For
me, personally, 2003 started on a high note with my son being
awarded PDL's "2002 Trainee of the Year" for WA, some
four years after his sister received the same award.
If nothing else I can at least claim that I might be a reasonable
teacher in relation to the profession.
I have some confidence that pharmacy will be in good hands when
I look at the young pharmacists coming out of the universities.
These kids (I speak metaphorically) are so bright it's scary
for a struggling pharmacist dinosaur like me. The amount of
knowledge they have and the ease with which most of them apply
it gives me hope that the profession will retain its standing
in the eyes of the public.
In my job I get to visit many pharmacies each year and it is
gratifying to watch and listen as the pharmacists counsel and
advise customers about their medicines.
QUM is one of the major driving forces in my position with the
government and I'm pleased that it seems to be equally important
to most of my colleagues (especially the younger ones).
Let us hope that this care and professionalism continues to
manifest itself for without it pharmacy will be in real trouble.
Consultant pharmacy is now staggering from its infant, "add
on", status towards one where intellectual input generates
its own income.
It is my hope that in years to come pharmacy will become less
dependent on it supply function, where it is vulnerable to attack
from the "big boys" of retailing, and will instead
be seen as the profession concerned with positive outcomes from
the use of medicines.
This is our intellectual niche and the monopoly should be exploited
to the fullest extent.
Studies are regularly being published showing that effective
pharmacy input not only improves the medical benefits of pharmacotherapy,
but regularly does this at a net saving on drug costs. Governments
(federal and state) just love anything that will either reduce,
or at least restrain rises in, medical costs and pharmacy's
proven ability to do this must be marketed to them.
Pharmacy's standing in government circles, irrespective of what
the pharmaceutical bodies would have you believe, is not very
high with the profession finding it difficult (almost impossible
I would say) to have significant input into policy decisions.
Marketing and public relations is the name of the game so let's
become much more aggressive and professional or we will be left
behind.
Why is it, as one of the pharmacists I spoke to recently told
me, that only about 6% of doctors are requesting medication
reviews by consultants?
With increasing numbers of accredited pharmacists becoming available
the uptake should be much higher, provided, of course, that
the service is producing good results and improving care.
My colleague spoke a little cynically about some of his referrals
where little input was necessary, leading him to suspect that
the whole process was simply a way of increasing the doctor's
income!
If this is a true observation (I hope it is not) it seems that
we still have a way to go with consultant pharmacy before it
becomes regular practice for doctor to refer patients for medication
reviews.
I can't see this happening unless the established inter-profession
barriers are broken done and the reluctance of doctor to refer
to pharmacists is addressed and strategies developed to improve
working relationships.
Until the medical profession can be made to see that it in its
best interests to regularly involve consultant pharmacist in
patient care all review process will depend on local GP prejudices.
Cultural change, in this case, will have to come from the top
if we are to see significant improvement in referral rates.
Finally,
I would like to wish all our readers a happy, and successful,
holiday season and hope to hear from you in 2004---Ken Stafford,
December 2003