This is completely stolen from one of my favorite CF bloggers, Angrygrrl.
Private college to start churning out anti-choice pharmacists
Thanks to my friend sneezy for the pointer to the news that Cedarville University in Ohio plans to start a pharmacy school to create a little fundie army of pharmacists who can refuse to dispense birth control, morning-after pills, and RU-486.
You think I'm being hyperbolic? Alarmist?
Given that their publicly-stated mission statement is this: "In keeping with its unique Christ-centered mission, the Cedarville University School of Pharmacy will equip competent, caring professionals for lifelong leadership and service through an education marked by excellence and grounded in biblical truth." And that they have, as their listed "Christ-Centered Mission," these top two items:
* Unwavering commitment to the inerrancy and authority of Scripture
* Creationist approach to scientific research and study
I seriously doubt this college's intent is to graduate pharmacists of the liberal Christian variety, a la Dean Smith.
Rather, I suspect they intend to graduate pharmacists like these:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2004-11-08-druggists-pill_x.htm
http://feministing.com/archives/007113.html
http://www.plannedparenthood.org/news-articles-press/politics-policy-issues/birth-control-access-prevention/pharmacists-refuse-6501.htm
Pharmacy is biology. It's chemistry. It's neurology. It's science. Not ancient Near Eastern mythology. I'm sorry, but mysterious sky god taking rib from man, adding dirt, and making woman is MYTH, not SCIENCE, and any pharmacy school that takes that myth at face value, as inerrant and authoritative, is nothing but a laughingstock in my book. Creationism and biblical inerrancy are completely incompatible with a robust scientific school of study.
But!
They're a private university, so they can do what they want. Cedarville was originally Presbyterian, founded in 1887; a Baptist organization bought it in 1953. I *think* they're mainstream Baptist, not Southern Baptist, but that doesn't seem to have tempered their crackpottery much. Remember that the only original difference between mainstream Baptists and Southern Baptists wasn't theological, it was the issue of slavery. SBs split from the main group in 1845 because they wanted to keep owning their slaves and found justifications in the Bible for it. This same Bible that Cedarville is saying is inerrant and will be using as the foundation for its school of pharmacy. *eyeroll*
All for the purpose of churning out pharmacists who, when faced with a woman who wants to exercise her right to contraceptives, wants to turn her down. I don't THINK so. Homey don't play that. The rest of us don't get to pick and choose which parts of our jobs we're going to refuse to do on any given day; health care providers shouldn't be any different. As my ever-asute UK friend Helen said, "it's like a vegan getting a job in a steak restaurant then expecting not to have to serve or carry trays of meat."
We have ONE chance to stop this train before it leaves the station. The school hasn't been approved yet.
IMPORTANT: To lodge a complaint with the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education, email them at csinfo@acpe-accredit.org.
Complaints should be related to the ACPE's standards. Well, I've just spent some quality time poring over them, and this is what I've found so far:
Standard No. 12: Professional Competencies and Outcome Expectations
Professional pharmacist competencies that must be achieved by graduates through the professional degree program curriculum are the ability to:
1. Provide patient care in cooperation with patients, prescribers, and other members of an interprofessional health care team based upon sound therapeutic principles and evidence-based data, taking into account relevant legal, ethical, social, cultural, economic, and professional issues, emerging technologies, and evolving biomedical, pharmaceutical, social/behavioral/administrative, and clinical sciences that may impact therapeutic outcomes.
...
Guideline 12.1
Graduates must possess the basic knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values to practice pharmacy independently at the time of graduation. In this regard, the college or school must ensure that graduates are competent to:
Provide patient-centered care, through the ability to:
*design, implement, monitor, evaluate, and adjust pharmacy care plans that are patient-specific; address health literacy, cultural diversity, and behavioral psychosocial issues; and are evidence-based
-----------------
I sincerely doubt that a curriculum based on Biblical inerrancy and "creation" science can give these students the necessary ability to provide patient care that's based on sound therapeutic and evidence-based data -- you know, facts, as opposed to MYTHS. It also seems to me that the whole point of this proposed school is to crank out pharmacists who are *opposed* to cultural diversity, who want the ability to say "No" to anyone whose beliefs don't mesh with theirs.
So write those cards and letters, folks!
"It truly is the one commonality that every designation of humans you can think of has, there's at least one asshole."
--Me