Looking forward: Pharmacy students Sasha Sosa, Jacob Hadley and Amanda Batter learn about how molecules work in the body. The medicinal chemistry lab, located in the original part of Malott Hall, accommodates 27 students. KU’s planned pharmacy building on west campus will include a lab with space for 50 students.
Prescription for change
If you live in small-town Kansas, your local pharmacist can save your life. Loenard Koehn, of Baxter Springs, knows. Koehn, 66, suffers from life-threatening conditions, including emphysema and a seizure disorder. He remembers phoning his pharmacist, Brian Caswell, at 2:30 a.m. after his camper trailer had caught fire and his medications had been destroyed.
Caswell, pharmacy ’87, was ready to help. “Brian didn’t hesitate to fill my prescriptions right then and bring them to my house,” Koehn said. “You can’t get that kind of treatment just anywhere.”
Residents of Baxter Springs, population 4,600, are fortunate. They have three pharmacies in town. But not all rural Kansans are so well served: 31 counties have only one pharmacy, and six have none.
The problem is expected to grow as more owners of community pharmacies retire. Of 3,500 practicing pharmacists in Kansas, 1,300 are over the age of 50. Kansas ranks among the 10 states where it’s hardest to fill an open pharmacist position. When pharmacists retire, there must be new pharmacists to replace them.
The situation is a growing concern both statewide and nationally. By the year 2020, there will be a shortage of 157,000 pharmacists in the United States.
Adding to the concern is the fact that as Baby Boomers age, their prescription needs will increase. As a pharmacist, Caswell knows there are barely enough pharmacists to meet the need now.
“We’re an industry already stretched to the max,” he said. “How are we going to respond to a future that is going to require even more medications?”
To see the full version of this and many other stories, please download Issue 6 of our magazine, KU Giving.