News Release

2006 Ferguson Pharmacotherapy Lecture
to be held Monday (April 17) at Carolina Inn

CHAPEL HILL - Dr. Peter Gal, director of the pharmacy division at the Greensboro Area Health Education Center, will deliver the 2006 Howard Q. Ferguson Pharmacotherapy Lecture at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Pharmacy on Monday (April 17).

The lecture, "Neonatal Pharmacotherapy: Application of Pharmacokinetic and Pharmacodynamic Principles to Challenge Standards of Practice," will be held at 4 p.m. in Hill Ballroom South of the Carolina Inn.

Gal also is a clinical professor at the School of Pharmacy in the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics. He was assistant professor at Mercer University from 1977 to 1979 when he made the move to the Greensboro AHEC.

The statewide AHEC program is based within UNC's School of Medicine.

Gal was appointed clinical associate professor at the pharmacy school in 1983 and became a clinical professor in 1989. He began practicing in neonatal pharmacotherapy in 1977 and continued his practice at Moses Cone Health System in 1979. He also created the Neonatal Pharmacology Research Laboratory at Moses Cone Hospital in 1983, and in 1992, he created and still directs the Neonatology Pharmacotherapy Fellowship at Moses Cone Health System's Women's Hospital of Greensboro.

His honors include the Clinical Practice Award from the American College of Clinical Pharmacy in 1990 and membership on the Board of Pharmaceutical Specialties of the American Pharmaceutical Association's Pharmacotherapy Specialty Council from 1989 to 1993.

The Ferguson Lectureship was created in 1990 to promote the importance of pharmacotherapy within the School of Pharmacy and campuswide. With this lectureship, outstanding practitioners share with students and faculty their experiences and knowledge of pharmacotherapy and patient-specific application of pharmacotherapeutic principles.

Through the Pharmacy Foundation of North Carolina, Howard and Mescal Ferguson created an endowment to provide annual support for a PharmD student and the lecture series. The couple also created the Mescal S. Ferguson Distinguished Professorship and the Howard Q. Ferguson Distinguished Professorship.

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UNC School of Pharmacy contact: Kara Brewer, (919) 843-9248