ABC30 Action News Story – Valley’s First Pharmacy School Welcomes Students

August 21, 2014

News anchor Dale Yurong from ABC30 visited campus on Wednesday to take a tour and talk to students during the first day of Orientation for the CHSU College of Pharmacy inaugural class of 2018.

VALLEY’S FIRST PHARMACY SCHOOL WELCOMES STUDENTS

 

Students explain what they believe is the college’s prescription for success.

KFSN By Dale Yurong
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
CLOVIS, Calif. (KFSN) — Classes begin at the Valley’s first pharmacy school on Monday. California Health Sciences University welcomed its first 76 students to its pharmacy school in Clovis.

Kc Taylor did her undergrad work at Oregon State. She said, “We’re going to be the first school that is really trained for primary care especially here in the Central Valley where pharmacists are greatly needed.”

State law now regards pharmacists as health care providers. The Dean of Students David Hawkins says the school aims to help transform pharmacy into a primary care profession. He said, “It’s also doing physical assessment, not just taking blood pressures and pulse rates and those things but maybe even taking time to listen to heart and lungs that may be developing heart failure.”

Most pharmacy schools don’t provide that training.

The students come from as far away as New York and Canada but 40 percent of the inaugural class grew up in the Valley.

“It’s the Valley pride right. I wanted to stay, everyone’s anxious to leave but I just love how it’s a new program and the first type in the medical field,” said CHSU student Jose Vera.

“The opportunity to stay here was the biggest draw because the plan was no matter where I went I wanted to come back to the Central Valley to practice and work,” said CHSU student Hayley Madsen.

The university becomes fully accredited when this first class graduates in four years. Dean Hawkins hopes the school’s planned campus near Millerton Lake is complete by then.