Columbia University College of Pharmacy - Apothekan Yearbook (New York, NY)

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SENIORS

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Comment on our PHARMACY EDUCATION We have just completed our. first and last year under tke ' New Deal. Although it is somewhat of an improvement over the old regime it is far from what an ideal phar- macy education should he. Such an education should place the pharmacy school grad- uate on a par. intellectually, with the physician, and thoroughly train him in chemistry, physics, pharmacology, and pharmacy. Many of the leading educators in pharmacy realize that the student is not heing equipped with an adequate knowledge in these subjects. The late H. B. Carey of the College of Pharmacy of California University emphasized this when he stated: The present day merchandising pharmacist cannot hope to obtain the confidence or respect of scientific medicine. If we do not provide a class of educated persons who can meet the physician on an equal basis and counsel with him. we shall, and rightly so, lose all contact with scientific medicine. This clearly indicates that the educational problems before the colleges of pharmacy are acute. An examination of the curricula of the pharmacy schools throughout the country shows that considerable stress is laid on the training of a merchandising phar- macist, who is really a druggist, skilled in the art of setting a customer a lot of question- able remedies. If you want proof, go to the nearest chain or department store and tell the clerk you want something t for a particular ailment. If you leave without buying a few dollars worth of unnecessary remedies, it is because you lack the money. A word must be said to voice our disapproval of the method of teaching which places the ability to memorize often meaningless material at a premium. This is reminis- cent of the ancient Chinese method of educating its people. The smartest one was he who could recite the texts most perfectly. The State Board examinations are patterned on this Chinese method. They require the mere rendition of cut-and-dry definitions as answers to the pharmacy questions. The Chinese, because such antiquated practices still persist, remain as one of the most backward of the civilized nations. Similarly, if the pharmacy colleges persist in following this Chinese replica, pharmacy will also decline and become stagnant. Every progressive educator should condemn this stereotype. Any wide-awake instructor and student realizes that physical chemistry and colloid chemistry are the greatly emphasized subjects on any science curriculum. Without a well- grounded knowledge of these subjects how can a pharmacist ever hope to completely understand his profession, and how can he ever think of embarking upon a research pro- ject? Yet these subjects are not included in our programs but such dubiously scientific courses as medical appliances, pharmaceutical economics, newer remedies, business law and pharmaceutical jurisprudence are. Such methods are antagonistic to the spirit of science of which pharmacy should be a vital part. Unless the educators rouse it from its lethargy: pharmacy is doomed tn Lecome extinct in this country.

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REMINISCENCES ON AN AIR CUSHION It is New Years Eve. 1980. Outside, a slow drizzle fell slantwise against a strong howling wind. Inside all was cozy. 1 was seated in a comfortable air cushion, wrapped in my electric pad solacing myself with a treatise on titanium in the current issue of Chem. Abstracts and drag- ging lazily on my Dunhill. f or. ' ? n «cFot« t- t«« -t.l m after all. what more can an old man of sixty-three, tired but happy, do on such a night. Suddenly the serenity was shattered by a loud oxypnony, followed by the abrupt entrance of my irrepressible grandson with a packet of jaundiced loose-leaf papers under his arm. Grandpa, what are nitrates? ' Nitrates. I said to myself. Nitrates, nitrates, scratching futilely at my bald pate. The term does have a familiar ring, but yet 1 cannot associate it with anything. But. it says here add water and boil till free of nitrates! ' ' Let me see those papers. Snazzy. ' 1 glanced hurriedly at the symbols. Then 1 remembered! It was the old archaic term for what we now commonly call the acid gamma particle. 1 thumbed tenderly through the sheets, absorbed in deep cogitation. They had a familiar touch, and each page awakened a new memory of my early youth in those pioneer days of chemistry— the happy days at pharmacy school. I suddenly became aware that the rest of my grandchildren were gathered around my wide-arm pneumatic, waiting for their customary bed-time story. The years began to roll back to another rainy day and my narrative began. It was the morning of the 17th of September, 1954. when 51 raw recruits gathered together to learn what makes a pill tile. This submissive and docile group (for two weeks at any rate) emerged from their period of orientation into the greatest collection of spatula toting, pill rolling, drugaroos. that ever blighted a professors life. To relate all the mis chievous and frolicsome acts of these rattle-brained scholars would take you far beyond your bedtime hour. However, here are some of the highlights in the career of this class. To begin with, by gosh. 1 11 never forget the day we took the initiative and marched out shoulder to shoulder in a 100% strike against war. The following day the students of the College of Pharmacy were seen in every newsreel across the continent. We were determined not to be the fools of yesterday, but the saviours of tomorrow. Talking about saviors. I recall Mel s. Pittslield s gift to pharmacy, timely eructations during his stay at C. U. C. P. which blasted awake many a sleeping scholar and prevent- ed their ejection from a dreary lecture. Following many of these awakenings, we were 24