Satellite Pharmacy School to Open In Asheville

Posted on July 14, 2010

The Eshelman School of Pharmacy at UNC will begin enrolling students in a new satellite pharmacy education program based at UNC-Asheville in the fall of 2011.

It will be the school’s second satellite campus — it opened a satellite at Elizabeth City State University in 2005.

Kevin Almond ’83, the school’s associate dean for advancement, will oversee the new program in Asheville as interim executive associate dean. Almond has been with the school for 19 years.

In April, the UNC System Board of Governors approved the school’s plans to bring its doctor of pharmacy program to Asheville. The Elizabeth City partnership program graduated its second class in May.

Asheville was considered the natural choice for a second satellite pharmacy program because of the close working partnership between UNC-Asheville, Asheville’s Mission Health System and the Chapel Hill campus. The program will educate more pharmacists in an area of North Carolina that has too few health care providers in general.

“Given the shortage of pharmacists in the 18 western North Carolina counties, it can’t come soon enough,” said Dale Fell, vice president and chief medical officer of Mission Health System.

The satellite program could enroll up to 40 doctor of pharmacy students a year. The doctor of pharmacy, or Pharm.D., is the professional degree required to practice as a pharmacist.

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More online…

• Prescription for a Revolution: To boost a sorely underserved corner of the state, the pharmacy school built a 200-mile bridge that is impossible to ignore on higher education’s map for the future.
  From the Carolina Alumni Review from January/February 2007 issue, available online to Carolina Alumni members.

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