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The School of Pharmacy of the University of California, San Francisco was founded in 1872 as the California College of Pharmacy by a group of farsighted members of the California Pharmaceutical Society, itself then only four years old. This was the first college of pharmacy established in the West and the tenth in the United States. The objectives of the founders were to advance pharmaceutical knowledge and elevate the professional character of apothecaries throughout California.
On June 2, 1873, the college affiliated with the University of California. It became the College of Pharmacy of the University of California on July 1, 1934, at which time an academic curriculum leading to the bachelor's degree was offered to replace certification in vocational training.
In 1938, a graduate curriculum leading to the MS and PhD degrees in pharmaceutical chemistry, internships in hospital pharmacy, and a pharmaceutical technology laboratory were established.
In 1955, a program of study leading to the professional degree, doctor of pharmacy, was established. In keeping with University policy, the College of Pharmacy became the School of Pharmacy in 1955.
In 1966, the School of Pharmacy instituted an experimental decentralized pharmacy service in the patient care area of UCSF's Moffitt Hospital. The success of this service encouraged the faculty to adopt a clinical pharmacy program as a new major educational objective of the curriculum. In 1969, a required clinical clerkship program was instituted which now encompasses the entire training program of the fourth year.
The School administers or co-administers a wide variety of academic programs, including several graduate programs leading to PhD degrees and a combined PharmD/PhD degree. The School's doctor of pharmacy program offers students a core clinical curriculum and the choice of one of three foci of further study in pharmaceutical care, pharmaceutical sciences, or pharmaceutical health policy and management.
The UCSF School of Pharmacy is the top-ranked pharmacy school in the nation as ranked independently by academic quality and perception, funding, and publications. The caliber of its sciences is reflected by the ability of the School's faculty to attract more research funding from the National Institutes of Health than any other pharmacy school in the nation every year since 1979. As a measure of the School's excellence in chemistry, UCSF recieves more federal funding for chemical research and development than any university in the US.
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College of Pharmacy, University of California at its Fulton Street, San Francisco location, circa 1883.
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