Centrality of Pharmacy
By Greg Dewey, Ph.D., President of Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences
Pharmacy Today
May 2016
During the 1970s and 1980s, the American Chemical Society (ACS) used the tagline “Chemistry, the Central Science.” The rationale behind this approach was based on chemistry’s role in bridging the physical and life sciences. While this claim of chemistry as the “central science” may have been disputed by physicists and biologists, it certainly caught the imagination of ACS membership and provided inspiration for a generation of chemists.
Just as chemistry is central to the natural sciences, pharmacy is central to the health science professions. This is due in large part to medication’s integral role in the practice of medicine. Pharmaceutical agents have long been, and remain, the first-line therapeutic choice for most chronic and acute conditions. And no health professional understands medications, how to optimize their usage, and how to manage their effects better than the pharmacist does.