Father and Son Alumni Spend Decades Fulfilling Tennessee’s Pharmacy Needs

College of Pharmacy alumni Van Swaim, DPh, left, and Mike Swaim, DPh, operate Van's Institutional Pharmacy in Martin, Tennessee.

Over their 99 combined years of practice, Van Swaim, DPh, and his son Mike Swaim, DPh, built something of a pharmacy empire in Tennessee.

Both graduates of the University of Tennessee Health Science Center College of Pharmacy, the father and son have been business partners for over three decades, currently operating Van's Institutional Pharmacy in Martin, Tennessee. Over the years, they have served communities across the state through the drugstores and institutional pharmacies they have owned.

At 85 years old, Dr. Van Swaim is one of the oldest working pharmacists in Tennessee, and he and his stores have filled more than 5 million prescriptions. He first developed an interest in pharmacy as a child in Greenfield, Tennessee, approximately 14 miles south of Martin, where he started learning from a pharmacist who lived next door. He later attended the College of Pharmacy, graduating in 1961 and making valuable connections along the way.

"We had 90-plus students in my class, and we grew close because we were in every class together. The only thing that separated us: I was a Kappa Psi, and the others were Phi Delta Chi," he said.

After working in hospitals and pharmacies in the Memphis area for a few years, Dr. Swaim moved closer to his hometown to work at a pharmacy in Martin, where his wife was working as a soda jerk at a different drugstore. He bought interest in the pharmacy, eventually buying it out and naming it Van's Pharmacy in 1974. The store gave his son his first look into his future profession.

"I started out cleaning shelves and being the delivery boy at 15 or 16 years old," Dr. Mike Swaim said. "I just grew up in pharmacy; I didn't know any different."

The younger Dr. Swaim continued to follow in his father's footsteps, graduating from the College of Pharmacy in 1986. Just like his dad, he formed strong connections, not only with his classmates, but also with his instructors. "We got to be really close friends with our professors," he said. "We went to their houses and ate, and we went to dinner with them. It was a different atmosphere in professional school than a four-year college."

After graduating, Dr. Swaim didn't want to work for his father right away. He started working for an institutional pharmacy where he serviced medicines for health care providers across Tennessee. Eventually, he could no longer pass up the opportunity to join in his father's success, and the two became business partners in the 1990s. Together, they bought and sold several pharmacies in West Tennessee, and their businesses became staples in the communities of Martin, Paris, and Dresden.

"We've been blessed to be given this opportunity," Dr. Mike Swaim said. "We take ownership in giving back to our community, and I think that's what we've done."

"The college has been a blessing to both of us, and we want to give back. We think pharmacy is obviously an important profession in the state of Tennessee. We want other young people to have the same experience we had and to get the same education we had."

Dr. Mike Swaim

After decades of partnership, the father and son have narrowed their focus into their institutional pharmacy, which provides services for patients of long-term care facilities, assisted living facilities, and supported living homes across the Mid-South. Although he has turned over the management decisions to his son, Dr. Van Swaim still shows up to work five days a week.

"It has worked out great for me," he said. "I come in every morning, open up, and crank up all the robots and computers and so forth. I'm not sure I could handle retail pharmacy at my age, but institutional pharmacy has been a blessing for me to get up and have a place to go every day."

Throughout their careers, both Dr. Swaims have remained dedicated to the College of Pharmacy and its mission to educate the pharmacists of the future. They have served on boards and committees under multiple deans, and their businesses have helped train students and employed graduates for decades.

"We know when they're trained at the College of Pharmacy, we get quality. We know what Memphis offers, and we've never been disappointed with any of these graduates," Dr. Van Swaim said. His son added, "The college has been a blessing to both of us, and we want to give back. We think pharmacy is obviously an important profession in the state of Tennessee. We want other young people to have the same experience we had and to get the same education we had. We were trained well and prepared when we got out, and we want the same opportunities for other people."

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