WSU pharmacy program makes it easier to combine two degrees

SPOKANE, Wash.  – Students seeking the professional pharmacist degree at Washington State University will now find it quicker to also obtain a Ph.D. in pharmaceutical sciences if they are interested and eligible.

By following an overlapping sequence of required courses for each of the two sequential degrees, a student could save two years of the five years it generally takes to attain a Ph.D.

“In recent years, several PharmD students have completed both PharmD and PhD degrees in the College of Pharmacy and while they were successful in their degree completions, we expect more interest in the combined degree in the future and so adopted a mechanism to make it easier,” said Kathyrn E. (Kay) Meier, associate dean for graduate education in pharmacy.

The combined degree is common at the top research-intensive pharmacy schools in the country, Meier said.

“With the WSU program growing and moving up in the rankings, we thought it was best to adopt this combined sequential PharmD and Ph.D. program as well,” she said.

The WSU Graduate School recently signed an agreement with the College of Pharmacy authorizing the dual degree.

Contact:

Kathryn (Kay) Meier, professor and associate dean for graduate education, College of Pharmacy, Washington State University Spokane, 509-358-7631, kmeier@wsu.edu.