MacDougall honored for pharmacy leadership at APhA annual meeting

UCSF School of Pharmacy faculty member, clinical antibiotics expert, and prize-winning teacher Conan MacDougall, PharmD, is the 2012 recipient of the Albert B. Prescott / Glaxo SmithKline Pharmacy Leadership Award.

The national award is given annually to a young pharmacist who has “demonstrated exemplary leadership qualities … indicative of someone likely to emerge as a major leader” in the field. It is selected by the Pharmacy Leadership & Education Institute and several prior recipients.

This is the second year in a row that a School faculty member has won the award. Timothy Cutler, PharmD, a colleague of MacDougall’s in the Department of Clinical Pharmacy, was honored last year. Tina Brock, BSPharm, MSPH, EdD, the School of Pharmacy’s associate dean of teaching and learning, won the award in 2000.

Receiving his award at the annual APhA meeting in New Orleans on March 11, 2012, MacDougall gave a speech entitled “The Non-pharmacologic Basis of Therapeutics,” addressing the ongoing rise of antibiotic-resistant infectious diseases.

MacDougall’s talk described the dearth of technical solutions, including a lack of new antimicrobial drugs or more specific diagnostic technologies, leading to the overuse of a limited arsenal of broad-spectrum antibiotics.

But MacDougall stressed that the problem is also very much cultural and attitudinal, due to patient demand and defensive medical practice. In order for pharmacists to drive more appropriate use of therapeutics, he argued that preparation in psychology and persuasive communication should be part of pharmacy curricula and professional continuing education.

MacDougall’s leadership qualities were recognized while he was still a student pharmacist at UCSF. He received the School’s highest student honor, the Bowl of Hygeia, upon graduation in 2002.

His postgraduate training included a second-year residency in infectious diseases at UCSF, a program that he now directs. MacDougall joined the School of Pharmacy faculty in 2005.

In addition to his clinical practice in infectious disease treatment at UCSF Medical Center, where he serves as pharmacy lead for antimicrobial stewardship, MacDougall is a consultant on antimicrobial issues to the University health system and the California Department of Public Health. His research on the topic has led to 23 peer-reviewed articles, chapters in leading textbooks, as well as co-authorship of Antibiotics Simplified, a textbook used by schools of pharmacy and nursing.

In 2007, MacDougall was the first assistant professor to receive the Long Foundation Award for Excellence in Teaching as the most outstanding teacher a pharmacy school graduating class has had in their four years. He has since received the honor twice more.

His exceptional teaching earned UCSF campus-wide recognition when he received the Academic Senate’s 2008-09 Award for Distinction in Teaching.

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2012 Prescott Lecture: The nonpharmacologic basis of therapeutics