The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 274 No 7332 p36
15 January 2005

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Designed to please more
Welcome aboard! more

Designed to please

One of the design innovations for The Journal this year is to be the regular use of the centre four-page section as a “pull-out”. Although this device has been used in the past on an ad hoc basis — for Royal Pharmaceutical Society consultations and Prescribing & Medicines Management, for example — there will be relatively few occasions in 2005 when those four-pages will not be designed to be detachable.

One of the main drivers for this change has been requests from many readers; they asked us to make the continuing professional development section more accessible and easier to file. We hope you agree that the new format helps in that process, too. CPD will now appear on a fortnightly basis.

In other weeks, in addition to consultations and P&MM, The Journal will also be carrying newsletters from the Society’s special interest groups. Although there have been dedicated pages from the groups published in the Society section over the past three years, they have not always fulfilled the requirements of the groups’ members. Members of the Industrial Pharmacists Group, in particular, have regretted the decision made by the Council in 2000 for the Society to cease publication of The Industrial Pharmacist.

The Journal hopes that the development of newsletters in this way will not only serve the members of special interest groups, but will also give some flavour of the groups’ activities to more readers of The Journal. At a time when some pharmacists have been questioning what Society membership means to them, we hope that these publishing initiatives will be of value.

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Welcome aboard!

We would like to add to the welcome expressed by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society to the four pharmacy technicians who were the first to register earlier this week (p37). Although it is not known how many pharmacy technicians will register this year and next (registration will not be mandatory until 2007), pharmacy technicians will quickly be able to make their voices heard because two of the places on the reformed Council have been reserved for them. They will also discover that although pharmacy has been sailing in rather choppy seas in recent years, the long-term forecast suggests that there are some clear waters ahead and even blue skies above. However, there are various rocks and sand-banks to negotiate on the way, so technicians will be joining an eventful voyage. Let us hope that they develop their sea-legs promptly.

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