MEMPHIS, Tenn. - A consultant recommends expanding the University of Tennessee pharmacy school into new cities instead of building another one at East Tennessee State University.
The report by Jordan Cohen, dean of the University of Iowa's pharmacy school, was presented Wednesday to the Tennessee Higher Education Commission. THEC requested the report to sort out rival proposals from the universities and is expected to vote to accept it Thursday.
Citing a high local demand for pharmacists, particularly in rural locales, ETSU President Paul Stanton announced in August that the university would bid to establish its first pharmacy school in conjunction with the medical school. Soon after ETSU announced its plan, UT launched a counterproposal to expand its Memphis-based pharmacy school into Nashville and Knoxville.
Cohen recommends that UT, which will enroll 500 pharmacy students next fall, expand to 800, or 200 in each year's class. In turn, 50 students in each class would spend their final three years at an ETSU satellite campus in Johnson City.
He said the UT expansion is a less expensive alternative, although state officials would still likely have to contribute as much as $4.2 million over four years to fund the UT initiative. Cohen also said enlarging UT would provide an easier ability to expand or contract in the future, depending on the need for pharmacists in Tennessee, and would give quicker access to classes by East Tennesseans than if a school was begun from scratch.
The report, though, isn't the final blueprint, and modifications could occur. Cohen listed five recommendations, although he chose the ETSU satellite as his primary option. UT officials also would like to open a satellite school in Knoxville.
UT pharmacy dean Dick Gourley called the report "well thought out."
"It's clearly a better option than opening a new school of pharmacy," he said. "We are prepared to sit down over the next week to two weeks working with folks at ETSU to look at the details of how something like this would work."
But Ron Franks, dean of the ETSU college of medicine, was disappointed. He said he would collaborate with UT but hasn't entirely given up pursuit of ETSU's own pharmacy school.
"We recognize that there's validity in the consultant's approach, and we need to take an objective view of that and see if it might offer as much or more than our college of pharmacy proposal," he said. "We don't want to sacrifice the work that we've done but for the time being we're going to see if a collaborative model will work."
Franks' most significant concerns included making sure the collaborative curriculum was structured in keeping with ETSU's model of delivering health care education in rural settings. He also said ETSU would want the collaborative program to allow students to spend all four years of pharmacy education in Northeast Tennessee, rather than sending them to Memphis for part of their education.
Guy Wilson, owner of Johnson City-based Wilson Pharmacy and a leading advocate of ETSU's plan, said the four-year component and rural elements would be essential to attracting pharmacy students in East Tennessee. Otherwise, if local students have to travel 500 miles to Memphis for part of their education, he said, they would continue to choose private schools in other states.
Franks and Gourley are expected to meet in Johnson City next Wednesday and Thursday, then follow that with another meeting in Memphis.
