President's Message from Alex Oschman

"Think and wonder, wonder and think." – Dr. Seuss

November and December are always busy months, with the holidays, friend and family gatherings, and for those of us with pharmacy residents, the start of the recruitment season.  For those of you travelling to Las Vegas this year for the ASHP Midyear Clinical Meeting, I hope you will be able to join us for the Missouri Reception on Monday evening from 6-8 pm.   I would like to extend a huge thank you to Dean Melchert (University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Pharmacy) and President Pieper (St. Louis College of Pharmacy) for their support in hosting the Missouri Reception. 

As we get closer to celebrating the 50^th anniversary of MSHP, I wanted to share a bit of the history of our organization with you.   MSHP was started by 3 pharmacists (Thomas J. Garrison, Garf Thomas, and Harvey A.K. Whitney, Jr.) who held the first organizational meeting on February 21, 1970 at the University of Missouri Medical Center.  Shortly after that, the first annual meeting was held on May 16^th, 1970 at St. Louis College of Pharmacy.  The creation of MSHP was the beginning of statewide collaboration amongst hospital pharmacists.  Bert McCleary, one of our early members and which many of you know, recently wrote a great blog post about the early history of MSHP (http://www.moshp.org/blog/7343596) that I would encourage you all to read.  

It is important for us to know our past, so that we can envision our future.  As the year comes to a close, I encourage you all the think about the past and wonder what we can do to continue to grow and make an impact in the future. I wish all of you a joyous end of the year and look forward to what the upcoming year will bring for MSHP.  

Alex Oschman, PharmD, BCPPS
MSHP President