Seventy-five students started their pharmacy studies at Creighton University the past two weeks, but they’ll rarely set foot on campus again.
They are enrolled in the university’s online pharmacy doctorate program, the only one in the country.
Over the next three years, they will take classes and study largely by using the laptop computers each received during a two-week orientation and training period on campus. They will spend a fourth year in clinical training where they live.
The program exists mainly for older students who want to make a career change to pharmacy and need the flexibility of an online program because of their families and careers.
The program, in place since 2001, is the only one in the nation through which entry-level pharmacy students may get their pharmacy doctorate, often called a “Pharm.D.”
Online courses have boomed over the past 15 years and range from programs in urban studies at the University of Nebraska at Omaha to those in seed technology at Iowa State.
Some colleges offer online programs for students who already have pharmacy bachelor’s degrees, but Creighton’s is the only one that takes a student online from beginning pharmacy courses to completion.
While schools of pharmacy used to offer bachelor’s degrees, they phased them out by 2004 because the academic requirement was elevated to the doctorate. Pharmacists who obtained bachelor’s degrees before the change occurred are still fully licensed and eligible to practice.
Creighton took a risk when it started the program, because accreditation for the online program wasn’t separate from accreditation for the on-campus pharmacy doctorate program, said Dr. Lucinda Maine, executive vice president of the Virginia-based American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy. If the online program failed, it would bring the whole enterprise down.
The online students perform just as well as the on-campus students, said Dr. J. Chris Bradberry, dean of Creighton’s School of Pharmacy and Health Professions. He measures this by their performance on the national license exam as well as in classes and clinics.
Many of the students are in their 30s and are experienced, disciplined and know what they want.
“The maturity factor is huge in these people,” Bradberry said.
The students include Matthew Weathers, who has a wife and two young daughters. He figures he won’t make a solid living as a Southern Baptist pastor, the career he initially chose.
“I’m not a good politician,” said Weathers, 35, of Slidell, Texas.
They include Kendra McMullin, 39, who has three children and a physician husband in the Houston area. She said she wanted a program in which she could take her kids to school in the morning and pick them up in the afternoon.
And they include Matthew Nguyen, who was in a pharmacy program in Virginia when he was diagnosed with leukemia. “Dropped everything in my life,” he said.
He’s been treated and given the go-ahead by his physicians to resume his life.
“So this is the best program that I found,” said Nguyen, 28, of Huntington Beach, Calif. “I can still stay at home, stay with my family, see my doctor and get a degree.”
Online pharmacy doctorate students pay about $28,000 for their first year’s tuition, the same as on-campus students. Tuition includes the Fujitsu laptop computer that will serve as their lifeline to Creighton. They will take their courses by computer, viewing video and listening to audio that has been edited for quality by the School of Pharmacy’s 17-person technology support staff.
They have the chance to view a lecture whenever they wish if they must take the kids to school or go to an appointment. Some live conferencing also will occur among professors and small groups of students, Bradberry said.
The online students will return to Creighton for one or two weeks each summer for hands-on training.
The students generally will communicate with advisers, professors and other students by e-mail. They also will participate in live chat rooms by computer. The technology support people will get students back online as soon as possible if computer troubles arise.
Online students’ tests are overseen by hired “proctors,” or monitors, at a college campus, Sylvan Learning Center or other location in the vicinity of the student’s home. Bradberry said Creighton also uses secure testing software that times the exam and blocks efforts to get on the Internet.
Frank Salerno, 29, figures he’ll continue teaching high school half-time in the Chicago area while he studies for his pharmacy doctorate. His wife is a pharmacist, and they didn’t want to drop everything and move so he could pursue the degree.
Salerno said he initially was skeptical of an online program but ultimately was convinced it was similar to what he’d get as an on-campus student. “We’re taking the exact same program, the exact same exams,” he said.
Contact the writer:
444-1123, rick.ruggles@owh.com
Copyright ©2012 Omaha World-Herald®. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, displayed or redistributed for any purpose without permission from the Omaha World-Herald.
