American Institute of the History of Pharmacy

Grand Opening of Expanded Pharmacy History Museum

The University of Arizona R. Ken Coit College of Pharmacy hosted the grand opening of the Coit Museum of Pharmacy and Health Sciences on October 29, 2022. The museum is a major expansion of the college's pharmacy museum first established in 1966.

Expansion of the museum was made possible by a $50 million gift from alumnus R. Ken Coit, a portion of which was earmarked for the museum. The gift funded an increase of the museum's physical footprint and the development of innovative exhibits that present the history of pharmacy and medicines in new and fresh ways.

One new interactive exhibit uses parallax animation technology to generate videos that bring to life the story behind each of the 40 paintings in the famous Parke Davis “Great Moments in Pharmacy” collection. Viewers hear a narration of the painting's story while visually flying in and around the “living” painting. The Great Moments in Pharmacy exhibit took 10 months to produce and was developed in cooperation with the American Pharmacists Association (which holds the copyright to the paintings). Brief excerpts from this award-winning exhibit can be viewed at this link.

The museum also features the Disneyland Upjohn Pharmacy Collection. This collection is comprised of many of the artifacts from the Upjohn Company apothecary story (circa 1890-1910) that had been part of Disneyland’s Main Street USA from 1955 to 1970.

Slate of Nominees for AIHP’s Board of Directors Announced

AIHP’s Nominations Committee has announced the slate of nominees for positions on the Institute’s Board of Directors. 

The terms of two elected directors will expire at the end of 2022: Vice President Cynthia J. Boyle and Director Arthur Daemmrich. A term-limit provision in AIHP’s bylaws bars Dr. Daemmrich, who is completing his second three-year term, from continued service on the Board.

The Committee has nominated Dr. Boyle to stand for re-election as Vice President. Dr. Boyle recently retired from her position as a Professor at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. She is past president of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) and a former president of her state pharmacy association and its foundation. Dr. Boyle has been an AIHP member since 2003.

Institute members will choose between two nominees to fill the director position being vacated by Dr. Daemmrich. The Nominations Committee has nominated Patricia C. Kienle and Terri Smith Moore.

• Patricia C. Kienle, MPA, BCSCP, FASHP, is the Director of Accreditation and Medication Safety for Cardinal Health Innovative Delivery Solutions. A nationally recognized expert in medication safety and accreditation and regulatory compliance, Ms Kienle is the recipient of the 2022 Harvey A.K. Whitney Lecture Award, health-system pharmacy’s highest honor.
• Terri Smith Moore, PhD, MBA, RPh, CPH, is currently the Senior Director of Academic Services and Strategic Initiatives at the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP). In that capacity, she manages the staff teams responsible for the association journal, institutional research surveys and data, and membership governance affinity groups. 

Tribute to Pharmacists Killed in World War II Posted on Website

A new resource on AIHP’s website honors the 165 American pharmacists and pharmacy students who were killed in action, or died while on active duty, during World War II. The resource, a directory titled We Remember Them: Pharmacy’s Fallen (accessible at this link) identifies and provides a brief biography of each man. This tribute to fallen pharmacists is the product of years of painstaking research by longtime AIHP member Dennis Worthen, PhD.

The directory is an outgrowth of Dr. Worthen’s book, Pharmacy in World War II (Pharmaceutical Products Press, 2004), which provides a detailed accounting of the many contributions of pharmacists to the war effort, both on the battlefield and on the domestic front. (The book was awarded AIHP’s Edward Kremers Award in 2010.) Of the approximately 12,000 pharmacists and pharmacy students who served in the U.S. military between 1940 and 1945, Dr. Worthen’s research identified 165 who were killed in action or died while on active duty.

Dr. Worthen took on the project to honor fallen pharmacists in an effort to ensure they are not forgotten. To that end, the directory not only identifies the soldier (and in many cases provides a photograph), but also includes information about when and where he was born, his parents and family, his education, how and where he served in the military, the circumstances of his death, and where he is buried. Compiling and verifying this information required a herculean effort and years of dogged research.

AIHP Adopts Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Values Statement

AIHP has adopted a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Values Statement to express its commitment to DEI principles and practices. Approved by the Board of Directors at its meeting in October, the statement reads:

The mission of the American Institute for the History of Pharmacy (AIHP) is to advance knowledge and understanding of the history of pharmacy and medicines. Our dedication to this mission is inseparable from our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Diversity: We value a diverse mix of people, minds, backgrounds, and experiences, recognizing that diversity broadens the history we recount, enriches the programming we offer, and brings new value to the archival materials and artifacts we collect and preserve.

Equity: We commit to equity and fundamental fairness among all people as an essential human right, and we recognize our responsibility to identify, acknowledge, and overcome the lingering effects of historical inequities.

Inclusion: We commit to a welcoming, supportive, and collegial environment where everyone is included, respected, valued, and made to feel safe to contribute and learn.

Our commitment to these values will strengthen AIHP as an organization, enhance pursuit of our mission, and contribute to needed societal change.

A committee of AIHP members, chaired by Director Sandra M. Fabregas Troche, was charged with developing the values statement. Other committee members include Nancy A. Alvarez, Christian Asia Brown, Richard Del Rio, John E. Clark, and Dennis Birke.

AIHP’s Annual Members Meeting Scheduled for November 10

Mark your calendars!  AIHP’s Annual Members Meeting (formerly the Annual Business Meeting) is scheduled for Thursday, November 10, 2022, beginning at 1:00 pm Central/2:00 pm Eastern. The two-hour meeting is designed to allow AIHP’s leaders and staff to report to our members and supporters on the Institute’s status and activities.

The meeting will be streamed live on the internet via Zoom. Use this link to access the meeting on the day of the event.  The meeting's Agenda (subject to change) is available at this link.

A special feature of this year’s meeting will be a presentation by Professor Wesley P. Sparkmon from the Creighton University School of Pharmacy and Health Professions. Professor Sparkmon, who is an Institute member, will give a talk based on his article published in the most recent issue of History of Pharmacy and Pharmaceuticals titled “Fred’s Pharmacy: Rise and Fall of a Regional Chain Pharmacy.”

The article traces the history of a pharmacy chain that served communities throughout the Southeastern United States for many decades. At its peak in the early 2010s, Fred’s Pharmacy had nearly 350 pharmacy locations and had grown to be one of the five largest pharmacy chains in the US. However, by the end of the decade, the company had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. With so much promise, what had happened to the seventy-year-old company that finally led to its closing? Professor Sparkmon’s presentation will examine the history and potential reasons, both theoretical and practical, as to why Fred’s Pharmacy went from such promise to bankruptcy.

In addition to Professor Sparkmon’s presentation, the Annual Members Meeting will include a “year-in-review” report by Institute staff recapping important developments and activities over the past year. A special report is also being planned regarding the National Endowment for the Humanities grant that AIHP’s host institution, the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Pharmacy, received earlier this year to significantly increase the public’s ability to discover, use, and access the Institute’s important historical collections.

From the Collections: America’s First College of Pharmacy Now Part of St. Joseph’s University

From the Collections is a recurring feature at aihp.org that highlights articles, artifacts, images, and other items of interest from AIHP publications and collections. This post is contributed by William A. Zellmer, a past president of AIHP.

The years 2021 and 2022 have marked important milestones in the long and illustrious history of the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy (PCP), the first school of pharmacy in North America.

On June 1, 2022, several months after concluding its bicentennial celebration, PCP became part of Saint Joseph’s University (SJU) in Philadelphia, stemming from SJU’s merger with the University of the Sciences, the institutional home of PCP.

A century earlier, PCP had changed its name to the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science (PCPS), taking into account its degree programs in four disciplines: bacteriology, biology, chemistry, and pharmacy. In 1998, reflecting the college’s even more expanded array of health and science educational programs, PCPS renamed itself the University of Sciences in Philadelphia (later shortened to University of the Sciences or USciences). At the time of the recent merger, USciences enrollment stood at 2,285 students.

SJU, founded in 1851, is a private Jesuit university that offers 135 undergraduate programs, 77 graduate programs, and 9 adult learner programs. Its 2020 student enrollment was 6,779.