Career and Legacy of Wayne Weart

His first boss thought his vision of teaching doctors and pharmacists about drugs meant he must be on drugs. 

“Boy, you been smoking pot?” asked Bernie Morgenstern, owner of Cinnaminson Drug. “That’s not what we do!”

But that IS what you do when you are Wayne Weart R ’72. He’s done it for nearly 50 years and no one has done it better. 

Weart, professor emeritus of clinical pharmacy and outcome sciences at the MUSC College of Pharmacy, was the featured guest on the 100th episode of the podcast series CorConsult Rx: Evidence-Based Medicine and Pharmacy. When host Michael Corvino ’15 was looking for someone of significance to commemorate his 100th show, he knew just where to turn.

“For episode 100, we figured we’d bring in the big guns,” said Corvino, clinical pharmacist at Fetter Health Care Network and adjunct professor of pharmacology at Charleston Southern University. “When people think of clinical pharmacy, this is what they think of. Dr. Wayne Weart.”

It was an easy leap for Corvino and co-host Cole Swanson ’18, assistant pharmacy manager at Publix Pharmacy, who were both taught by Weart at the MUSC College of Pharmacy. But an accurate leap. Weart is nationally-known for his pharmacotherapy expertise and has been recognized with virtually every honor South Carolina pharmacy has to offer. He is one of a select few designated as “Master Teacher” by the MUSC Board of Trustees.

Not a predictable future for the youngster at a New Jersey drug store, where he swept floors, stocked shelves, worked in the soda fountain, and eventually started making deliveries in a Volkswagen bug with a mortar and pestle affixed to the roof. 

But Weart was steeled with a clear vision and a formidable will. While the only health care practitioner in his family had been a nurse back in World War I, he knew in high school what he was destined to pursue. 

“I was in ninth grade and I started to go to a Youth for Christ rally on a regular basis,” he said. “I asked God, ‘What do you want me to do with my life when I go to college?’ All of a sudden, I got this vision that I wanted to go to pharmacy school and I wanted to teach pharmacists and physicians how to use drugs.”

After earning a five-year BS in pharmacy at the University of Georgia, he came to MUSC for a two-year post-BS residency and then went to the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy for his Pharm.D.

It was a different health care landscape in 1974. Physicians didn’t seek advice from pharmacists and pharmacists rarely gave it. No wonder Bernie Morgenstern thought his precocious clerk was out of his mind. But Weart set about changing people’s perceptions of what a pharmacist could do from the start. 

He joined a family medicine practice site in West Virginia, where he teamed up with physician Roland J. “Bud” Weiser to create a program called “The Activated Patient.” They believed patients would have better outcomes as active participants in their own treatment. So the evening program featured Weiser talking about a disease state and Weart talking about the drug therapy. 

In making a believer out of Weiser, Weart found the secret to making his vision become a reality. Weiser told him, “The key to your success, Wayne, is that you don’t just answer my question, you tell me why. You give me the reason or the background, you give me the data to support that recommendation.”

“That is my no. 1 key to success in our profession,” Weart said. “Be able to explain why.”

Hear more about Weart on “The Career and Legacy of Dr. C. Wayne Weart”