Pharmacy

In honour of the recent Pharmacy Technician Day, I want to take a moment to recognize and express my deepest gratitude to all the pharmacy technicians out there. In the fast-paced world of pharmacy, it’s easy to get caught up in the tasks, deadlines, and the endless flow of patients needing care. But behind every successful pharmacy and every patient served is a dedicated team of technicians who keep everything running smoothly.

Normally, I go out of my way to point out my blog comments are my own and not necessarily shared by any organization with which I am professionally affiliated. However, while the views below are certainly my own, I find it difficult, in today’s blog, to distance myself from my employer, Neighbourly Pharmacy.

Most pharmacy owners retain a financial advisor selected early in their commercial life without thoroughly analyzing whether that advisor remains a good fit for them. What should pharmacists and pharmacy owners consider when choosing the right financial advisor?

The good old pharmacy model saw the pharmacist as the firefighter and the architect, with burnout waiting around the corner. This one-person band put out fires and built buildings. However, since pharmacy is much more complex today, we find that the traditional jack-of-all-trades pharmacist divided into two different people.

Too often, we “recruit” for our teams and processes. We fill gaps with what's available, sometimes settling for what works “for now.” Maybe we hire a support staff member because we urgently need help, and once the position is filled, we stop thinking about what could be better.

We need to unite before we can tackle the external forces fighting us. Another challenge stems from a lack of understanding of the role of the pharmacist itself, from the healthcare industry and patients alike, who still see the pharmacist as a shopkeeper or pill counter.

Across years of experience practising pharmacy, a pharmacist may go through a natural incline in ego during a steep initial learning phase, followed by a plateau. Here pharmacists have seen many of the more intense challenges already and the number of new headaches flattens out. Finally, towards approximately the last third of the pharmacists’ career, they begin feeling less driven by ego and let the problems around them simmer or settle.

Pharmacy professionals are well placed to deliver routine immunizations to those in their communities. As more seasonal and routine vaccines become available, the discussion at Pharmacy U Vancouver will discuss the enablers and barriers to pharmacists playing an integral role in mobilizing vaccination in their pharmacy practice.