Pharmacy Alum Chad Worz Lends Professional Support to Alma Mater

Chad Worz, PharmD, is proud to be a pharmacist, proud to be a graduate of the University of Cincinnati’s James L. Winkle College of Pharmacy, a member of the college’s board of advisors, and proud to be the founder and president of Medication Managers, a Cincinnati-based pharmacy consulting business that provides medication monitoring services to post-acute rehabilitation, long-term care and assisted living facilities.

And this Winkle College graduate (BS ’96, PharmD ’98) is also proud to be part of a new partnership with the college that will benefit future generations of pharmacists.
 
"It’s the best way I can think of to give back, through the provision of pharmacy,” Worz says of recently partnering with the college to offer two new community pharmacy residencies through his company and facilitating two new scholarships for the Doctor of Pharmacy program through the non-profit Pharmacy Over-the-Rhine, which Worz founded in 2007 and is the country’s first non-profit pharmacy.

Pharmacy residencies are modeled after medical residences and offer pharmacy graduates the opportunity for advanced training to practice in the community at the next level, says Bethanne Brown, PharmD, the college’s residency director. Community pharmacy residencies entail direct patient care activities, staffing and management, a yearlong research project and teaching one day a week at the college.

The college has five community pharmacy residencies, two of which are now with Medication Managers.
Medication Managers employs 70 full-time pharmacists who consult to approximately 40,000 patients in 800 nursing homes across the country. 

Kevin Williams, PharmD, graduated from the Winkle College of Pharmacy in May 2016 and started his residency with Medication Mangers on July 1, 2016. Williams monitors medication regimens for patients at nursing homes and assisted living facilities in the Greater Cincinnati area and oversees the utilization and storage of medication inside the facilities. 
  
"From my rotations and internships, I had a pretty good idea of what it was like to work as a retail pharmacist and as a hospital pharmacist, and I really felt like long-term care was where I could give back to the best of my abilities,” he says.

"It gives the college the ability to take a new graduate and put them in a leadership position, and by the same token, we get a well-trained PharmD,” says Worz. His company pays the college $45,000 per residency to support the program.

Brown says that all residency slots are very competitive, noting that 25 students applied for the college’s five positions.

In addition to supporting pharmacy graduates through the residency program, Worz has been instrumental in establishing two new scholarships for students entering the PharmD program at UC: the Jerry Wiesenhahn Pharmacy Over-the-Rhine Endowment Fund and the George F. Archambault Future Leadership Award Fund.

Both scholarships are being seeded by Pharmacy Over-the-Rhine. Worz, who is chairman of the board, started the non-profit pharmacy in 2007, in conjunction with the Crossroad Health Center 2007 in order to assist the city’s underserved population with no access to pharmacy services. The full-service, self-sustaining pharmacy supplements prescriptions for those in need and invests fees paid for pharmacy services back into the pharmacy, community and education. For the first time since its inception, the non-profit contributed $5,000 to the endowment fund—which must reach $50,000 before being dispersed— and also made a pledge of $10,000 per year , for five years, to the leadership fund. The first $10,000 of the leadership scholarship will be dispersed in the 2016-2017 academic year.

"Pharmacy Over-the-Rhine ended up being something very successful and it is designed to give back,” says Worz. "I’m a lifelong pharmacist and I feel like it’s important to find ways that we can give back through the skills we obtained through the college of Pharmacy.”