Bussey

Henry I. Bussey, Pharm.D., FCCP, has been chosen by the Parker Medal Selection Committee as the 2020 recipient of the College’s Paul F. Parker Medal for Distinguished Service to the Profession of Pharmacy. Retired as of 2020, Bussey continues to serve Genesis Clinical Research in a consulting role. His previous roles include president and senior editor of ClotCare Online Resource, professor at the University of Texas at Austin College of Pharmacy, and clinical professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.

Paul Parker was one of clinical pharmacy’s most influential proponents. Before his death in 1998, Parker spent 24 years as director of pharmacy at the Chandler Medical Center/University of Kentucky in Lexington. His innovations included developing decentralized pharmacy services, placing pharmacists in the hospital’s clinical areas, and developing the nation’s first pharmacist-staffed drug information center. Parker’s vision for pharmacy practice was passed along to the more than 150 residents and fellows who trained in the Kentucky program during his tenure. These disciples included many of today’s leaders in clinical pharmacy who continue to pass along his wisdom and vision to their trainees and colleagues. The Paul F. Parker Medal recognizes an individual who has made outstanding and sustained contributions to the profession that improve patient or service outcomes, create innovative practices, affect patient populations, further the professional role of pharmacists, or expand the recognition of pharmacists as health professionals.

The Parker Medal Selection Committee chose Bussey as the 2020 medalist on the basis of his lifetime record of contributions toward advancing the professional role of pharmacists and his impactful leadership.

Bussey’s supporters commented on his accomplishments. In his letter of support, Stuart T. Haines, Pharm.D., professor and director of professional development in the Department of Pharmacy Services at the University of Mississippi, described Bussey as follows:

[He was an] early adopter and pioneer on the World Wide Web…. In 2000, Dr. Bussey (with his daughter, Marie) created ClotCare.org – an online information hub for clinicians and patients. The work of ClotCare.org had a significant impact by facilitating the timely communication of evidence-based practices through a nontraditional medium…. Dr. Bussey subsequently developed an online patient management system to make anticoagulation therapy management services and self-testing accessible to patients anywhere.

In his letter supporting the nomination, Jerry L. Bauman, Pharm.D., editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy and dean and distinguished professor emeritus at the University of Illinois College of Pharmacy, stated that Bussey’s practice and research in the area of antithrombosis “made a seminal impact upon our profession”:

Through [his] pioneering contributions, pharmacists in health care settings went from essentially not contributing (except for filling prescriptions for the drug product warfarin) to independently managing most patients at academic health centers and in many community hospitals. I think today, it is standard of care for clinical pharmacists to manage antithrombosis therapy in ambulatory settings at academic health centers, and I attribute this important change in practice to Henry Bussey…. In short, (Bussey) became the most highly visible pharmacist in the area of thrombosis in the world.

In her letter of nomination, Jean Nappi, Pharm.D., professor of clinical pharmacy and outcome sciences and associate director of graduate pharmacy education at the Medical University of South Carolina, discussed Bussey’s leadership in ambulatory care and anticoagulation therapy:

Dr. Bussey has 135 articles, letters, editorials, book chapters, or online publications, and he is the first or senior author on the majority. These publications are in both well-known and respected pharmacy and medical journals. Bussey’s findings that the PT ratio was inferior to the INR led to major changes in the guidelines for monitoring warfarin. Bussey was also appointed (as the first pharmacist) to the American College of Chest Physicians Consensus Conference on Antithrombotic Therapy. His work also led to a proliferation of pharmacist-run anticoagulation clinics and point-of-care (fingersticks) INR monitoring across the country.

Finally, in her letter of nomination, Sarah A. Spinler, Pharm.D., FCCP, FAHA, FASHP, AACC, BCPS-AQ Cardiology, professor and chair of the Department of Pharmacy Practice, School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at Binghamton University, stated that Bussey’s creation of ClotCare.org was part of his “passion for getting patients answers in areas where there often were few data”:

[Bussey’s] leadership helped establish anticoagulation as a practice area for thousands of pharmacists. His clinic work helped grow ambulatory care as a specialty, and his clinic was a model for care. His devotion to advocacy of the patient with thrombosis needing anticoagulation is evident through both his research and his advocacy.

At the time of his nomination, Bussey had written 127 publications and made 227 selected presentations over a 43-year period. He has received numerous awards, including the Global Humanitarian Project Award from the Chest Foundation of the American College of Chest Physicians, the Pinnacle Award for work to improve the safety of oral anticoagulation from the American Pharmacists Association Foundation, and the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015 from the Cardiology PRN of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy. He received a Fellow award from ACCP (1981-present) and was a fellow of the American College of Chest Physicians from 1999 to 2018.

Bussey will be recognized during the 2020 ACCP Annual Meeting. The Parker Medal Selection Committee is composed of representatives from member organizations of the Joint Commission of Pharmacy Practitioners together with past presidents of ACCP. Members of the 2020 selection committee were Terry Seaton (chair), Nancy Alvarez, John Armitstead, Jean-Venable “Kelly” Goode, Thomas Hardin, Judith Jacobi, Jill Kolesar, J. Robert Powell, Steven Scott, and Janet Silvester.