Pharmacy’s new face: Asian, African — and female

Schools seeing increasing numbers of people of color reflect changes in the industry

Friday, Dec. 15, 2006

BALTIMORE — The lobby of the beige brick building on Pine Street is alive with color: showy African gowns printed in gold, black, red and green vie for prominence with embroidered Mexican blouses and Brazilian soccer jerseys in blinding yellow.

At the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy’s annual International Feast, the air is spiced with exotic scents and filled with mingling voices in accented English.

The room presents a tableau of what the profession of pharmacy looks like in 2006. An influx of women and people of color into the profession has been steadily changing the face of the pharmacist behind the counter for 20 years or more.

The change is evident from top to bottom, from pharmacy schools such as the University of Maryland’s here to the large chain or grocery store pharmacies that now dominate the market.

‘‘It was amazing to me that we had a very broad spectrum of individuals: male and female but also Asians, Indians, Pakistanis,” said Russell Fair, vice president of pharmacy operations for Giant Food who has worked in Giant’s pharmacy division for 30 years.

According to a Maryland Board of Pharmacy database, more than half of the pharmacists licensed in the state in 2006 have surnames that appear to be African, Asian, Hispanic or Middle Eastern, compared with about 30 percent in 1986, and only 3 percent in 1966.

It has also become ‘‘a very popular profession for women,” said Gary Smith, a University of Maryland pharmacy professor. It has been two years since women overtook men as a majority in the profession, a trend reflected in large chains such as Giant.

‘‘We have more female pharmacy managers than males now,” Fair said. And the jobs pay well. The average salary for a licensed pharmacist is $85,000 to $100,000 per year.

The demographic overhaul began late last century at the nation’s pharmacy schools.

In 1985, minority and international students made up just 25 percent of enrollment at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. By 2005, that jumped to 48 percent, still a little below the national average.

Female students have maintained a 60 percent or higher majority at the school for at least 20 years, with their numbers growing rapidly in the 1970s and ’80s.

‘‘It was very eye-opening to see all the diversity,” said Chanel Agness, a professor and student adviser at Maryland. Agness, who came to Maryland just under a year ago, is a New York native who earned her doctorate of pharmacy at Rutgers University in New Jersey. Student diversity at Rutgers was ‘‘not great,” Agness said.

The schools ranked first and second in the nation by U.S. News & World Report have nonwhite majorities in their doctor of pharmacy programs. The Maryland school, with just under half nonwhite majority, is ranked eighth.

In the 1960s and ’70s, the goal of most pharmacy students was to open a neighborhood store, said Carol Stevenson, who works with NeighborCare in Parkville.

Stevenson herself was a bit of an anomaly when she entered pharmacy school in 1965. One of five women in a 65-person class at the University of Kansas, she said that apart from the few female students, plus one Filipino man and one Malawian, the rest were white men.

If they chose to work at all, Stevenson said, female pharmacists by and large took part-time positions in stores run by men.

Stevenson went on to work in hospitals for a time, then in chain pharmacies such as NeighborCare. When Maryland mandated that prospective pharmacists have doctorate-level training, Stevenson returned to school at the University of Maryland, working part-time toward her doctorate, which she earned in 2001.

First-year student Shirley Lee, a first-generation American of Chinese descent, said she is impressed by the career possibilities open to her. Lee came into the program wanting to work in hospitals, but said she is actively looking at all options, including laboratory and government work.

Lee also has the advantage of being bilingual, having grown up speaking both English and Chinese in San Francisco. Some students in the program learned English as a second or third language, and the communication skills required of pharmacists can sometimes be a challenge when they reach the United States.

However, Cynthia Boyle, director of experiential learning at the school of pharmacy, says language is rarely a problem among accepted students.

‘‘We take communications seriously in our education plan,” Boyle said. ‘‘It’s part of the process. Everyone has in-person interviews with faculty and staff.”

To get into any pharmacy school, students must also pass the Pharmacy College Admission Test, which includes writing and reading comprehension sections.

‘‘People used to think that they didn’t want to talk to ‘that foreign person,’ but that’s going away,” Stevenson said.

According to Boyle, though, what makes a good pharmacist goes beyond gender or race.

‘‘It’s...definitely life experience that makes them better pharmacists,” she said.

Many of the students who attend the University of Maryland’s doctoral program have professional degrees. Students in their final year at Maryland do ‘‘rotations” just like medical interns, working alternately at community pharmacies, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, the Food and Drug Administration and more.

Employers emphasize training, not race or gender, said Smith, who has taught at the University of Maryland for nearly 10 years.

‘‘It doesn’t matter what your ethnic background is,” Smith said. ‘‘You just respect them for who they are.”