Programs

Flowers Pharmacy Scholarships Program

The pharmacist shortfall is expected to reach crisis proportions in 2008¹. Industry experts estimate the current shortage is in excess of 7000 unfilled openings², placing severe stress on the nation's already strained pharmacy, hospital, and care facility workforce. In high-growth states such as California, the shortage will be acutely felt, particularly in underserved communities where aging minority and medically indigent populations are in desperate need of professional pharmacist counsel.

The Flowers Heritage Foundation Pharmacy Degree Scholarship Program was established to help address this critical unmet need through funding and support to financially needy students from underserved communities pursuing their Doctor of Pharmacy degree.

The Foundation awards scholarships to students based on their demonstrated community service background, intent to provide pharmacist services in underserved communities, limited personal opportunities for higher education, and agreement to meet all program criteria.

Currently, the Foundation institutes the program exclusively at the Thomas J. Long School of Pharmacy, at the University of the Pacific (UOP) in Stockton, California. More than one third of practicing pharmacists in California are UOP graduates, and their pharmacy students annually rank among the very best in the U.S. in board passage rates.

"We are proud to have been awarded this scholarship by the Flowers Heritage Foundation. This gift exhibits the high priority the Foundation places on education, the future of pharmacy, enhancing patient services, and building healthier communities." - Phillip R. Oppenheimer, Pharm.D. Dean, UOP, Thomas J. Long School of Pharmacy.

According to the Los Angeles Daily News, colleges lack the capacity and funding to train adequate numbers of pharmacy students who are faced with the state's rising costs of living.³ Consequently, the Foundation's vision is both timely and innovative.

A recent study found a high level of job satisfaction (77%) among pharmacists. This fact, combined with the growing awareness that pharmacists play a key role in preventing deaths from medication errors, reducing health care costs, and improving patients' health outcomes, should be an incentive for young people to enter this profession. This incentive combined with financial support for education costs will help ensure an increasing number of trained pharmacists will be available to meet the growing demand.