“Pharmacy is the canary in the coal mine,”
international students told
Pharmacy is the canary in the coal mine of health professionals,
being predictive of trends that will occur in other professional groups,
Dr Zubin Austin, co-ordinator of pharmacy practice, University of Toronto,
told the International Pharmaceutical Students Federation at a symposium
during its annual congress held in Cairo from 3–14 August.
The symposium was entitled “Globalisation in pharmacy”.
Dr Austin said that globalisation had four fundamental features: “corporatisation”,
“technologisation”, “majoritisation” and “consumerism”.
Within pharmacy, there was control of pharmacies
by non-pharmacist supervisors, indicative of corporatisation, and increased
reliance on technology, which could decrease the importance of pharmacists.
Majoritisation was the selling of globalisation using its benefits for
the majority, even if it did not take account of the needs of the few.
Consumerism arose in pharmacy when money was the common denominator.
Avanthi Govinder, a South African participant said
that globalisation was “a means of guaranteeing everybody in the world
a minimum standard of pharmaceutical care”. However, as one of the Egyptian
participants pointed out, the problem was who set the standards.
The congress was attended by representatives from
34 countries. The meeting was chaired by IPSF president Lindsay McClure,
a former vice-president of the British Pharmaceutical Students Association.
She was made an honorary life member of the IPSF for her work. Conference
participants were able to visit local pharmacies and to visit the pyramids
at Giza.
— Contributed.
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