Firstly,
local accredited consultant pharmacists held a continuing education
(CE) night where a hospital doctor spoke on falls prevention.
During his presentation he spoke about drug induced falls and the
need for pharmacists to be involved in the prevention programme.
Unfortunately, as he described his programme, I could not see how
pharmacist expertise was being tapped.
I felt there was a degree of ambivalence about the whole presentation.
"Pharmacists are a great resource, but we don't use them"
seemed to be the message.
I sincerely hope that I misunderstood what he said! Is the roller
coaster going up or is it on the downhill run?
Next was an
all day seminar on diabetes where the keynote speaker waxed eloquent
about pharmacy input into diabetes treatment.
The speaker, once again a hospital based doctor, emphasised the
multidisciplinary nature of diabetes care and control and spoke
about the importance of medication reviews.
Mention was made during the day of the 26000 HMRs that pharmacists
have carried out nationally and the benefits accruing to various
QUM programmes.
Here is one doctor very much an ally of the profession, definitely
the ride was on the up.
The euphoria
lasted all of 20 hours!
Next day I attended a workshop run by the state health department
to develop a falls strategy framework (as you can tell this topic
is close to my heart) where medication usage was seen to be a
significant factor in causing falls.
"Good", I thought, "Here is where the role of the
community pharmacist will be highlighted and acknowledged."
As is usual in such workshops, small interest groups formed and
mine contained a doctor representing one of the divisions of general
practice.
A division that I know has a very experienced and competent ex
hospital pharmacist attached to it as part of the NPS programme.
I was amazed at the attitude of the doctor who seemed to find
no role for pharmacists in falls prevention programmes!
According to this doctor only the medical profession has the expertise
to manage medications to prevent falls - talk about the coaster
being on its way down.
I know these
are isolated incidents and that most consultant pharmacists have
been able to develop good working relations with referring doctors
but I still get despondent at times.
I would imagine that most general practitioners would, by now,
have been through the hospital system and worked with clinical
pharmacists as part of the hospital health team and have learned
to value their input.
Why is it that many doctors are still so resistant to working
with community pharmacists?
Part of my job entails visiting pharmacists to discuss a number
of matters and I frequently hear stories of how difficult they
find it to have local doctors accept them as equal members of
the health care team in the community.
We promote pharmacists as being the medication management experts
but how are we to proceed when a very important medical colleague
appears to refuse to accept that notion?
I am aware that a number of strategies have been devised to "break
down the barriers" but they don't seem to be working on a
global scale.
It would be interesting to hear from consultant pharmacists how
they have been able to build good working relations with the medical
fraternity.
Please, give me some clues that I can pass on to my community
friends when I am out on the road.
I tell people that "I'm from the government and I'm here
to help you" - this might be a very good way to start.
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