School of Pharmacy and Health Sciences

My name is Anastasia Rifkin and I am the Dean of the School of Pharmacy and Health Sciences at Fairleigh Dickinson University. On behalf of our entire team, I would like to welcome you to the caring community of future health care providers that we have built here at the School of Pharmacy and Health Sciences.

Our students can select graduate programs in pharmacy, public health, occupational therapy, physician assistant studies, or social work. Our state-of-the-art facilities are outfitted with modular classrooms, modern technology, and provide opportunities for simulated learning with patient mannequins or anatomy dissection tables. Our experienced faculty train students in a low-risk environment, and that allows students to practice and learn before they interact with real patients.

Our programs include significant experiential components to transition students out of the classroom setting and simulation setting into real-world professional practice. After completing our curriculum, our graduates are ready to take on challenges of [the] ever-changing world of healthcare. At FDU Florham campus, we offer Doctor of Pharmacy program, Doctor of Occupational Therapy program, and Master level programs in Physician Assistant Studies, Social Work, and Public Health. Each of these programs combines traditional classroom experience, small hands-on labs and simulation-type classes, and experiential learning in clinical, hospital, or industry settings.

Our programs are affiliated with many major healthcare and industry partners across the state of New Jersey. For students interested in [the] pharmaceutical industry, our school offers opportunities to complete their experiences at Becton, Dickinson, Pfizer, Bayer, and Novartis. Students who are interested in providing direct patient care can complete their experiences with one of the major New Jersey health systems such as Atlantic Health, Hackensack Meridian Health, RWG Barnabas Health, Valley Hospital, and many others. Our partners always speak very highly of obtaining students -- their level of preparedness, clinical practice, readiness, and willingness to learn new things, and their communication abilities which we sometimes call, "soft skills."

We pride ourselves in providing many opportunities to help students explore their career interests and develop their professional and leadership skills. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, pharmacy students provided over 1,600 hours of service at vaccine administration sites, which supported triage, immunization, administration, and the patient navigation process during the massive vaccine rollout across the state of New Jersey.

Students participated in this professional community service through our affiliations including Hackensack Meridian Health, Mass Vaccination Center at MetLife Stadium at the RWG Barnabas vaccine site in Parsippany at the Ocean Health Initiative site in Toms River, and at multiple pharmacies. The impact of the student's participation has been substantial, leading to [an] all-hands-on-deck approach of administering millions of vaccine doses.

For undergraduate students, we offer several accelerated pathway programs, which allow completion of some of our Master's degrees in five years. This works for Master of Social Work and Public Health. You can also complete your degree in six years for Doctorate in Occupational Therapy, and in seven years for Doctor of Pharmacy degree.

One of the exciting things about our school is an opportunity to not only learn about [the] profession that we choose, but also learn about how to collaborate with other health professions. Our curriculum is specially designed to have students from several professions work on patient care together, just like in real-world clinical practice. This prepares students for working on teams that care for patients and improve their health.

Our graduates are in high demand after they complete their studies. In fact, the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects 12% growth in jobs for social workers, 17% growth in jobs for occupational therapists, and 31% growth for physician assistants. Our doctoral pharmacy graduates have 90 to 95% job placement rate. 20 to 25% of graduates annually pursue postdoctoral training such as residency or fellowship training, which allows them to enter more advanced clinical or industry positions if desired.

Our graduates work in director positions and manager positions within industry settings, several are clinical specialists, ambulatory care pharmacists, or directors of pharmacy in New Jersey and neighboring states. Many of [our] pharmacy graduates work in community settings providing medication therapy management to patients in communities where they grow up and live. I hope you enjoyed this brief overview of FDU's Health Science Programs.

I welcome you to visit our website at www.fdu.edu/pharmacy. We look forward to the opportunity to talk with you about which career pathway is of interest to you. I'm certain the educational path you select within the School of Pharmacy and Health Sciences will position you well for careers in pharmacy, physician assistant studies, occupational therapy, social work, or public health.