Ethical dilemmas are a constant feature of community pharmacy practice, but most pharmacists are not familiar with their profession's Code of Ethics. That is one of the key findings of research published in the June issue of the International Journal of Pharmacy Practice.
Researchers from Manchester university report that pharmacists encounter ethical issues in their daily working lives and that they have the skills necessary to deal with areas of uncertainty using a common-sense approach. This means that different pharmacists respond to the same ethical dilemma in different ways.
They say: "This situation is acceptable since ethical dilemmas often have more than one right answer, but it is essential that each pharmacist should be able to justify and defend his or her decisions on a moral basis."
Some of the ethical issues considered in the paper arose from the pharmacist's role as medicines supplier and intermediary between patient and prescriber or between carer, patient and doctor. Other issues arose from the role as guardian of over-the-counter medicines or from the legal framework within which pharmacists work.
In addition, the authors say, pharmacists have a commitment to to generate profit, which leads to an ethical dilemma over the refusal to sell medicines inappropriately.