Women in leadership and big business interests top issues at 2019 PxP conference

CTV personality Marci Ien was the keynote for the pre-conference Women in Pharmacy Leadership Summit. (Photo by Alex Heidbuechel)The 2019 national pharmacy conference, Pharmacy Experience Pharmacie 2019 wrapped up on June 5.This year’s event, held in Toronto and produced in partnership by the Canadian Pharmacists Association (CPhA) and the Ontario Pharmacists Association (OPA) provided attendees with a forum to learn about and discuss some of the hot topics in the profession right now.This year, at the instigation of CPhA president Christine Hrudka, and as part of the association’s Women in Pharmacy Leadership initiative, a group of more than 200 booked themselves in for the half-day pre-conference Women in Pharmacy Leadership Summit. Both the initiative and the summit were designed to help understand how to engage more female pharmacists in the profession’s leadership.Currently, CPhA research has found that, while just over 70% of Canadian pharmacists are women, they are under-represented when it comes to leadership positions. Just one-third of pharmacies are owned by women, and female representation in corporate leadership and on boards of directors lags in most organizations.The bright spot is advocacy associations, of which more than two-thirds are led by female executives and elected leaders. In fact, the following day, OPA chair Mike Cavanagh handed the reins over to young pharmacist—and new mom—Jen Baker who will lead that association in 2019.The summit provided a single-focus and comfortable venue for women in the profession to discuss the challenges they face in moving into leadership and the changes that may need to occur both within organizations and in the way women approach their roles. One key point that arose from the day was the potential value of both formal and informal mentoring as a way to encourage more women to pursue challenging goals.Later, in her welcome remarks to the general conference attendees, Hrudka reiterated the fact that it is one of CPhA’s key mandates in the coming year to help increase the percentage of women growing into pharmacy leadership roles.Other CPhA priorities include: encouraging more Canadian pharmacists to share their patient care stories so both patients and policy makers can understand the value pharmacy care brings to healthcare in this country; to work towards extending access to medical and pharmaceutical care to at-risk populations; to continue to lobby for a single, national pharmacy scope of practice, and to continue to use the #ReThinkPharmacists awareness initiative to raise the profile of pharmacists as “the answer to many of the problems” plaguing the current primary care system.Annual pharmacy awardsA highlight of Monday (Day 1 of the three-day conference) was the annual awards presentations. The OPA and CPhA presented their awards in an afternoon ceremony.The OPA named Mississauga pharmacist John Girgis with the Pharmacist of the Year award, and David Windross, a pharmacist with several decades of history in the pharmaceutical industry as well as within pharmacy and various pharmacy organizations, was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award. Michael Ibrahim received the Pfizer Consumer Healthcare Bowl of Hygeia and Naushin Hooda won this year’s Student of Distinction Award. For more about the OPA award winners, read here.CPhA also presented several awards, including Pharmacist of the Year to Mike Stuber.Learning is a large part of any pharmacy conference, and PxP2019 features three days of continuing education sessions in which attendees can select from any of four concurrent topics. On Wednesday, attendees could select from two full-day topic streams: “AI and technology in pharmacy” or “Teamwork in pharmacy.”A large trade show and exhibit floor allows pharmacists to learn about new products and services and the ability to ask questions of vendors directly. The trade show also included manufacturers’ product learning sessions and research poster presentations.Be comfortable talking about mental healthA highlight of Monday evening’s trade show was a talk by sports commentator and mental health sufferer and advocate Michael Landsberg. Landsberg, who heads up the #sicknotweak awareness portal to bring greater awareness and fairness to the way we think about mental illness, implored pharmacists, both as healthcare providers and as people, to assimilate the reality that depression, anxiety, suicide and other mental illnesses will affect virtually everyone, either personally or through involvement with a loved one, and that we all need to be comfortable talking about it.“It’s 2019 and we still live in an age where the truth gets buried,” he said.Asked what is the most valuable thing pharmacists can do for patients suffering from depression or other mental illness, Landsberg implored them to listen. “Understand that unless you have suffered from it, you can’t understand what they are going through.” What a pharmacist can do, however, is to understand that it can be frightening, overwhelming and embarrassing to hand over a prescription for an antidepressant or other anti-psychotic. It can mean a lot, he said, to quietly and unobtrusively let the patient know that you understand that they are sick and that you can help them make the most of their medication. Ask them what information they need to know in order maximize its benefit, and let them know that you are happy to answer any questions.“Don’t tell them what you can do for them—ask them what you can do for them.”How do we get control back?A conference tradition is the afternoon Town Hall Forum, in which association leaders answer questions from attendees. This year, pharmacists were able to input and vote on questions once in the forum, with the questions and votes shown on large screens. This gave all a chance to see what their peers were asking and to add their vote to popular questions.By far the question on most pharmacists’ minds was in regards to the feeling that pharmacy professionals have ceded control of their profession to corporate interests. Leaders from both CPhA and OPA agreed that the current reimbursement model is the root of the dilemma: Pharmacy is the only healthcare profession in which the “place” is paid for services provided by the “professional.” Unless that changes in some way, all agreed, there is not really a way forward that changes the balance. Said OPA executive VP and chief pharmacy officer Alan Malek, “There first has to be a better mechanism to enable pharmacists to be paid for doing the work they do for patients. The question is how?”The current model that pays the business and doesn’t support the professional is challenging–but the alternative option also has its challenges.”A young practitioner stood up and asked the room, “What can we do to change the negative culture of pharmacists?” The first pharmacist he worked for as a pharmacy intern asked him “Why would you want to be a pharmacist?” Not the welcome to the profession he was hoping for.CPhA chair Christine Hrudka stressed that pharmacists who are embracing patient care already do have the attitude he is seeking. “As soon as we separate ourselves from product-based distribution, the culture will change. As you become more service-based and knowledge-focused, there is so much more reward in our practice.”Pharmacists who are unhappy tend to be in a product-focused practice, she said.“There is so much fulfillment when you start doing true patient care.”

Women in leadership and big business interests top issues at 2019 PxP conference

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