Church Receives Health-System Pharmacy's Highest Honor

ASHP is pleased to announce that Richard M. Church, PharmD, a pharmacy leader who made significant contributions to public health, information technology, and management practices in the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS), is the recipient of the 2025 Harvey A.K. Whitney Lecture Award, health-system pharmacy’s highest honor.

Church is a retired assistant surgeon general and rear admiral in the Commissioned Corps of the PHS. He served as the PHS Chief Pharmacist Officer (CPO) and several program and executive leadership roles in the Indian Health Service (IHS). He will receive the award at ASHP Pharmacy Futures 2025 in June.

Church began his career on the clinical pharmacy faculty of the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Pharmacy where he initiated a clinical pharmacy program to improve the care of patients treated in the hospital’s ambulatory care clinics. This early pursuit of ambulatory-care clinical pharmacy practice set the stage for his later extensive efforts in this vein. In 1973, he was commissioned in the PHS Commissioned Corps and served at IHS hospitals and clinics in New Mexico, Michigan, and Oklahoma. During his time in the IHS, Church was instrumental in advancing innovations such as dispensing medications to ambulatory patients from the patient’s medical record, patient counseling to improve medication adherence, and pharmacist-provided primary care.

He was appointed to the executive leadership of the PHS in 1985, first as chief pharmacist of the IHS and, in 1987, CPO and assistant surgeon general in the PHS Commissioned Corps. Both appointments marked the first time a Native American has served in these roles. He was deeply committed to the mission of the IHS to serve the immense healthcare needs of American Indians and Alaska Natives). As a pharmacist in a progressive practice environment, he became dedicated to advancing the patient-care contributions of pharmacists.

While serving concurrently as PHS CPO and IHS Chief Pharmacist, Church took the lead in promoting IHS techniques for patient counseling to assist the profession in meeting the requirements of a new federal law mandating pharmacist medication counseling. He also worked to codify the professional philosophy and processes employed by the IHS into formal standards of practice, spearheaded pharmacist recruitment and professional development in the Commissioned Corps, and later, as IHS chief information officer, led efforts to implement a common electronic health record across the IHS.

After retiring from the PHS Commissioned Corps in 2007, Church entered the Senior Executive Service and continued as director of the IHS Office of Public Health Support. In this role, he oversaw national program statistics, medical epidemiology, and support for health professions. He retired in 2014.

Church is the recipient of numerous honors for his work, including the PHS Distinguished Service Medal; the Surgeon General’s Medallion; the Surgeon General’s Exemplary Service Medal; the Director’s Award- Indian Health Service; the Association of Military Surgeons of the U.S. Andrew Craigie Award; and the University of Michigan College of Pharmacy Distinguished Alumnus Award.

Church received a Bachelor of Science in pharmacy and a Doctor of Pharmacy from the University of Michigan College of Pharmacy in Ann Arbor. He completed a residency in hospital pharmacy at the University Hospital of the University of Michigan Medical Center.

ASHP has administered the Harvey A.K. Whitney Lecture Award — established in 1950 by the Southeastern Michigan Society of Hospital Pharmacists — since 1963. Harvey A.K. Whitney, ASHP’s first president, was an editor, author, educator, practitioner, and leader in hospital pharmacy. The award recognizes significant contributions to the advancement of pharmacy practice. Nominations for the award are made by past recipients and ASHP members. The winner is selected by a majority vote of past honorees.