| · Pfizer products (3)
· Prescribing
· Sugar-free medicines
· Drug misuse
· Pharmacy in Spain
· Pharmacy ownership (2)
· The Society (3)
· Superdrug
· Hiccups
Letters to the Editor
|
Pharmacy ownership
Stiff competition in community pharmacy practice
From Mr C. J. Agomo, MRPharmS
The observation that community pharmacy ownership is the top
ambition among pharmacy students (PJ, 30 September, p407) is interesting and will
probably help the pharmacy profession and other pharmacy organisations
in the UK, such as UniChem (PJ, 14 October, p449) to plan for the future.
My only concern is that the study did not reveal much on why such a trend
exists among pharmacy students. Suppose such a study were done among
medical students, who do have a guaranteed high income upon qualifying
as GPs or consultants. Could the same pattern of results have emerged
(that is, practice ownership ambition)? Alternatively, if the pharmacy
students surveyed were guaranteed that being employed as pharmacists
for about five years post-qualification would enable them to earn fairly
comfortable incomes like many other professionals, could community pharmacy
ownership have remained their top ambition? The answers to these questions
will probably be “no”.
My hypothesis is that the poor condition of work and poor remuneration
that welcome pharmacists upon graduation is the main driving force for
ownership ambition among pharmacy students. I hope that these aspiring
students are aware of the stiff competition that exists in community
pharmacy practice, which unintentionally tends to put independent pharmacy
owners at a disadvantage for many reasons. I do not foresee the situation
getting better in the near future. The only way to minimise heartaches
due to unfulfilled dreams will be to have a pharmacy
professional agenda,
which aims at helping pharmacists to earn reasonably comfortable salaries
while working as employees (PJ, 14 October, p446).
Chijioke Agomo
London
Society should take students' views on board
From Mr G. Parmar, MRPharmS
Having studied the recently
released research paper “Pharmacy
undergraduates student career choices and expectations across a four-year
degree programme” (commissioned by the Pharmacy Practice Research
Trust), it was interesting to note the seemingly clear and unambiguous
nature of the conclusions to be drawn from this large cohort study incorporating
over 13 UK schools of pharmacy (see PJ, 30 September, p407). In summary,
community pharmacy ownership was found to be the over-riding career ambition
of most first and final year students, with only 8 per cent of first
and 12 per cent of final year students envisaging their future as an
employee in community pharmacy. In effect, professional independence
through pharmacy ownership is a key aspiration of today’s young
pharmacists. How to manage this widening disparity between prospective
pharmacy graduates’ ambitions and the reality of independent pharmacies
being squeezed (largely as a result of misguided and weak policies by
those who claim to represent us) would surely be at the forefront of
people’s mind at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society.
So I was shocked at the official public response to this pertinent piece
of research by Sue Ambler (in Chemist + Druggist for 30 September) on
behalf of the Society. She comments that the Society was not unduly concerned
by the findings, and that they represented a snapshot rather than a view
of pharmacy as a whole. She further proclaims that students’ views
were sure to mature “certainly through preregistration to practice”.
Patronising, misguided and disingenuous are three words that spring to
mind. The Society would be better served if it took on board the legitimate
views and aspirations of young pharmacists and reflected on how it should
be doing considerably more to promote the future existence of independent
pharmacy ownership for future generations.
Gurminder Parmar
Cradley Heath,
West Midlands
| |
SUE AMBLER, head of research and development, Royal Pharmaceutical
Society, responds:
I agree that taken out of context the edited highlights
of my
conversation with C+D magazine were at best uninformative. What I
said on either side of the quote might help to alleviate the rather
unfortunate
view that Mr Parmar has formed of me and, indeed, the Society. First
of all the study is a snapshot in time of two groups of students’ career
expectations; it is not a snapshot of the whole profession and I did
not refer to it as such. My comment about “not being unduly concerned” was
in response to a specific question about the likely impact on workforce
supply of the unmet career expectations in these student cohorts — it
would have been misguided of me to draw firm conclusions from a single
time-point study. What I went on to say is that the Pharmacy Practice
Research Trust, with a grant from the Society, is following this year’s
graduate cohort through their preregistration year and early years in
practice. This longitudinal (as opposed to snapshot) study will monitor
how the students’ career expectations might change and whether
in fact unmet expectations about owning their own business do lead to
them
experiencing dissatisfaction with their careers in pharmacy and to quitting
the profession. Details of the 2006
graduate cohort study
I might also add that the Society has begun to collect data relating
to job satisfaction, stress etc, as part of its workforce census — Karen
Hassell, British Pharmaceutical Conference practice chairman, presented
the initial findings at the BPC this
year (PJ, September 2006 [Suppl], pB17 (PDF 50K)). This survey
will be repeated every three to five years to monitor emerging trends and act
as
a barometer
of the overall
well-being of the profession. The Society will continue to make the results
from its research widely available so that all pharmacists, employers
and commentators
can read reflect, and even act, on the findings.
I trust that this information demonstrates that the Society is taking a serious
and thoughtful approach to the emerging workforce agenda and that my commentary
on the results from the career choice study were perhaps more informed and
sincere and slightly less patronising than Mr Parmar was led to believe. |
|
The
Pharmaceutical Journal