UIW Feik School of Pharmacy Receives Grant to Help Expand Educational Opportunities for South Texas Students

This summer, the UIW Feik School of Pharmacy (FSOP) was approved for a $60,000 extension for a grant previously received from the CVS Health Foundation.

FSOP initially received a $175,000 grant from the CVS Health Foundation in 2018 to help inform Hispanic students about the opportunities a career in pharmacy presents and increase diversity in the field of pharmacy. According to RGVHealthConnect.org (2023), 93.53%, or over one million people, in the Rio Grande Valley area are Latino/Hispanic. However, opportunities for exposure to healthcare, specifically pharmacy, in this area are scarce. This scarcity, coupled with the downward trend of the number of annual pharmacy program applications, inspired FSOP to utilize the initial grant to help fund programs that would expose underrepresented communities to the pharmacy field. With the grant, FSOP hosted the Pharm2Table conference/workshop and their annual PharmCAMP, which are both events aimed towards providing students in the Rio Grande Valley with resources, knowledge and exposure to the pharmacy profession.

Pharm2Table is a free pharmacy workshop hosted annually in McAllen, TX that’s available to prospective students, parents, counselors and academic advisors. Attendees have the opportunity to participate in a variety of workshops to learn about career paths in the pharmacy field, including hearing about the unique features of the Feik School of Pharmacy from its staff and current students.

FSOP students and faculty involved in the workshop often encounter first generation students who aren’t always certain what they’re supposed to do when applying to higher education institutions. To help provide clarity, FSOP provides guidance on financial aid, access to a pre-pharmacy undergraduate academic advisor and course descriptions. Informational brochures and other helpful resources are provided in both English and Spanish and Spanish speaking personnel are on hand to provide linguistic accommodations to both students and parents.

“We also bring FSOP students with us who are from the South Texas or general Rio Grande Valley area,” explained Dr. Amy Diepenbrock, associate dean of Student Affairs at FSOP. “This really helps to create a level of relatability so that our students can tell attendees about where they came from and their own pharmacy education experiences.”

FSOP also promotes its PharmCAMP at Pharm2Table, which exposes students to pharmacy as a profession, UIW and to the city of San Antonio.

Every year, 30 students from the Rio Grande Valley receive transportation to FSOP to be part of a four-day experience that includes a stay in the dorms, participation in labs and lectures and admissions presentations. This year’s camp offered the additional experience of taking students to Stonegate Pharmacy, a local compounding pharmacy whose head pharmacist is a UIW alumnus. Students got to learn from the alumnus, see how compounding is done and ask any questions they had about a career in pharmacy.

Additionally, students were taken to the San Antonio Zoo for a tour focused on animal health care. Zoo personnel demonstrated how they take care of various animals and allowed visiting students to see the zoo’s animal hospital, which includes a pharmacy.

“A lot of times students don't know the vast variety of career opportunities that you can have as a pharmacist,” noted Diepenbrock. “They often think of HEB or CVS, but they can be a nuclear pharmacist or a compounding pharmacist, they can work in any hospital specialization like pediatrics and cardiology or they can work for the Center of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). They often don't see and know that until we get them in front of us to listen, though.”

With the recent approval of the $60,000 grant extension from the CVS Health Foundation, FSOP intends to maintain these helpful programs, as well as expand the reach of Pharm2Table to hopefully bring it to other locations in South Texas. Through their continued efforts, Diepenbrock and FSOP hope to help diversify the pharmacy profession and educate students so they may have the opportunity to serve their own communities in the future as pharmacists.