Skip to main content

Day to Day Challenges faced by a Pharmacist

Pharmacists are members of one of the oldest medical professions, with records of their work extending back to 16th century B.C. in ancient Egypt. A pharmacist is a bridge between doctors and patients who counsel and advice the patient to maximize the desired effect of the drugs and minimize the adverse effects of the drug. Pharmacy is a multi-disciplinary field and one of the most trusted professions, however, pharmacists face many hurdles and perform their job with numerous challenges.

One of the biggest issues faced by all pharmacists in the world is the work stress. Recent survey results reveal that 61.2% of pharmacists report experiencing a high level of burnout in practice, which is one of the highest rates among healthcare professionals. Most of the Pharmacists are working under pressure with fewer resources which lead them to work with tons of difficulties. In order to reduce work stress Pharmacists are recommended to   take a quick walk around the outside of the store to get a change of scenery when stress builds up. Even a little break, can help reset someone’s emotions when they build up during work. All pharmacists should be involve in recreational activities to lower their stress levels. Pharmacists should also perform mediation for stress and load.



The other most common challenge face by all Pharmacists is the lack of training and education. Education is the foundation for the profession and educators need to enhance the skills of pharmacists to meet new demands, including revalidation. We must build on our successes and further train and develop the pharmacists of the future so that we have a clear pathway to attract more pharmacists into patient facing primary care roles.

A most pressing issue is being seen for pharmacists is in the community sector, is the issue of having too many tasks and targets preventing pharmacists undertaking clinical work. Pharmacists should perform task which should be patient centered, this may increase and enhance their clinical knowledge.

The most important factor is to improve the public recognition of pharmacists and their teams, with emphasis now on community pharmacy. They must be supported with safe staffing levels, opportunities to develop their clinical skills further, and have more autonomy over decision making and a chance to become independent prescribers

Pharmacists interact with countless patients, doctors and third-party insurance companies on a daily basis. For such interactions Pharmacists should be trained accordingly, their curriculum must include lessons on effective communication skills, which usually lacks in pharmacy course outline. Pharmacist should also acquire excellent counselling skills in order to make the patients adhere towards their prescription. Good medication adherence of a patient guided by a Pharmacist can leads to positive clinical outcomes.

Retail pharmacists are often faced with addicts on a regular basis, and the problem of dispensing controlled substances to people who are addicted to them is a constant struggle. Pharmacists must determine whether a patient is using them to get their fix or if the prescription has been issued for a legitimate reason.

Furthermore another big issue face by Pharmacists especially working in hospital is Shift work sleep disorder (SWSD). Because many pharmacies are open 24 hours each day, seven days a week, pharmacists may have to take evening, night and holiday shifts. Exhaustion from evening, night or overly long shifts sometimes causes mistakes in dispensing medication that result in lawsuits against pharmacists.

 

By, 

Mr. Nehal Nadir

Pharmacist

Dr. Ziauddin Hospital,

North Campus


Dr. Ziauddin Hospital's Digital Platforms:

https://www.facebook.com/dzhospitals/ 

To book an appointment call us at 0321-3660249

or click on the link below:

Book an appointment

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Talking Cancer Unfiltered

This week I was doing some filming. I got asked about some of the changes I had seen during my own experiences with cancer since 2007. Back then it was still difficult to talk publicly about the subject. But the Internet was just coming into its own. Being bombarded with information booklets is what I remember most. Which was an improvement from previous years where it was hard to find. However, these days you only have to open any social media platform, and cancer posts are everywhere. Surgeries, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy sessions are there for everyone to see. People proudly displaying their scars. Also, this week I helped facilitate our regular  prostate cancer  support group in my  local cancer center . Something I have been doing for many years. Here we have members that have been attending for a long time, and also newly diagnosed patients. We kicked off the session by asking one of our regulars to tell us how things were for him. Before we knew it, we had got ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Quality Assurance System in Hospital Pharmacy at Dr. Ziauddin Hospital

Health system pharmacies, like other health care professionals, practice under a number of assigned standards. Basic perceptions of quality assurance (QA) values should be applied to hospital pharmacy practice. At Dr. Ziauddin Hospital our Hospital Pharmacy & Allied/ Satellites (clinical specialty wise) services are designed to encounter the prime needs of all our customers. Our Pharmacy services include dispensing of pharmaceuticals in accord with country regulations, proper inventory maintenance & management functions, drug monitoring, patient drug assessment functions, appropriate record-keeping, drug information, IV preparations, education services - training & development and performance improvement functions - having all the broader outlooks aligned to provide the best medication therapy for patients. Our goal is to have an error-free zone of our hospital pharmacy environment, our operation management and all the relevant services.     We focus on a princip...
Post a Comment
Read more

International Day of People with disability.

  D isability is any state associated with specially-abled person who sustain a condition from doing things in a way other person around him do. It creates difficulties for a person to do certain actions or well interactions with the world around them materially or socially. Such conditions/impairment may be rational, intellectual, mental, physical, and developmental or a combination of multiple factors, these causes of disability may be present from birth or can be developed during a lifetime. The word disability applies to everyone dealing with any form of incapacities. It is present among everyone be it temporarily or permanent, at some point of life one has to experience the disability, it’s a part of being Human. According to the research over one billion (15% of the global population) lives with some form of disability and the number of people having it is increasing rapidly. It mostly results from the interaction between individuals having a health condition i.e; down sy...
Post a Comment
Read more