Express Scripts’ Issac Butler, PharmD, MBA; future pharmacist Terrence Harris; and Barnes-Jewish Hospital’s Steven Player, PharmD, MBA

Across the United States, there is a shortage of pharmacists and a growing awareness of the need for diversity within the healthcare system to promote culturally competent care.

Steven Player, PharmD, MBA, and Isaac Butler, PharmD, MBA, are more aware of the problem that most because they’re working to fix it. Both are pharmacists themselves—Player is inpatient pharmacy manager at Barnes-Jewish Hospital; Butler is a clinical program manager at Express Scripts.

Together, they created the Barnes-Jewish Hospital, Express Scripts and St. Louis College of Pharmacy (BESt) Summer Pharmacy Institute to increase multicultural high school enrollment in pharmacy school in the St. Louis area. The Barnes-Jewish Hospital Foundation and Express Scripts Foundation provided equal funding for BESt, with additional support from the Barnes-Jewish Hospital Auxiliary—Plaza Chapter.

BESt by the numbers—2008 All 30 students successfully completed the program’s rigorous curriculum. Participants’ average test scores in the math course increased to 81.3 percent from 47.6 percent. Writing assessment scores rose to 4 from 3 (out of a possible 6). The class average for the ACT science component rose to 19 from 17. The students’ interest in a pharmacy career doubled from an average of 2 to 4 (on a scale of 1 to 5). At the end of the program, 50 percent of the students rated their interest in a pharmacy career as a 5, meaning they “definitely” were interested. UPDATE: 15 students from BESt I in 2008 returned for BESt II in 2009 (joining 20 new BESt I students). Of those students, 5 have been offered early admission to St. Louis College of Pharmacy…and 2 have committed!

Launched in 2008, BESt has a mission to educate young people about the pharmacy profession and its opportunities, while equipping them with knowledge and skills that are vital to succeeding in pharmacy.

“Our goal is to foster the talent that lies within the diverse St. Louis high school community,” says Player. “Ultimately, we want the students to enroll in pharmacy schools and then become part of a stronger, larger, more diverse pool of pharmacists that will serve the greater good of St. Louis.”

The first 4-week session of BESt welcomed 30 rising sophomores and juniors from the St. Louis area out of 100 applicants. One of those students, Terrence Harris—a junior at Hazelwood Central High School—had no thoughts of pharmacy as a career path until BESt.

“BEST not only broadened by knowledge of pharmacy, but opened my eyes to how a pharmacist can change lives,” says Harris. “The greatest part of the program for me was learning how to make difference medicines. Once I receive my degree, my goal is to work with cancer patients, hopefully in pediatrics.”

The BESt program includes college-credit courses in calculus and composition, algebra and trigonometry classes, chemistry classes and labs, a pharmaceutics lab, an ACT preparation class, and field trips to pharmacy settings.

“Our program is the only one I know of to go beyond the exposure phase to actual preparation,” Butler says. “Even if students who complete the program don’t pursue pharmacy, they will have college credit when they start college. This program prepares them for life after high school.”


Excerpted from “They’re the BESt” in Giving 2009, Issue 1