Pharmacy

Robert B. MacArthur, Pharm.D., Director

During 2000, the NYSPI pharmacy continued its mission by serving NYSPI's inpatients and outpatients. Our committed staff includes Robert MacArthur, Elsa Cabreja, Juana Costigan, Myra P. Joyce, Lisa Kochan, Thomas Melore, Adel Rizkala, Jerry Wolsky, and Zikia Wright.

This year three new employees joined our staff. Myra P. Joyce, Ph.D., works as a Research Program Coordinator in the NYSPI and CPMC Research Pharmacy. Myra has a Ph.D. in Biopsychology from the Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York. She completed a post-doctoral fellowship in the Department of Pathology at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, and a second post-doctoral fellowship in developmental psychobiology at NYSPI. Prior to her current position in the Pharmacy, Dr. Joyce was Research Scientist III in the laboratory of Dr. Stephen Rayport in the Department of Neuroscience. In the Pharmacy, Dr. Joyce contributes her expertise as a scientist to assist the researchers in the design and formulation of their study medication protocols. Dr. Joyce has recently co-authored a publication with Dr. Stephen Rayport, entitled "Mesoaccumbens dopamine neuron synapses reconstructed in vitro are glutamatergic" in the journal Neuroscience. Adel Rizkala, Pharm.D., joins our staff as a Research Pharmacist. He comes to us after completing a Pharm.D. at Rutgers University followed by a residency program in nephrology at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, NJ. Adel works with both inpatient and research drug dispensing for NYSPI and the CPMC Research Pharmacy. Finally, Zikia Wright joined our staff as Pharmacy Assistant. Her main responsibilities will be to assist in providing medications to the inpatient units as well as helping to prepare prescription orders for clinic patients in our outpatient clinics.

This year one of our Research Pharmacists, Lisa Kochan, Ph.D., completes her second year in the NYSPI Pharmacy and her third year in the Fellowship for Schizophrenia Research under the direction of Drs. Ronald Rieder, Anissa Abi-Dargham, and Marc Laruelle, and Mr. Thomas Copper. Lisa is currently organizing a drug information program that includes the distribution of drug monograph manuals that can be utilized on the inpatient units by clinicians for teaching patients about their medications. She has four publications to report this year, including a review article written with Drs. Altamesh Qureshi and Brian A. Fallon, from the Anxiety Disorders Clinic, titled "Treatment of Refractory Obsessive Compulsive Disorder" in Current Psychiatry Reports, and articles published in the Journal of Neurochemistry, Neuroscience, and Brain Research.

The pharmacy department continues to be anchored by the much-loved Jerry Wolsky, Tommy Melore, and Juana Costigan. Their years of experience and commitment to patient care services keeps the pharmacy running smoothly.

New Endeavors

Overall, the scope of the research services provided by the collaboration between the CPMC Research Pharmacy continues to expand. The number of active research projects exceeds 200, and is spread among three sites on the ColumbiaNYSPI campus. Besides psychiatry, staff pharmacists are involved in projects in several therapeutic areas including pediatric and adult oncology, infectious diseases, neurology, Alzheimer's disease, neurology, cardiology, endocrinology and others. We have also begun to act as a central packaging, randomization, and distribution center for several federally-funded studies.

In-patient and Outpatient Dispensing

A new computer software system provided by the NYS Office of Mental Health for pharmacy dispensing is scheduled to be installed an operational by June, 2001. The system, named Medsolutions, will allow the pharmacists better access to patient demographic and medication history information, thereby improving service quality.