David Apgar, PharmD

Assistant Professor

Dave Apgar served for more than 22 years with the U.S. Public Health Service, working mostly in the Indian Health Service (IHS) as a clinical pharmacist and pharmacist practitioner (providing primary care to outpatients). He worked with Dr. George Wood in 1972 with the earliest development of a clinical pharmacy program at the UA College of Pharmacy. An original participant in a federal grant involving the training and utilization of pharmacists in primary care (1973), he subsequently became director of the IHS-wide Pharmacist Practitioner Training Program (PPTP) from 1976 through 1978, after attaining certification as a physician assistant (PA-C).

He served with the IHS Clinical Support Center (CSC), an IHS-wide continuing medical education facility, writing, editing, teaching and helping with CE functions. He served from June 1988 through March 1991 with U.S. Public Health Service National Health Service Corps (NHSC) as pharmacist consultant to the national government of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), Palikir, Pohnpei, FSM.

After retirement from PHS in 1992, he became manager of clinical pharmacy services at what was then Kino Community Hospital in Tucson, Ariz. He served as a preceptor for the College of Pharmacy for many years while both in IHS (in Phoenix) and Kino (Tucson). He presented numerous CE programs for all members of the health care team while with PHS and at Kino, in particular to pharmacists, pharmacy students, and resident and practicing physicians. He joined the UA College of Pharmacy in January 2004, and currently helps with PhPr 804 (Interviewing & Counseling), PhPr 816 (Patient Assessment), Pcol 836 (Chemotherapy of Infectious Diseases), PhPr 822 (Case Discussions), PhPr 875A, 875B and 875C (all three semesters of Pharmacotherapeutics), PhPr 861C (Drug Information, Literature Evaluation) and PhPr 811 (Advanced Pharmacy Practice). He also offers a unique independent-study elective concerning the popular television show House, MD. And he coordinates and teaches the Nursing Pharmacology course (N472A) in both the fall and spring semesters for the College of Nursing.