed school of pharmacy would be in high demand. Currently, more than two-thirds of pharmacists working in Ontario get their degrees outside of the province.
The University of Toronto, Ontario's only school of pharmacy, accepted 180 students this year, only 15% of the 1,200 applications they received.
Although demand is difficult to predict, the shortage is expected to persist at least into the foreseeable future. Canada could be short more than 2,000 pharmacists and the situation in Ontario is even worse — the Canadian Pharmacists' Association reports that Ontario has 15% fewer pharmacists per capita than the Canadian average.
Internet pharmacies — which open up Canadian businesses to the much bigger American market — an aging population, a changing role for pharmacists and an increasing number of 24-hour pharmacies are contributing to this growth in demand.
UW has proposed a school of pharmacy as part of a health-sciences campus, which could open as soon as 2006. The school, to be located in the empty industrial lot at the corner of Victoria and King Streets in downtown Kitchener, would be a satellite of the University of Toronto program. An expected 120 pharmacists would graduate from the school each year, bringing the number of Ontario-educated pharmacists to about half of the demand in this province. The proposal passed a big hurdle yesterday when Kitchener city council voted to contribute $30 million to the school.
The proposal comes from a recognition of UW's unique position to address the demand for pharmacists, dean of science George Dixon said.
"We have some expertise in managing professional schools in the medicinal area because, even though we don't have a medical school, we have a school of optometry," Dixon said.
Although past proposals for a second school of pharmacy in Ontario did not succeed in securing government funding, partnership with U of T makes UW's proposal unique.
"There have been discussions about other schools as long as I can remember," said University of Toronto pharmacy dean Wayne Hindmarsh. "The difference [between UW's proposal and past proposals] is that they are going to be a satellite of our university, so they will be following our curriculum. We have accreditation, we have the program and we have a fairly substantial national and international reputation."
"I think the combined possibility is a win-win for both universities," he said.
Waterloo would benefit from the connection, Dixon said, because it would mean taking advantage of U of T's expertise in the area, while still maintaining some flexibility in the curriculum.
"There may be some modification to put a Waterloo flavour to it, but we would at the present time at least work with the core of what [U of T] has," Dixon said. "One of the classic areas might be something in information technology." He said the school could take advantage of UW's strengths and include class time devoted to informatics in the field of pharmacy.
Dixon said the next steps involved obtaining certification from the province to increase the number of pharmacy seats offered by U of T via UW and becoming more clear on the nature of the partnership with U of T.
Hindmarsh believes that the proposal will be a success. "We had decided in a strategic planning session that we wanted to be involved in a satellite pharmacy [school] because of the demand for pharmacists that we just weren't graduating enough," he said.
Discussions of the proposal are expected to continue in a public forum on the city's budget March 10 at 6:30 pm in Kitchener council chambers.
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