College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences

The Mission of the College

The College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences provides an intellectually stimulating learning environment with collaborative learning among students, faculty and staff. Graduates are liberally educated professionals who are dedicated to serving their patients, their profession and their communities. The college emphasizes excellence and leadership in professional education, service and scholarship.

The College’s Vision Statement

The College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences will continue to be recognized for its innovation, demonstrating continuous quality improvement in teaching, scholarship and service, while boldly pursuing opportunities for breakthrough achievements within those same arenas. The college will uphold its tradition of preparing individuals to meet the expectations and challenges of health care practices, providing a balance between foundational scientific, socioeconomic and practice theories along with meaningful, exemplary practice opportunities. Further, the college will fulfill its obligation to advance the level of health care knowledge and practice through scholarly endeavors, incorporating the efforts of all who define its learning communities and embracing the scholarly functions of discovery, innovation, application and teaching.

Programs

The College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences offers the following programs:

The pharmacy program of the Drake University College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences is accredited by the Accreditation Council on Pharmacy Education and is a member of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy.

The Doctor of Pharmacy (Pharm.D.) degree program prepares students for community or institutional practice, postgraduate education or the many other practice opportunities available to pharmacists. Students may be admitted to the two-year pre-pharmacy program direct from high school and, upon completion of established criteria, may enter the four-year professional program. The College also offers admission to transfer students at the professional program level. Students who have completed approximately 60 semester hours, including two semesters of organic chemistry (with labs), calculus, computers, statistics and microbiology generally are considered for admission to the professional program and apply through the centralized application service, PharmCAS, located at http://www.pharmcas.org.

A program leading to the Doctor of Pharmacy degree and Master of Business Administration degree is offered jointly by the College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences and the College of Business and Public Administration. These two colleges also offer a joint program to receive a Doctor of Pharmacy and a Master of Public Administration. In addition, a program leading to the Doctor of Pharmacy degree and Doctor of Jurisprudence degree is offered by the college and the Drake Law School. See the descriptions of these joint degree programs later in this section and contact the College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences for more information.

The Bachelor of Science in Pharmaceutical Sciences is a four-year program designed to prepare students for entry-level positions in the pharmaceutical industry, for advanced graduate study in the pharmaceutical sciences and admission into other health science doctoral programs. The curriculum is structured so that students can gain a breadth and depth of education in the basic and pharmaceutical sciences. It is also possible for students within this degree program to complete areas of concentration in either pharmacology/molecular biology or in pharmaceutics/chemistry. The capstone experience of this four-year program is a research project designed in conjunction with a faculty mentor. Also, opportunities exist for research internships with pharmaceutical companies and research laboratories. Students entering as first year students Fall 2007 and after will complete the Pharmaceutical Sciences Track as part of the Bachelor of Science in Health Sciences program, as this degree will not be conferred after May 2011.

The Bachelor of Science in Health Sciences is a four-year program that focuses on developing the knowledge base, skill sets and professional experiences necessary for success in health-science related fields. This degree will expose students to a wide range of healthcare-related experiences while providing the foundational skills of a liberal education. Students will participate in an interdisciplinary curriculum that combines course work in the biomedical, pharmaceutical and clinical sciences, business and health care management, and health behavior. At the end of the first year of curriculum, students will select one of the following tracks:

  • Clinical and Applied Sciences
  • Health Services Management
  • Pharmaceutical Sciences

The capstone experience of this four-year program will vary depending on the student's track and career interests. Also, opportunities exist for research and other internships to provide the student with exposure to the various careers within the Health Science.