where are they now?
Sven Normann, Pharm.D.
Current Residency: Gainesville, FL | Current Position: Clinical Staff Pharmacist, Orlando Regional Medical Center
YEArs at uf:
1998-2019
role at UF College of pharmacy:
Associate Dean, Distance, Continuing, and Executive Education and Director of the Working Professional Pharm.D. Program and Clinical Associate Professor
As a teenager growing up in Orlando, Sven Normann, Pharm.D., dreamed of one day working as a pharmacist at Orlando Regional Medical Center. It was the hospital where he was born. His father, mother and brother all worked there, and in high school, he started working in environmental services before transferring to the pharmacy. He fell in love with the hospital pharmacy and made it his mission to one day return.
Nearly five decades later, Normann is living that dream. He joined Orlando Regional Medical Center as a clinical staff pharmacist in 2020. While still living in Gainesville, he makes the trek down the Florida Turnpike several days a week to work at the hospital.
“Having the opportunity to come back to Orlando Regional Medical Center in my retirement days has been very special to me,” Normann said. “The day I graduated high school I started working in the hospital pharmacy as a technician, and the people I worked with had an important impact on the trajectory of my career in pharmacy.”
Normann’s pharmacy career included more than two decades at the University of Florida College of Pharmacy. As director of the Working Professional Doctor of Pharmacy Program, or WPPD, he helped build the nation’s most successful non-traditional Pharm.D. program and opened a pathway for nearly 3,000 pharmacists around the country to secure their Doctor of Pharmacy degree. WPPD offered pharmacists with a bachelor’s degree a way to earn a professional degree and continue practicing at the top of their field.
“For so many of our graduates, we changed their lives,” Normann said. “This program offered flexibility and high-quality education that resulted in a Doctor of Pharmacy degree from the University of Florida.”
The final WPPD class graduated from the UF College of Pharmacy in 2019, and Normann retired from the college a few months later. As a lifelong learner, he completed a graduate certificate in disaster management from the University of South Florida College of Public Health in 2021 and is the lead pharmacist on the Disaster Medical Assistance Team (FL-6) of the U.S. National Disaster Medical System. He also realized it was finally time to return to Orlando Regional Medical Center. As a clinical staff pharmacist, he works 30-40 hours a week while enjoying other interests in life. And in his mind, working at the hospital where he was born is everything he dreamed it would be.
