Pharmacist donates $100K to St. John Fisher’s Wegmans School of Pharmacy

PITTSFORD, N.Y. — The Wegmans School of Pharmacy at St. John Fisher College will use a $100,000 donation to pay for “student travel experiences,” such as trips to professional conferences and medical missions.

Ludmilla (Lucy) P. Malmberg — a “nationally renowned” pharmacist, educational philanthropist, and entrepreneur — donated the funding, St. John Fisher said in a news release.

Malmberg announced her donation during the annual white coat ceremony held this past Sunday. Malmberg was the keynote speaker for the ceremony, which officially welcomed first-year students into the pharmacy profession, the school said.

A portion of Malmberg’s donation will help grow the endowment of the Dr. Christine R. Birnie Medical Mission/Service Fund, which Birnie launched when she became dean. The funding will also support immediate student participation in international and domestic medical missions and service trips.

Each year, the school sends several dozen students to work in health clinics across the globe. The locations include El Salvador, India, Tanzania, and Guatemala. The trips give Fisher pharmacy students the chance to learn “cultural competency while serving as a member of a health care team.”

Finally, Malmberg’s donation will also support travel to a variety of professional pharmacy meetings and academic conferences, including the Christian Pharmacists Fellowship International (CPFI). Malmberg gave Fisher a $12,000 donation in April 2019, which helped three CPFI members, Juliette Miller, Anna Arefyev, and Elizabeth Ellison, attend the organization’s annual meeting in South Carolina.

“Lucy Malmberg’s commitment to advocacy and broad impact on the pharmacy profession cannot be overstated and we are honored that she has chosen to lend her support to the Wegmans School of Pharmacy,” Birnie said. “Through this generous gift, more of our students will have the opportunity to broaden their professional organization experience and embark on medical missions — transformative experiences they will carry with them as practicing pharmacists.”

About Malmberg

As co-founder and current chair of the board of directors of Wedgewood Pharmacy in New Jersey, Malmberg helped the company evolve from a local community pharmacy into one of the largest specialized compounding pharmacies in the U.S.

She has spent her career serving as a “staunch advocate for the profession, even arguing successfully” before the U.S. Supreme Court to protect the rights of licensed prescribers, St. John Fisher said.

She is a long-time member of several national and international pharmacy professional associations and serves on the board of trustees for the University of the Sciences, which is home to her alma mater, the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy (PCP).

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com