Author Description

The Harvey A. K. Whitney Lecture Award was established in 1950 by the Michigan Society of Hospital Pharmacists (now the Southeastern Michigan Society of Hospital Pharmacists) to honor the first Chairman of the American Society of Hospital Pharmacists. Responsibility for administration of the Award was accepted by the American Society of Hospital Pharmacists in 1963, and since that time it has been presented annually to honor outstanding contributions to the practice of pharmacy in health systems. The Harvey A. K. Whitney Lecture Award is known as health-system pharmacy's highest honor. The idea of publishing this collection of Harvey A. K. Whitney Lecture Award addresses was largely an outgrowth of the establishment of the Donald E. Francke Memorial Library at the ASHP headquarters building in 1982. The purpose of the Francke Memorial Library is to chronicle the evolution and development of institutional pharmacy in the United States. When the steering committee was formulating plans for the Library, it listed this collection of addresses among the various publications that should be acquired. It is not difficult to understand why this collection came to mind. The men and women who wrote these addresses played prominent roles in the development of hospital pharmacy in this country. Collectively, the addresses constitute a condensed chronicle of this development. They portray the history and culture of institutional pharmacy practice up to the present time.