The Pharmacy profession is an interesting and dynamic one in which the Pharmacist can function effectively and lucratively in several different areas. One person could choose to be an Industrial Pharmacist while another, an Academic Pharmacist and another a Community Pharmacist. Or a Hospital Pharmacist, a Pharmacist Journalist, A Marketer, to mention but a few. Each of these various practice areas offer a challenging work environment to its practitioners. While it is essential that each Pharmacist is an expert in his chosen practice area, I believe it is getting to the point where we need to blur the lines of divide a bit. By blurring the lines, I mean we need to begin to COLLABORATE with each other to achieve the desired result we all require.
The Academic Pharmacist wants to be a good teacher to his students. He wants to pass information that is current and relevant to the student he teaches. He wants to conduct research that is timely and relevant for his season. However, he is constrained by many factors including materials, money and resources.
The Industrial Pharmacist has to produce and market drugs that meet the needs of the population per time. He needs to be able to identify a medical problem and produce new discoveries to solve the problem. He, however, experiences time constraints because of his high target for currently available company items.
The Community Pharmacist must regularly supply genuine and affordable drugs along with up-to-date and current drug and patient information. He is however constrained by the time factor due in part to patient turnover and/or he need to make ends meet by engaging in some supplies and contracts.
The Hospital Pharmacist must be able to judiciously assess prescriptions that get to him. He must be able to provide up-to-date information along with items prescribed to patients either on the wards or as outpatients. He must be able to maintain an adequate stock of affordable and genuine drugs and the drugs list should be made available to the prescriber to enable them prescribe items available in the Hospital Pharmacy. He is constrained, however, by time factor due to high patient turnout and inadequate number of Pharmacists. He is also constrained by his physical boundaries and a largely self-imposed abstraction from the main stream of affairs in the Hospital.
And we could go on and on for the various practice areas in the profession.
One major way by which, I believe, we can contain these constraints is by collaborating together. A popular saying goes thus, “Together, we stand, divided we fall”. Even the Holy Books state that ” a House divided against itself cannot stand”. Pharmacy is that House, and we must not allow it to fall. But it can easily fall if each of us is holding tight to our areas of practice to the exclusion of every one else including fellow Pharmacists. Those who coined the motto for the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria, “As men of Honor, we join hands”, were visionary people indeed. We must therefore join hands not just in word (slogan) but also in deed.
The Academic Pharmacist can help the Industrial Pharmacist meet his need by being a source of credible and worthwhile research into new drugs, new routes of administration, new uses of old drugs, etc. The Community Pharmacist can also help the Industrial Pharmacist meet his need of identifying drug needs of the community by processing information at his disposal to the Industries for their use. The Hospital Pharmacist is already doing a good job of helping the Industrial Pharmacist meet the targets set for him to sell company products. The Academic Pharmacist can be helped to surmount his constraints of money materials and resources if the Industrial Pharmacist makes his Research and Development Units or Votes available for the use of the researcher in Academia. In as much as this could lead to the problem of bias, ways can be found around the problem. For example, various Pharmaceutical Industries can contribute a certain amount for the establishment of an independent state-of-the-art Research Laboratory in one or more universities for use by researchers within and around the university on a subsidized pay-for-use option. When the results are then completely ready, the particular company that would benefit from the discovery can then buy the rights to the research from the researcher or institution. Other options can still be explored as long as the will is there.
The Academic Pharmacists need of providing current information to students could be met through the Pharmaceutical Industries and by Hospital Pharmacies serving time in the Universities to teach their specialty areas. Another way would be through his involvement in Community Pharmacy practice. Nigeria, as at today is one of the few countries (if not the only one), where Pharmacists in other practice areas are not allowed to register their own Community Pharmacy outlet. This is not helping the profession on a number of grounds especially as concerning the Academic Pharmacist.
Firstly it means that the Academic Pharmacist is “teaching” what he is not “preaching”. He is “doing as I say rather than doing as I do”. He is saying things he does not have experience of.
Secondly, teaching about what one has read and practiced and teaching about what one has only read are two completely different things. Talking from an experiential background puts so much life into the discussion. It enables the lecturer pass the information across that much easier because he can add experiences he encountered while dealing with the situation or assignment.
Thirdly, it robs the Academic Pharmacist of the skills he would have had in running his business in his highly productive years. By the time he retires from Academia, it takes too much of an effort to learn the necessary skills and mindset of being a business owner. The business so set up will hardly be able to pay its way talk less of affording its owner a decent enough lifestyle.
Many different avenues for collaborating between Hospital and Community Pharmacists, between Pharmacist Journalists and Academic Pharmacists, between Pharmacists in Government and Pharmacists on the field and within and between the various other practice areas exist and even abound. It is not possible to exhaust them all here. My desire is to open our eyes and our hearts to what we could make this Profession into by the time we are all truly “joining hands”. We would then become a real force to reckon with in the health-care industry because we would be united in word and in deed. No Government or individual would be able to look down on any Pharmacist wherever he may be because they know that they would be losing not just that Pharmacist but also all his collaborators as well. The Profession of Pharmacy would then finally be on its way to taking its pride of place as the Profession whose predominant function is the responsible provision of drug therapy for the purpose of achieving definite outcomes that improve a patient’s quality of life1.
Culled from Viewpoint, Nigerian Journal of Pharmacy (2004)
Do you agree with this piece? Let’s have your views on the various issues raised here