Gloria Francke

Background

Gloria Niemeyer Francke was born on April 28, 1922, in Dillsboro, Indiana, the daughter of Albert B. Niemeyer and Fannie K. (Libbert) Niemeyer. Dillsboro is a small community in southeastern Indiana, and her early life there preceded her pharmacy studies at Purdue University in Lafayette.

Her professional path began in the community pharmacy setting of her hometown before she moved into hospital pharmacy. Community drugstores of the period combined prescription dispensing with general retail trade, a setting that differed considerably from the institutional and editorial work that later defined her career.

Education

She received a Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy from Purdue University in 1942. Purdue had been founded in 1869 as a land-grant institution in Lafayette, Indiana, and its pharmacy program provided the scientific training with which she entered the profession during the Second World War.

She pursued postgraduate study at the University of Michigan in 1945, while working at the university's hospital in Ann Arbor. The university, founded in 1817, was a major public research institution, and its hospital pharmacy operations offered practical experience in the emerging specialty.

She later earned a Doctor of Pharmacy from the University of Cincinnati in 1971, a degree that was taken during her years in clinical pharmacy education in that city. The Doctor of Pharmacy was an advanced professional degree that expanded in the 1960s and 1970s as pharmacy education moved toward patient-centered clinical practice. Purdue University also conferred an honorary Doctor of Pharmacy on her in 1988.

Career

After completing her bachelor's degree, she worked as a pharmacist at the Dillsboro Drug Store from 1943 to 1944. In 1943 she also served as an instructor at the Purdue University School of Pharmacy in Lafayette, Indiana.

From 1944 to 1946 she was assistant to the chief pharmacist at the University of Michigan Hospital in Ann Arbor, the teaching hospital of the University of Michigan. Hospital pharmacy at the time centered on the preparation and distribution of drugs for inpatients, and the field was becoming more formally organized. In the same period she became associate editor of the American Journal of Hospital Pharmacy, which had developed from the bulletin of the American Society of Hospital Pharmacists, and she held that post until 1964. In 1946 and 1947 she was also assistant editor of the Journal of the American Pharmaceutical Association.

From 1946 to 1956 she was assistant director of the Division of Hospital Pharmacy of the American Pharmaceutical Association, the national professional association of pharmacists founded in 1852 in Philadelphia. From 1949 to 1960 she served as executive secretary of the American Society of Hospital Pharmacists in Ann Arbor, an organization that later became known as the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists. From 1956 to 1964 she was a research associate in the Audit of Pharmaceutical Services in Hospitals, a national study supported by the United States Public Health Service and directed by her future husband, Donald E. Francke. Its results were published in 1964 as Mirror to Hospital Pharmacy.

In 1963 and 1964 she served as acting director of the department of communications of the American Society of Hospital Pharmacists in Washington, and in the same years she was a judge for the annual Lunsford Richardson Pharmacy awards.

From 1965 to 1967 she was a drug literature specialist at the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland. The library, part of the National Institutes of Health, is one of the world's largest medical libraries and specializes in biomedical literature. From 1967 to 1971 she was clinical pharmacy teaching coordinator at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Cincinnati, an institution of the federal Veterans Administration, which had been established in 1930. During the same years she was an assistant clinical professor of clinical pharmacy in the College of Pharmacy of the University of Cincinnati, a public university whose origins date to 1819.

From 1971 to 1975 she was chief of the program evaluation branch of the Alcohol and Drug Dependence Service in the Veterans Administration central office in Washington. From 1975 to 1985 she directed the Pharmacy Intelligence Center of the American Pharmaceutical Association. She retired in 1988.

She also owned and operated Drug Intelligence Publications. The company was linked to the journal Drug Intelligence, which her husband had founded and which later became Annals of Pharmacotherapy.

Achievements

• Co-authored Mirror to Hospital Pharmacy (1964), the report of a national audit of hospital pharmacy services. The study examined the practice and philosophy of hospital pharmacy and called for changes in both, and it became an enduring reference for the profession.

Works

• journal article

  • Evolvement of “Clinical Pharmacy”

    (Article published in Drug Intelligence & Clinical Pharmac...)

    1969
  • Evolvement of “Clinical Pharmacy”

    (Article published in Annals of Pharmacotherapy, revisitin...)

    2007

• non-fiction book

  • Perspectives in Clinical Pharmacy

    (A textbook for clinically oriented pharmacists, edited by...)

    1972
  • Mirror to Hospital Pharmacy

    (Co-authored with Donald E. Francke, Clifton J. Latiolais,...)

    1964

Religion

Gloria Niemeyer Francke was a Presbyterian. Her memorial service was held at a New York Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C., in September 2008.

Presbyterianism grew out of the Reformed branch of the Protestant Reformation associated with John Calvin and John Knox in the sixteenth century. Its churches emphasize the authority of Scripture and the sovereignty of God, and they are governed by elected elders who serve in local sessions, regional presbyteries, and general assemblies.

Membership

Several of Gloria Francke's memberships connected her with the international and national organizations that shaped pharmacy practice. The International Pharmaceutical Federation is a worldwide federation of national pharmacy organizations that promotes pharmaceutical science, education, and practice across national boundaries.

The American Institute of the History of Pharmacy promotes the study of pharmacy's past through research and publication. Her executive secretaryship in that organization linked her administrative work with the historical study of the profession.

She was also connected with professional and fraternal organizations in pharmacy. Kappa Epsilon is a professional fraternity for women in pharmacy, and Rho Chi is a pharmacy honor society that recognizes academic achievement. The Drug Information Association brings together professionals working in drug information, a field that was central to Drug Intelligence and to the publishing activities associated with her husband and her.

Her honorary and advisory roles extended her involvement to state and national bodies. She was an honorary member of the Texas Society of Hospital Pharmacists, and she served as honorary chairman of the American Pharmaceutical Association in 1986. The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals, which evaluated hospitals against published standards, was the setting for her committee service on standards for drug abuse treatment and rehabilitation programs.

• International Pharmaceutical Federation

• Executive secretary

  American Institute of the History of Pharmacy , United States

  1968 - 1978

• Honorary member

  Texas Society of Hospital Pharmacists , United States

• Honorary chairman

  American Pharmaceutical Association , United States

  1986

• Drug Information Association

• Kappa Epsilon , United States

• Rho Chi , United States

• Roche Hospital Pharmacy Advisory Board

  1971 - 1974

• Member of the committee on standards for drug abuse treatment and rehabilitation programs

  Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals , United States

  1974 - 1975

Personality

Quotes from others about the person

• Lucinda L. Maine, executive vice president and chief executive officer of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy, described Francke as a “role model, mentor, cajoler and encourager” when the American Pharmacists Association named its mentorship award in her honor.

Connections

Gloria Niemeyer Francke was the daughter of Albert B. Niemeyer and Fannie K. (Libbert) Niemeyer. On April 15, 1956, she married the pharmacist Donald Eugene Francke, who was born in 1910 and died in 1978. Their professional lives were closely linked: he directed the national audit of hospital pharmacy services, in which she served as a research associate, and both of them contributed to the resulting book, Mirror to Hospital Pharmacy, published in 1964. Her 2008 obituary describes her as the widow of Donald E. Francke and notes that she was survived by members of the Niemeyer and Francke families.

Father:

Albert B. Niemeyer

Mother:

Fannie K. Niemeyer

Born Libbert.

husband:

Donald Eugene Francke

American pharmacist, author and editor (1910–1978) who directed the national audit of hospital pharmacy services and founded the journal Drug Intelligence, now known as Annals of Pharmacotherapy.

References

• Gloria Francke Obituary, The Washington Post Obituary reporting her death on August 3, 2008, at Ingleside at Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C., and giving details of memorial services and survivors.
  2008
• Francke, Gloria Niemeyer, Purdue University Archives and Special Collections Archival biographical entry describing her birth in Dillsboro, her Purdue and University of Cincinnati degrees, and her work as a pharmacist, educator, author, and publisher.
• Gloria Niemeyer Francke, Wikipedia Encyclopedia article summarizing her career in hospital pharmacy, her editorial work, and the awards that bear or recognize her name.