How to deal with military prescriptions - Pharmaceutical Press

The Pharmaceutical Journal 331
Letters
NEW PROFESSIONAL BODY
An emphatic “no”
From Mr R. A. Jephson, MRPharmS
My answer to the Leading article
“Will you let them in?” (PJ,
21/28 August 2010, p185) is an
emphatic “no”. Already we have
experienced an unnecessary
downgrading of the pharmacy
profession when, for some strange
reason, technicians were
admitted. Can you imagine the
medical profession doing such a
thing?
Community pharmacists, who
see and deal with patients all day
long, have been led up the garden
path by pharmacists (and others)
who never see a patient and
therefore do not appreciate the
real point (in the public’s eye) of
our profession — namely, the safe
dispensing of prescriptions and
all that it entails.
Evidence of the downgrading
of community pharmacists is
portrayed by the fact of how few
of them are elected to fellowship.
The list is full of managers,
industrialists, academics, etc, who,
of course, may be good at their
chosen career, but rarely do we
see frontline pharmacists gracing
the list.
Another point to make against
this proposal is the fact that many
pharmacists, because of the new
rules, believed it was necessary to
leave the Register and are
therefore no longer able to call
themselves pharmacists for fear of
misleading the public. These are
pharmacists (many known to me
personally) who have given long
www.pjonline.com
and devoted service to the
profession but may now have to
suffer the ignominy of nonpharmacist
scientists being able to
join the new professional body.
What will the public make of
that? Knock this idea on the head
now.
R. A. Jephson
Swindon
They do their jobs and
we do ours
From Mr G. A. Teal, MRPharmS
You ask in the Leading Article
(PJ, 21/28 August 2010, p185)
“Will you let them in?” I would
say emphatically “no”. The
argument that we are often taught
by scientific non-pharmacists is
irrelevant. They do their jobs and
we do ours.
There seems to be no logic
either in the letter by Rachel.
Airley and Henry Chrystyn (ibid,
p186) since making
pharmaceutical scientists
members is not going to make
any difference to our co-operation
or mutual respect.
George Teal
Oxford
Associate membership
for non-pharmacists
may solve the problem
From Dr H. E. C. Worthington,
FRPharmS
In a career involving periods in
academic and industrial
pharmacy, I have known and
worked with a considerable
number of scientists who apply
their specialist training in various
ways. I have the greatest respect
for their often penetrating
thinking and application.
Nonetheless, I am at a loss to
understand how it can be
proposed that microbiologists,
analytical chemists, medicinal
chemists, pharmacologists and
other specialists should be offered
membership of my professional
body. I hold that the training of
pharmacists, with its breadth of
content, creates unique
professionals who alone are
FROM PJ ONLINE
Yes, absolutely yes!
entitled to put MRPharmS after
their names.
The way to solve the problem
is to award associate membership
to non-pharmacists with the
appropriate credentials.
Harry E.C. Worthington
Non-practising Pharmacist
Beaminster,
Dorset
The new Royal Pharmaceutical Society is being developed as the
professional body for pharmacy. Please note that it is pharmacy, not just
pharmacists. Would members vote to exclude preregistration trainees
and pharmacy undergraduates, who are the life-blood of our profession?
I would sincerely hope not.
So the concept of allowing those other than pharmacists to join is
one which I believe will have wide appeal. We are a science-based
profession. Have we forgotten our roots and our proud scientific
heritage? Without pharmaceutical scientists, we would not have a
trusted and respected profession at all. We would not have the wide
range of effective therapeutic agents that we have at our disposal if it
were not for the enormous efforts of those working in the
pharmaceutical industry, many of whom would fall within the definition
of pharmaceutical scientist.
Were it not for the many non-pharmacist academics imparting their
skills and knowledge to those young aspiring pharmacists in our
universities, we could not produce the future members of our
profession.
It is, of course, perfectly true to suggest that pharmaceutical
scientists may want something slightly different than pharmacist
members from our professional body, and the same could be said of
pharmacy undergraduates and preregistration trainees. So should we
also exclude these categories on the basis of this argument?
It is also perfectly true that some pharmaceutical scientists would
choose not to join even if they were given the opportunity, but we should
at least invite them in. If members take the decision to include
pharmaceutical scientists in due course, they will have a different
category of membership than pharmacists. Surely, this is reasonable.
What are some people concerned about? I believe that we should be
creating a body akin to a royal college, which recognises and embraces
all of those with whom we have an inseparable affinity, rather than an
exclusive and self-indulgent club for the sole benefit of pharmacists.
When will we recognise that we cannot operate in isolation? When
will we realise that there is strength in diversity?
Steve Churton, President, Royal Pharmaceutical Society (in his own
opinion)
(Vol 285) 25 September 2010
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