This story was corrected on Feb. 26, 2010. An explanation follows the story.

Until recently, "there was a substantial shortage" of pharmacists in Maryland, said LaVerne Naesea, executive director of the Maryland Board of Pharmacy, but the board lacks new data.

Demand for pharmacists in Maryland was rated at 3.56 in November, on a scale with 1 being high surplus and 5 high demand, according to the Aggregate Demand Index of the Pharmacy Manpower Project.

The shortage has had minimal impact on suburban areas such as Montgomery County, but is more acute in "rural pharmacies, Western Maryland, even the Eastern Shore," said James Bresette, a pharmacist who mentors students at the University of Maryland's Shady Grove campus in Rockville. "A lot of little pharmacies can't make it. There's nobody to take over."

Brian Hose, a practicing pharmacist and owner of Sharpsburg Pharmacy, has felt the pinch of the shortage in the extra hours he has worked. Hose bought the pharmacy in October 2008 after working for the previous owner for three years.

"We're in a rural setting, and it's fairly difficult to find pharmacists out our way," he said.

He works long hours and has to forgo vacations when he can't get one of his two part-time pharmacists, who also work for other independent pharmacies, to fill in.

The problem is even more acute for stores in "a busier retail environment," he said, when "personal time with a patient is usually the first thing to go."

"We're constantly getting recruiter calls from rural hospitals" that cannot find enough pharmaceutical staff, Hose said.

But with an influx of graduates from the Shady Grove and new pharmacy schools, Hose expects "a real boom of pharmacy students in the next four or five years."

With students working in his store as part of their training, he said he expects to have "good, quality students cycling through, which really helps with the quality of your store," and will make future hires much easier.

Recession easing shortage

As in many sectors, the recent recession has contributed in part to easing the workforce shortage, said Jim Owen, director of professional practice for the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacies.

"Overall, as far as trends, we have experienced more of a plateauing," Owen said.

Hospitals have been conducting the kind of "downsizing that a lot of people have gone through," Bresette said, so that pharmacists now have to fill extra positions and work more hours.

Jon C. Schommer, a professor at the University of Minnesota's College of Pharmacy, also attributes the easing shortage to the fact that older pharmacists, similar to many professionals in recent years, are putting off retirement.

Pharmacists are now "working well into their 60s, 70s, even 80s," he said.

Owen also points to the "rapid expansion of pharmaceutical schools" as helping to ease the shortage. He also pointed to an "artificial shortage" in 2002, when pharmacy schools shifted from three-year to four-year programs.

While "a student might have five offers before, now there might not be such a rich number of offers," Bresette said.

However, Natalie Eddington, dean of the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, believes demand for pharmacists will remain high.

"You are not going to see the shortage shrink or go away in the next five years," Eddington said.

Maryland's pharmacy schools continue to grow. The University of Maryland's Baltimore campus has added classrooms and labs to allow an additional 40 graduates beginning in 2014. The College of Notre Dame has also opened a pharmacy school that's due to graduate its first class in 2014, and the University of Maryland Eastern Shore plans to start classes toward a pharmacy degree in September.

The original version did not adequately describe the location of the University of Maryland program whose students are mentored by James Bresette.