Glen Stimmel, PharmD ’72 : Chiseling out a place for psychiatric pharmacy

“I received a piece of soapstone and file as a birthday gift, and then I was hooked,” he says. “I’d been all science, all the time, and suddenly I’m creating sculptures. It’s pure fun.”

A man with many interests, Stimmel majored in Mandarin Chinese as an undergraduate at San Francisco State. He arrived at UCSF School of Pharmacy in the late ’60s, when everyone was challenging the status quo – pharmacists included.

For 40 years, I largely avoided any administrative role, but now I really enjoy it. I’ve had a wealth of experience, and I think that helps me make the big decisions.

“Pharmacy students were questioning traditional practice, trying to get more directly involved with patient care,” he says.

Stimmel forged his own unique path, becoming the first pharmacy student to pursue a clinical clerkship in a psychiatric facility. He developed an inpatient psychiatric pharmacy elective, as well as the nation’s first psychiatric pharmacy residency program.

Realizing that this new specialty could make a real difference for patients, he arrived at USC in 1974 and launched its School of Pharmacy’s first clinical psychiatric program. Now a professor of clinical pharmacy, psychiatry, and behavioral sciences and the associate dean of academic affairs, Stimmel focuses his clinical work on depression. He also served as interim dean of the school in 2015–16.

“About every dozen years,” he says, “I have to change what I’m doing to keep myself entertained.”