- Two University of Florida College of Pharmacy alums join forces through the Fulbright Specialist program to expand pharmacist internship opportunities in Botswana.
- The partnership addresses a critical shortage of health care professionals by developing training frameworks for the country’s first generation of local pharmacy graduates.
- This initiative aims to improve patient-centered care and medication access as Botswana navigates public health challenges like medicine shortages and chronic diseases.
Call it fate, call it luck. By some great coincidence of circumstance, two University of Florida College of Pharmacy alums — from different continents and eras — recently joined forces in the southern African country of Botswana to help locals become pharmacists and improve public health.
Joyce Kgatlwane and Jim Scott, who graduated with Pharm.D. degrees in 2003 and 1994, respectively, had never crossed paths during their tenures as UF students, but when Scott was chosen as a Fulbright scholar to assist Kgatlwane and her team in their grant project for the Fulbright Specialist program, the pair found they shared not only an alma mater, but the desire to leave a positive impact on pharmacy itself.
Kgatlwane, born and raised in Botswana, collaborated with Scott to expand and formalize the yearlong internship required to become a registered pharmacist in the nation. Community pharmacists play a vital role in Botswana’s medical landscape: They fill prescriptions from general practitioners and consult and treat patients with minor ailments. The government of Botswana provides most health care services for free, but challenges including rising disease prevalences and a lack of medical information management software still hamper patients’ access to care. It’s within this challenging medical landscape that Kgatlwane, Scott and their team aim to leave an impact.
“Being part of the development of pharmacy practice in Botswana is an opportunity that I had never dreamed of,” Scott said. “It has been rewarding to work with so many people dedicated to the profession of pharmacy and the overall welfare of the people of Botswana. Their love for the profession has been very motivating for me to do the best work possible.”
According to the World Health Organization, Botswana employs one pharmacist for every 20,000 members of the population. In August 2025, the national government declared a public health emergency due to a medicine shortage caused by international supply chain issues. The country also faces increasing prevalence of HIV, tuberculosis and other cardiovascular diseases and cancers.
In ongoing efforts to address Botswana’s public health needs, the University of Botswana — where Kgatlwane now teaches pharmacotherapeutics — started offering a Bachelor of Pharmacy degree in 2018. Its first cohort graduated in 2022, and all the graduates were absorbed into internship programs and subsequently hired full-time.
The very next year, graduates could not land internships, as the Ministry of Health lacked positions to offer, Kgatlwane said. This inspired her and her team to seek Fulbright funding to expand pharmacist internships in Botswana.
“The country needed someone to help develop and review the framework, competencies and assessment tools,” Kgatlwane. “There was also a need to train the internship preceptors who mentor our students, so a colleague of mine, Matshediso Matome, and I decided that there should be preceptor training for sustainability. We applied for a grant with the Fulbright program, and that is how Dr. Jim Scott became involved.”
Scott completed five weeks on-site at the University of Botswana, where he met with various stakeholders to conduct assessments and evaluations of the pharmacy program’s existing frameworks. In her partnership with Scott and elsewhere, Kgatlwane’s work is driven by a commitment to service and an understanding of the unique impact pharmacists can have in Botswana. She also participates in the regular review of Botswana’s national HIV guidelines and was a member of the Botswana Harvard Health Partnership Master Trainer Programme — a team of pharmacists, doctors, nurses and medical laboratory professionals responsible for the rollout of antiretroviral medicines in the country.
“Since I had taken an infectious diseases elective at UF, I knew I could contribute toward caring for these affected patients, and I knew there were a lot of other opportunities for pharmacists to contribute,” Kgatlwane said.
While her career has produced many important lessons, there is one principle Kgatlwane gained at UF that continues to guide her work: patient-centered care. She often tells her students that she feels privileged to have taken lectures from “the father of the pharmaceutical care concept,” Charles Hepler, Ph.D., a UF distinguished professor emeritus of pharmaceutical outcomes and policy.
“I also share with my students stories from my time in Gainesville community pharmacy, when my UF preceptor instilled in me that no patient should walk into a pharmacy without the pharmacist inquiring how they may be assisted,” Kgatlwane said. “The didactic and experiential education I received at UF equipped me with the knowledge, skill and confidence to practice as a pharmacist and to contribute meaningfully to the care of patients. The experience is simply rewarding.”