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Letters to the Editor
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Careers supplement
Is industrial pharmacy a peripheral activity?
From Dr I. M. Walker, MRPharmS
Beverley Parkin’s reply (PJ, 6 March, p282) to Robin Harman and
Julian Gilbert regarding the pharmacy supplement published with The
Independent on 21 February does not seem satisfactorily to address the issues that
they raised.
Scant reference was made in the supplement to the opportunities that
are available for pharmacists within the pharmaceutical industry: two
brief references in the main text and one in the advertorial. In contrast,
the focus of the supplement was essentially exclusively directed towards
community and hospital pharmacy, as exemplified by the highlighted panels
giving career perspectives from both a community and a hospital pharmacist.
Ms Parkin states that the “the decision on content and focus of
the publication was, as is usual, for the editor to make”. Did
the Royal Pharmaceutical Society have any input into and control over
the balance of the supplement? If the answer is “yes”, then
it has failed to ensure a balanced presentation of the career opportunities
available to pharmacists. If the answer is “no”, is it likely
that any other professional body would similarly relinquish control over
how it presents itself to an audience of 200,000 readers of The Independent?
It should be of concern to all pharmacists that it is possible that the
Royal Pharmaceutical Society not only concurs with the focus and content
of the supplement but also has a vision for the future of pharmacy and
pharmacists that is centred around community and hospital pharmacy, and
in which industrial pharmacy is considered a peripheral activity.
Ian Walker
Ely, Cambridgeshire
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BEVERLEY PARKIN, director of public affairs and communications, Royal
Pharmaceutical Society:
The Royal Pharmaceutical Society, of course,
promotes pharmacy as a career across all the fields of work in which
pharmacists
practise. The answer to Ian Walker’s question is that the Society
had input into, but not control over, the content of The Independent careers
supplement. In briefing The Independent’s editorial team, we
talked to them about the full range of careers that are open to pharmacists,
as is evident from the copy in the publication. That the editor chose
to run only more detailed profiles of a community and a hospital pharmacist
was his decision, and is likely to have been influenced by the limitation
of editorial space. I agree that it would have been interesting also
to see profiles of pharmacists working in industry, primary care,
teaching,
management and, indeed, all the many areas where pharmacists work. |
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