How can i contribute as an individual to attain this vision?
Individual level
Ensure that all chronic care patients who are sent to me have an implementation (pharmaceutical care) plan for their treatment, follow up on them and track their future appointments so that I use that opportunity to evaluate treatment outcomes and set new goals.
I will keep a register of all the patients I provide chronic care to be available for scrutiny by my peers and colleagues, so as to achieve a sustainable continuity of care.
I will encourage the people who I will have the privilege to mentor, to embrace pharmaceutical care so that we can be members of a larger team who we can hand over care of our patients between us whenever we are not available to offer the essential service, with the goal of making sure that chronic care of patients is not an intermittent process but a long term continuous commitment.
I will keep records of my interventions for scrutiny by me and my peers both for accountability and for opportunity for me and my peers to learn and improve our practice.
I will teach, mentor and grow pharmacists younger than me to reach where I have not reached, to offer services that make more impact than I was able to, with or without compensation or remuneration of any kind.
When my time comes I will provide leadership to pharmacists that will ensure that they realize their goals and have professional satisfaction.
As a member of team
I will accept to carry out assignments and responsibilities assigned to me by my peers and professional colleagues that aim to improve the practice of pharmacy.
I will be part of the process that ensures that there is a lifelong learning process going on for me and my fellow practitioners.
I will take advantage of all opportunities to generate new knowledge in my area of practice and specialization, and target to carry at least one research or clinical audit each year which can be appraised by my supervisor.
I will participate actively participate in a society, working group or an association that works to further the interests of the profession.
In the Regulation of Pharmacy Practice
I will push for creation of working groups to come up with standards of practice for all the different specializations in pharmacy.
I will call for the hospital pharmacy representative to the Pharmacy and Poisons Board (PPB) to buy the idea that regulation should always promote the provision of pharmaceutical care and ensure that the Board makes advancement of pharmacy practice a priority.
I will mobilize the pharmacy practitioners and other stakeholders to keep the laws regulating pharmacy practice up to date and make the medicines that were registered after the last revision of Poisons List legal to be prescribed in Kenya.
o I will make my colleagues aware that the Poisons List Confirmation Order-which gave rise to a Poisons List [5] with two parts, (Part 1 and 2), in the Subsidiary Legislation to section 25 (Order under section 25) of the Pharmacy and Poisons Act-is now obsolete and need revision.
o That the revision of the list (addition or removal of medicines) together with its schedules be revised on an annual basis by pharmacists who have significant knowledge base and skills, and spend most of their time providing care directly to patients.
o That the reclassification of medicines from one prescription status to another is done in a structured way and the changes communicated efficiently to all pharmacists and other interested practitioners.
REFERENCES
1. New Statesman, 21 April 1917, article by Sidney Webb and Beatrice Webb quoted with approval at paragraph 123 of a report by the UK Competition Commission, dated 8 November 1977, entitled Architects Services (in Chapter 7).
2. Pharmaceutical Society of Australia: National Competency Standards Framework for Pharmacists in Australia 2010. http://www.psa.org.au/site.php?id=6782
3. Board of Pharmacy Specialties http://www.bpsweb.org/about/vision.cfm
4. Graham Copeland. A Practical Handbook for Clinical Audit. Clinical Audit Support Team, NHS http://www.wales.nhs.uk/sites3/Documents/501/Practical_Clinical_Audit_Handbook_v1_1.pdf
5. Pharmacy and Poisons Act, CAP 244 of the Laws of Kenya
1 comment:
Very well researched. Well articulated.
I especially like your suggestions on communication and interaction with patients and other health professionals. Just the other day, I had an interesting conversation where someone proposed that students leaving medical school both medics and pharmacists - in addition to standard internship) should attend at least some form of finishing school like law students do. Here, general skills in management, interaction, decision making, leadership, innovativeness, presentation, communication and clinical etiquette can be taught. It may at first seem trivial but out in the field, all sorts of blunders occur due to lack of confidence and more importantly inability to admit ignorance. Interactions in hospital settings extend to dealing with administrators, HR personell, casuals, lecturers, students and all sorts of people.
In the end, we seemed to agree that we are sometimes very inept or deliberately condescending when conversing with persons we perceive to be on the periphery of clinical/pharmacy setting or outrightly inferior; such that the gaps in practice that should be filled in a more 'artful' fashion get treated like other technical questions and we mostly remain in disagreement or a constant state of isolation from professionals we should be working hand in hand with.
I feel a bit more emphasis in training can be made on research methods and statistics. Some scholars have suggested doing away with algebra and calculus in school altogether and introducing the science of probability instead; from the very lowest levels. It is through these that professions can encourage impact analysis, modifying public perception, develop new solutions to existing problems, studying patterns etc. And all these are essential in widening the reach of pharmacy practice within the greater healthcare field as the opportunities are limitless.
All the same, effort applauded.
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