Being an advocate for the poor, positively impacting the community and equipping students with invaluable experience are the reasons that veteran pharmacist Barry Wilson received Southern Illinois University Edwardsville School of Pharmacy’s Service to Pharmacy Award.
Wilson, an affiliate clinical faculty member with the SIUE School of Pharmacy, has spent his career helping to provide medicine to the homeless, indigent and uninsured.
“I grew up poor, and I know what it means to go without,” Wilson said in an article titled Partner Spotlight: Family Care Health Centers from the Direct Relief International website. “I try not to put our patients in the position where they have to decide between food, rent or medicine.”
Wilson’s interest has always been that of providing quality healthcare and service to those who seemingly need it the most, said Dr. Gireesh Gupchup, dean of the SIUE School of Pharmacy.
“Barry Wilson has practiced pharmacy for 50 years with a focus of serving medically underserved patients,” Gupchup said. “His contributions to the profession, his patients and training future pharmacists are admirable. It is truly an honor to present the SIUE School of Pharmacy Service to Pharmacy Award to Mr. Wilson.”
The Service to Pharmacy Award is presented only when merited and the criteria, in part, states: “The individual selected must be of high moral and ethical character and display good citizenship. The achievements of the candidate for recognition must have benefited the community in general, the profession of pharmacy and the SIUE School of Pharmacy.”
Professor William Wuller, director of Experiential Pharmacy at SIUE School of Pharmacy and clinical associate professor of Pharmacy Practice, nominated Wilson for the award.
“Since 2002, Barry has been chief pharmacy officer of Family Health Care Centers in St. Louis,” wrote Wuller in his nomination letter. “This is not a ‘glamour’ position in a prestigious mecca of teaching. Family Health Care is a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHA) that annually serves more than 19,000 homeless, uninsured and indigent patients.”
Since Wilson has worked for a FQHA, he has helped provide more than $7 million in free medications through Patience Assistance Programs for his Center’s patients. For more information, visit Family Care Health Centers (FCHC) or Federal Qualified Health Center.
Wilson is a good fit for FCHC, Wuller said, because his life has mirrored the mission of his workplace. The FCHC’s mission is “to provide affordable and accessible comprehensive primary care services to anyone, with emphasis on the medically underserved, and to train a primary workforce in order to promote the general health of the service area.”
Other positions and community work in which Wilson participates include: adjunct clinical instructor for St. Louis College of Pharmacy; active member of the National Health Care for the Homeless Council; the National Association of Community Health Centers; Volunteers in Healthcare; the Missouri Bar Association; and the Association of Clinicians for the Underserved.
Wilson added that he is not content with helping provide quality healthcare for the indigent. He wants to persuade others to do so as well.
“Helping to shape the senior pharmacy students, who rotate through our pharmacy, is both a source of pleasure and motivation for me to continue practicing pharmacy,” said Wilson in the Direct Relief article. “I let them know that when they work to support underserved patients they can look at themselves in the mirror at the end of the day and say: ‘I did well today.’ Sometimes if I’m lucky, I make a convert.”
Cutline Information: Pictured are Dr. Gireesh Gupchup, dean of the SIUE School of Pharmacy, and Barry Wilson, an affiliate clinical faculty member with the SIUE School of Pharmacy