Hartford Business Journal

18 HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | MAY 29, 2023 University of St. Joseph School of Pharmacy Dean Ahmed Abdelmageed stands in the school's new pharmacy lab with doctoral students in the background. HBJ PHOTO | STEVE LASCHEVER Health Check Amid broader industry shortage, CT college pharmacy programs see declining enrollment By Robert Storace A little more than a decade after the University of St. Joseph (USJ) launched its highly touted pharmacy doctoral degree, the program has become smaller than originally envisioned. West Hartford-based USJ had 117 graduate pharmacy students enrolled in 2022, down 44.3% from 210 students in 2019. Meanwhile, UConn has seen enrollment within its pharmacy school — which includes pre-pro- fessional, professional and graduate degree programs — shrink from 714 students in 2019, to 598 in 2022, a decline of 16.2%. Nationally, the number of students enrolling in a first-year accredited pharmacy program has shrunk more than 35% over the past decade, as the major and industry in general face a number of headwinds. The pandemic, which spurred burnout in the broader healthcare sector, exacerbated enrollment pressures at pharmacy schools and a pharmacist shortage in Connecticut and elsewhere, experts said. There were 2,990 pharmacists employed in Connecticut as of May 2022, down nearly 12.6% from two years earlier, according to the latest available data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. USJ administrators said they don't anticipate a major enrollment boost anytime soon. However, school offi- cials said they are embracing smaller class sizes that offer students more personal attention. The school would like to see enrollment of first-year students get back up to around 60 annually, said Ahmed Abdelmageed, dean of the USJ School of Pharmacy. Its current first-year enrollment is about 45 students, down from 65 in 2018 and about 90 in the program's first year in 2011. The school receives between 200 and 250 applicants annually, Abdel- mageed said. "I'm more focused on quality rather than quantity," he said. "There is a better learning environment when you have small classes; it lends itself to better group work interactions. It can also help those students who might be struggling early on where our faculty can work with them, rather than that student getting lost in the numbers." Philip Hritcko, dean of the UConn School of Pharmacy, said there are several reasons for the recent enrollment decline, including fewer students graduating from high school, more competition from other health professions — including a proliferation of physician assistant programs — and a soft job market. Hritcko said the number of students in UConn's pharmacy program "has cycles, and ebbs and flows, and I believe we've hit the bottom of the curve and that we will see an increase in applicants going up in coming years." Evolving program There are 142 accredited univer- sity pharmacy programs in the U.S., according to the American Associ- ation of Colleges and Pharmacy, including two in Connecticut — at USJ and UConn. USJ launched its pharmacy program to much fanfare 13 years ago, in a new campus building within the XL Center — its first downtown Hartford presence. That's where the pharmacy program — which currently has 20 faculty and staff — operated until last August, when it was moved to USJ's West Hartford campus. The relocation was driven by a desire to make it easier for phar- macy students to interact with individuals majoring in different but similar programs, like social work and nursing, which are located on USJ's main campus, said university President Rhona Free. USJ invested $4 million reno- vating space at its West Hartford campus, creating a teaching lab with a mock pharmacy, IV room and research lab. "We were seeing the increased emphasis and value of interpro- fessional education, and students being together at the same campus," said Free, who noted the school's XL Center lease was set to expire last August. Abdelmageed said the USJ program has reinvented itself in recent years with a new curriculum and more integrative coursework in order to maintain competitiveness. One key selling point, he said, is that USJ offers an accelerated program that allows students to get their pharmacy doctorate degree in three years, instead of four. Only 18 similar pharmacy programs exist in the U.S., he said. This year, USJ also began offering a dual master's of public health and doctor of pharmacy degree program, Abdelmageed said. "Our program puts more emphasis on clinical skills and meets the needs of what the marketplace is looking for today," he added. Abdelmageed said the pharmacy program's recruitment efforts are "multi-layered" and will soon be reviewed and potentially revised, but the main focus is on visiting health fairs and other universities (students can only enroll in the program if they have a bachelor's degree), and sending out electronic mailers. Recruiters also target high schools and community colleges "all over the state, including in urban districts." There is, and will continue to be, a concerted effort to bring in diverse students, whether by gender, ethnicity or socio-economic status, Abdelmageed said. TOP 5 EMPLOYERS OF PHARMACISTS IN CT • CVS Health • Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. • Yale New Haven Health • Rite Aid Corp. • Hartford HealthCare Source: Pharmacy Workforce Center Inc.

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