Perspective in Pharmacy
Topic 3 Attributes of Pharmacists
Pharmacists
● A person prepared to formulate, dispense, and
provide clinical formation on drugs or
medications to health professionals and
patients
● One of the person in health care team and plays a
key role in providing quality healthcare and
pharmaceutical care to the public.
● Pharmacists are responsible to ensure the quality of
pharmaceutical/medicines supplied to the patients
as per the goverment policies/regulation, and
patient pharmaceutical education including
counseling of patients
● Quality control and quality assistance - To produce
safe, effective, and quality drugs.
Pharmacists Then & Now
- Drug compounder and dispensing chemist
- Drug therapy manager
- Pre/para-clinical
Pre-clinical: Development & Researching of drugs
Para-clinical: IN VITRO (non-living) IN VIVO (living)
- Clinical Aspects
Manufacturing, Quality Control, Drug
discovery, Regulatory pharmaceuticals, Drug
dispensing, Patient education, Patient Counseling,
Hospital and community pharmacy.
Pharmacists in the Healthcare Team
● Pharmacists become an integral part of the health
care team.
● Pharmacists as a key member member of the
healthcare team, with responsibility for the
outcomes of medication therapy by giving rational,
effective, and safe use of medicine.
● To be effective healthcare team members,
pharmacists need skills and attitudes enabling
them to assume many different functions & give
pharmaceutical care.
● The WHO introduce the needed attributes for
Pharmacists to perform their duties.
Seven Star Pharmacists
Introduced by the World Health Organization in March 2014.
1. Caregiver
2. Decision-maker
3. Communicator
4. Manager
5. Life-long learner
6. Teacher, and
7. Leader
1. Caregiver
Pharmacists must provide caring services of the highest
quality, and must view their practice as integrated and
continuous with those of the health care system and other
health professionals.
2. Decision-maker
The foundation of the pharmacist's work must revolve around
accurate decisions made or taken regarding appropriate,
efficacious, safe, and cost-effective use of resources
(personnel, medicines, chemicals, equipment, procedures
and practices).
Pharmacists must also play a pivotal role in setting
medicines policy both at the local and national levels. The
pharmacist must thus, possess the ability to evaluate,
synthesize data and information, and decide upon the most
appropriate course of action.
3. Communicator (Most important)
The pharmacist must provide a link between physicians
and patient, and to other health care professionals.
They should have complete knowledge about all the
pharmaceuticals with recent updates and be confident, while
communicating with other health care professional and
community member.
Pharmacists must have effective patient communication
skills and it may help them to provide better pharmaceutical
care to the community by identifying the patient’s problem
and requirements, ensuring the quality or patient life.
Effective communication skills help the practitioners to
collect the accurate and comprehensive information from the
patient and it will help practitioners to provide successful
patient related pharmaceutical education to the patient.
Strong communication skills will enable a pharmacist to
establish the necessary rapport to build a trusting
relationship; and to ensure an effective exchange of
information necessary for the pharmacist to appreciate
patient needs, and for the patient to undestand and accept
pharmacist recommendations.
4. Manager
Pharmacists must have the ability to manage the natural
and commercial resources which include man power,
physical and financial resources.
Developing and maintaining department policies andprocedures, goals, objectives,
quality assurance programs,safety, and environmental and infection control standards
arekey components that aid the pharmacist in evolving as anefficient manager as well
5. Life-long Learner
The concepts of life-long learning must begin, while
attending pharmacy school and must be supported through
the pharmacist’s career.
Pharmacist regularly update their knowledge and skills in
order to keep up with the current trends in issues-related to
drug therapy management.
The Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education
- The lifelong process of active participation in
learning activities that assists individuals in
developing and maintaining continuing competence,
enhancing their professional practice, and
supporting achievement of their career goals.
6. Teacher
One of the pharmacist's responsibilities is to assist with the
education and training of future generations of
pharmacists and the general public.
7. Leader
The pharmacist also plays a leadership role in the healthcare
system to make decisions, communicate, and manage
effectively.
Aleader is one who can create and idea/vision and motivate
others team members to achieve the vision. A leader is a
person who continually encourages constructive differences.
A leader is mission-driven without being egocentric.
Effective pharmacy leaders are experts in demonstrating and
creating high-performance Pharmacy practices characterized
by
● the high-quality patient care
● improved medication safety
● and maximum producticity