Remembering pharmacy icon Peter Vlasses

On August 1, 2026, pharmacy lost another of our trailblazers, Peter Vlasses, former ACPE executive director. As I learned this news, I was reminded that Pete was the 2022 Remington Honor Medalist, earning the profession’s highest honor. This prompted me to go back and read what Pete had to say when delivering his Remington Address. Remington Honor Medal speeches are inspiring, particularly in retrospect since nearly all of the recipients of this medal, like Pete, were trailblazers, even if they didn’t realize it at the time. I knew Pete quite well over the entirety of my career and his life offered profound lessons to consider.

Pete knew where he came from, and he was very proud of it. Pete’s father was from Ithaca, Greece, and that heritage came out frequently in conversations and was evident in his writings. This legacy was important to Pete, because language was a vehicle to express more eloquently the heartfelt passion he had for his profession, giving Pete meaning and purpose. His Remington Address perfectly illustrates this as he contemplates his father’s favorite Greek word “metamorphosis.” The word suggests profound change—a complete transformation. It invites us to consider whether the pharmacist’s role is undergoing its own caterpillar-to-butterfly metamorphosis. The term does not imply speed or timing, only transformation. Pete’s reminder encourages us all to press on.

Pete was also what many of us would call an early adopter. The concept of early adopters comes from a sociologist, Everett Rogers, who described how new innovations are taken up by a society as a part of social change. When Apple released the iPhone, how fast did I ditch my Blackberry device and flip phone to make the switch? Some of us like to wait for innovations to see how things turn out, yet others are wired to take advantage and embrace a change or shift that is happening. Early adopters of pharmaceutical care provided clinical care in community pharmacies in the 1990s when Doug Helpler and Linda Strand introduced the concept. Now over 30 years later, we are trying to achieve the tipping point of widespread standard of care clinical practice. Pete’s work and life remind us that our profession desperately needs more early adopters to lean in and take risks.

Finally, Pete taught us a bit about loving and appreciating ourselves. Sometimes we are intensely hard on ourselves. We see the challenges, work through them, and then criticize ourselves for perceived mistakes or something we could have done better. I’m reminded of the adage that we should not allow perfect to get in the way of the good. Pete did a lot of good in his life. He took many risks as an individual and, in the process, led our profession: one of the most impactful included changes in our doctoral education standards. He also was chairman of the Board of Directors of the Board of Pharmacy Specialties early in its history when we were still trying to decide as a profession if specialists had a place! Now there are over 60,000 BPS-certified specialists.

Pete was president of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy, leading where he thought pharmacy was headed and not focused so much on where it had been in the past. In every leadership position, every role he had in teaching student pharmacists and leading ACPE, Pete always challenged us to think bigger and act more boldly. He understood that metamorphosis in pharmacy would require this. In Pete’s words, “When pervasive change in all sectors of pharmacy practice occurs (and it will!), professional colleagues, patients, and their families will know pharmacists better and love us even more.”

Well done, Pete. Thank you for blazing the trails.

For all of pharmacy.