Now retired, Richard Schirripa enjoyed a lengthy and varied career as a pharmacy professional in New York City, a metropolitan region that presents medical and retail professionals with diverse challenges. Pharmacists are responsible for prescribing drugs, monitoring patient health, and, with specialized training, providing certain immunizations. They must also advise patients on a range of medication issues, such as dosages, interactions, and possible side effects.
Advising on patient health in New York City can be challenging for pharmacy professionals like Richard Schirripa, as the city has consistently ranked as one of the most diverse in the United States. While the city’s diversity is a defining hallmark, it provides medical professionals with many unique challenges. As a pharmacist in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and other parts of New York City, Richard Schirripa was often required to navigate various communication hurdles, including language barriers, literacy issues, and other complications stemming from multicultural and sociocultural differences.
As a career pharmacist, Richard Schirripa appreciates the importance of effective provider-patient communications, which yield higher rates of patient satisfaction and, more importantly, healthier patient outcomes. Pharmacy leaders in multicultural communities can take steps to remove language and cultural barriers.
Richard Schirripa gained experience in this regard from the start of his career as a stock boy at Kings Pharmacy in Brooklyn. In this role, he made deliveries to a diverse group of patients throughout the borough, while also engaging with patients at the cash register. Mr. Schirripa spent 14 years at the Brooklyn pharmacy, working his way up to the position of store manager for three separate Kings Pharmacy locations. Prior to pursuing his pharmacy career, he attended the Brooklyn College of Pharmacy and graduated with a bachelor of science in pharmacy.
After graduating with his pharmacy degree and obtaining his pharmacist license, Richard Schirripa opened Drug Rich Pharmacy, his own store in Spanish Harlem, a neighborhood in the Upper East Side. He owned the 700-square-foot pharmacy and managed a staff of 20 employees as the president and chief executive officer for nearly 25 years. He continued to engage with the city’s diverse population as a supervising pharmacist supporting the patient community at nearby Metropolitan Hospital.
During his time leading Drug Rich Pharmacy, Richard Schirripa navigated one of the most unique and demanding challenges of his career: the AIDS pandemic in the 1980s. The human immunodeficiency virus infection (HIV), which causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), found its way to the US during the 1970s and exploded during the following decade. Pharmacists like Richard Schirripa found themselves particularly pressured by the epidemic, which impacted New York City more than any other region in the country. In fact, the National Institutes of Health reports that New York City recorded the most new AIDS cases per 100,000 persons than any other metropolitan city in 1999. Once again, Mr. Schirripa and other medical leaders had to overcome the city’s nuanced socio-cultural factors, which resulted in highly localized outbreaks.
Richard Schirripa continued to expand his pharmacy work, balancing his responsibilities at Drug Rich Pharmacy with leadership and ownership roles throughout Manhattan. As the chief executive officer, owner, and president of Madison Avenue Pharmacy, Inc., Mr. Schirripa once again faced challenges unique to a large metropolitan region like New York City. In 2001, his store became the first and largest provider of pharmacy services to first responders during the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. First responders experienced a range of injuries and illnesses in the aftermath of the attacks, many of which are still being felt today.
Mr. Schirripa received several awards for his efforts as a pharmacy leader in New York City, including the J.D. Power Award. He also engaged with many of the city’s most important pharmacy organizations, including his tenure as chair of the Membership Committee for the New York City Pharmacist Society, among several additional affiliations. He retired in 2020 following more than five decades of pharmacy work.