Considering academic pharmacy as a career: opportunities and resources for students, residents, and fellows

The role of a clinical faculty member includes responsibilities within teaching, service, and scholarship. Faculty member time is often divided between a college or school of pharmacy and a clinical practice site. A career in academic pharmacy can provide a very rewarding and challenging mix of intellectual stimulation, variety, autonomy, and flexibility. Graduating pharmacists currently have unprecedented employment opportunities from which to choose, like many other pharmacy industries, academic pharmacy is facing a manpower shortage. Although traditional didactic curricula and introductory and advanced practice experiences expose students to a number of different career options, often academic pharmacy is underrepresented in this conventional educational path. Likewise, during residency or fellowship training, the primary emphasis of most programs is in the development of clinical and/or research skills. However, it is becoming more common for schools and colleges of pharmacy to offer elective courses or experiences for students interested in teaching, and similarly for postgraduate training programs to offer formal or informal teaching programs. It is wise for student pharmacists, residents, and fellows with interest in teaching to use available resources to seek out opportunities for exposure to and experience in academic pharmacy throughout pharmacy school and postgraduate training.