An evaluation of the education of hospital pharmacy directors

The education received by hospital pharmacy directors was evaluated by the 1981 survey responses of the directors of pharmacy practicing in hospitals with over 300 beds. A total of 657 out of 1,531 (42.9 percent) usable questionnaires were returned. Directors ranked the following academic areas in decreasing order of importance to them; personnel and financial management, computers, hospital organization, clinical pharmacy practice, traditional pharmacy practice, and statistics. Directors with MBA degrees perceived themselves to be stronger in these same academic areas than did directors with MS, PharmD, and BS degrees. Only directors with MBA and MS degrees believed they had been adequately prepared through their academic programs for their administrative role as director. Recommendations for changes in the education received by future hospital pharmacy directors are included in this paper.