The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 277 No 7411 p132
29 July 2006

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· The profession (2)
· Dispensing
· Medicine use reviews
· Strains and sprains
· CPPE
· Fellowship

Letters to the Editor

The profession

Praise for pharmacists

From Mr D. R. Thomas, MRPharmS

It was most refreshing to read the praise and commendation in reading the letter which was published in The Daily Telegraph on Saturday 22 July. I assume that the writer was a member of the medical profession and I quote: “There is a remarkably simple solution to the problem of drug errors by hospital doctors. … Consultants should have a pharmacist on at least one of their weekly ward rounds. The pharmacist on my rounds got to know the patients personally [and] not only helped us choose the best drug, cancel unnecessary ones and made us more aware of drug side effects, but also saved the NHS thousands of pounds each year. We were humbled by what we learnt and by the modesty of these professionals.”

It is good indeed to have praise like this published in a major national newspaper.

David Thomas
Hanworth Park, Middlesex

A panegyric to lost arts of pharmacy

From Mr M. J. Tobyn, MRPharmS

Glyn Kearney’s letter (PJ, 22 July, p102) was a panegyric to the lost arts of pharmacy and an apparent elegy for his own youth.

In those days the value of a pharmacist was not measured by their ability to improve the lives of patients by developing new, effective medicines, or by positively influencing the decisions of physicians or by hugely improving patient outcomes by ensuring that they take the correct medicines in the correct manner. Perhaps the pharmacist’s value came from the ability to prepare ineffective but harmless nostrums, away from the prying eyes of the recipient, and without regard for good manufacturing practice, which goes a long way to preventing unnecessary harm to the recipient.

It is possible that the frustration of the preregistration trainee was, at least, partially related to the fact that he or she could have been doing something more valuable for patients? If a trainee has gone through a progressive pharmacy school he will have been taught that one of the primary determinants of whether patients take a drug correctly (or indeed, benefit from any medical intervention) is based on the rapport that they have with the health professional. This may be compromised by one who does not believe in the benefits of the “treatment”.

Mr Kearney clearly feels that his skills are being diluted beyond reasonable measure, in which case a field of pharmacy which rewards harmless, ineffectual work towards producing medicines with, at best, an enhanced placebo effect may await.

Mike Tobyn
West Kirby, Wirral

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