ABSTRACT
There is a tug-of-war in pharmaceutical sciences between two curricula. On the one hand there is a “professionalization” model that supports a caring ethos; it is intended to prepare future pharmacists to provide drugs and care to the public. Those who do this teaching are generally clinical, part-time, or otherwise non-tenure-stream faculty. Most are women, as are most of the pharmacists and most of the students in Canada who intend to work in practice. This is actually the main curriculum; pharmacy schools prepare pharmacists for professional practice. The (not so) hidden curriculum, on the other hand, is small but powerful. This other curriculum is molecular research and biological science. It is visible in high-rise architecture, high-rise salaries, and modern laboratories. Most of the faculty are tenured and male. They teach graduate students and enjoy access to the big resources of academia: laboratories, research funding, and so on. This curriculum and the power structure that sustains it are encouraged and supported by deep-pocket drug companies. As we shall see, these powers control and are driving professional schools to the point where administrators who ignore their needs may find their schools closed or taken over. In the case of the pharmaceutical sciences, the struggle over curriculum has taken the appearance of “gender wars.” Tenured male faculty with research support vie with non-tenure-stream women bolstered by a few senior women and males defending “professionalization.” One of my male basic science colleagues referred to this faction as “the dean and his powder puff brigade.”
