The Department of Pharmacy Practice is comprised of drug and disease experts invested in the clinical, economic, and policy related applications of pharmaceutical care.  Our faculty use these skills to train professional students in the rational delivery and evaluation of medication and disease state management. 

Our faculty members have a diverse range of practice sites and specialized expertise.  Clinician educators within the Department provide direct patient care to Oregonians in both the hospital and community settings.  Additionally, the faculty is involved in the implementation and evaluation of specific medication usage and management.  These front line clinical and interpretive skills, along with those of our external pharmacist and physician lecturers, allow our educators to inject valuable real-world experience into the classroom.

In addition to outstanding clinical skills, our faculty engages in cutting-edge scholarship resulting in scientific papers, textbook chapters, and state, national, and international presentations.  The Department continues to build a research focus on the evaluation of the practice of pharmacy in the state and nation.  Investigations in the clinical specialties of cardiology and infectious diseases are a core focus of multiple faculty members.  Methodologically based research in pharmacokinetics, epidemiology, pharmacoeconomics, and drug policy are also vital components of our Department’s scholarly mission.  Finally, faculty evaluation of innovative educational programming brings together research and teaching for the benefit of our students and the profession.

The Departmental faculty is located in multiple physical settings.  Practice faculty at the main OSU campus in Corvallis teach alongside our Pharmaceutical Sciences colleagues in the first two years

of the professional program.  The skills learned in the practice labs and other health care courses provide a strong foundation for the challenging application of patient-specific clinical care.  The other portion of the Departmental faculty resides on the Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) campus in Portland.  This partnership with the academic medical center provides a unique experience for our students who spend their third academic year on the Portland campus.  Students receive their Doctor of Pharmacy degrees with a joint diploma from OHSU and OSU.  Fourth-year students gain extensive clinical expertise outside of the classroom on clerkship sites throughout the state.

Our faculty is invested in the education of tomorrow’s pharmacists.  We bring our clinical and research expertise into our educational structure, making for a real-world education that is mindful of the future of pharmacy.  Our faculty engages first hand in the enhancement of the human lifespan, the reduction of health care costs, and the maintenance of a healthy population.  We study, create, and evaluate pharmacy practice; we disseminate our findings to the broader community, and we pass this knowledge and the skills to expand this knowledge onto our students.

I encourage you to explore our website further and to find out more about the many amazing things going on at the OSU College of Pharmacy.  On behalf of the Department of Pharmacy Practice, we welcome you to the College.

Adriane N. Irwin, MS, PharmD, BCACP, CDE

Chair of the Department of Pharmacy Practice