David Snow U

Published Online: Thursday, November 3rd, 2011

Unless you've been under a rock recently, you know that Medco's David Snow caused quite a ruckus lately with his comments about retail pharmacists. I haven't looked into his comments, and I'm not going to. I think that the reaction that has already taken place gives me a good idea of what he said.

One question comes to mind...if retail pharmacists are so inaccurate, why does Medco have their name on the yet-to-be-accredited college of pharmacy at Farleigh Dickinson University? Do they somehow have the ability to train humans to be 23-times more accurate than we currently are?Those are the figures that he quoted when he spoke at the Cleveland Clinic.

The Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education hasn't accredited the college...yet. Corporate money will help the ACPE turn a blind eye to this slap-in-the-face to pharmacists.

But then again, Farleigh Dickinson could make a stand against Medco as well. Isn't a bit hypocritical for a pharmacy college to accept funding from a company that is trying to decrease the number of pharmacists out there in the retail setting? We know that won't happen either. What college is going to turn away people willing to pay $40,000+ per year for 4 to 6 years to enter a career field that is already saturated?

But then the answer came to me. I know what student the pharmacy college at Farleigh Dickinson is trying to attract. I don't want to stereotype the student who would attend this school, but I will share a picture of what the initial students graduating from this school may look like.

The ideal FDU Medco College of Pharmacy graduate looks like this....