Leonard Rappa

Leonard Rappa is a tenured, full professor that began his academic career with Florida A&M University, College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences in December of 1998. Dr. Rappa received his Doctor of Pharmacy degree (with honors) in 1995 from Nova Southeastern University, and subsequently became their first Psychopharmacology specialty resident from 1995-1996. After completion of his residency, he moved to Sarasota, Florida to become Sarasota Memorial’s Psychiatric Pharmacy Specialist. In 1997, he became Board Certified as a Psychiatric Pharmacist, and maintains that certification yearly. In December of 1998, he returned to South Florida to assume a full-time faculty position with Florida A&M University’s Miami Campus, College of Pharmacy. At that time, he established a practice site at Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood, Florida teaching sixth year doctoral students on their Psychiatry Pharmacy clinical clerkship rotation. At Memorial, he integrated himself and the students well into the non-teaching environment, making the milieu very open to a pseudo-teaching atmosphere. Over the next 18 years of practice, he trained hundreds of students, residents, and other pharmacists in psychopharmacology. With his guidance, the internal clinical pharmacy services evolved over time, and at the time he departed, there were several full-time psychiatric pharmacists and a specialized Post-graduate Year II (PGY-2) pharmacy resident. At the beginning of 2017, he established a new clinical practice in Fort Lauderdale at Broward Health Imperial Point and has made great inroads in establishing clinical pharmacy services to the Behavioral Health patients and staff. Dr. Rappa provides specific pharmacotherapy recommendations on targeted difficult cases, per the prescribers’ requests. His students also educate the staff and prescribers with newsletters and presentations. At Broward Health Imperial Point, Dr. Rappa and his students have become an integral part of the psychiatric team and have garnered mutual respect from the nurses and physicians.