The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 274 No 7333 p85
22 January 2005

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· The Society (23)
· Overseas pharmacists (2)
· Fellowship (2)
· Diamorphine
· Morphine sulphate
· Chloramphenicol
· Drug donations
· The Journal (2)

Letters to the Editor

Overseas pharmacists

The Society will lose a contributor and an advocate

From Dr C. M. Minchom, MRPharmS

I owe the Royal Pharmaceutical Society an apology. In my recent letter (PJ, 15 January, p50) I suggested that it might have failed to allow for the £380,000 revenue loss when we 18 per cent of unwanted pharmacists (overseas, industrial, academic, non-working, part-time, retired and “other” sectors) are forced to retire from the Register. I failed to allow for the substitution of loss of income from unwanted pharmacists by that of registered pharmacy technicians (who will have representation on the Council). How silly of me to miss this fact, which must have made for an easier decision by the Council.

My fate is sealed: the leadership of the Society has informed me that erasing a portion of the “non-practising” declaration is, in effect, not signing it and that by the Society’s definition of “practising” I have admitted I do practise by being an industrial pharmacist.

As an overseas industrial pharmacist the cost to benefit of paying the registration fee required of a practising pharmacist in Great Britain is much too high. I will retire from the Register, read the PJ on my laptop as I travel to “work in or give advice in the science of medicines” and will describe myself as “a scientist who was registered as a pharmacist in Britain for 20 years”. I will lose “MRPharmS”; the Society will lose a contributor and advocate.

North American pharmacy registration boards allow industrial pharmacists on their non-practising registers. The Society is parochial in choosing to define practising beyond that which is legally necessary to practise in Britain.

Colin Minchom
Toronto, Canada

Things are different in Ontario

From Mr Peter J. Wilson, MRPharmS

When the Ontario College of Pharmacists eliminated the “retired” designation from its register, I chose to resign rather than face mandatory continuing professional development for no reasonable purpose. I should also mention that almost my entire career as a pharmacist was spent in industry, in which my skills as a pharmacist were used almost daily. The college presented me with a certificate acknowledging me as “pharmacist emeritus” for “devoted service to the profession of pharmacy”. I also receive the OCP publication.

I am a pharmacist and will die as one. I am proud to be so designated. But after 58 years on the Register of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain I am not at all proud of the way we elder statesmen of the profession are being treated by the new breed of “pharmacrats”.

Peter Wilson
Etobicoke, Ontario, Canada

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