Call for shift in pharmacists' core ethical values
Pharmacists should reorient their values to shift the emphasis from
concern with a patient's best interests towards respect for people, according
to a report published by the Pharmacy Practice Research Trust (PDF 290K).
The report is based on interviews with 38 pharmacists, practising in
various settings, which explore and map their values and ethics through
self-reported day-to-day perceptions. It identifies two core values — respect
for medicines and the patient’s best interests — as central
to the way ethical components within professional activities are currently
managed and understood.
The authors argue that phrases such as “the patient’s best
interests” may encourage, sometimes unjustified, paternalism. They
add that the patient is not the sole, and sometimes not the central,
consideration. “The tendency to rely on professional judgements
about what is in the interests of a patient … can lead to failures
to consider the wider public good,” say the authors. They suggest
that encouraging pharmacists to think in terms of respect for people
will support broader moves towards:
• Acknowledging the right for a patient to be involved in his or her
own care
• Providing respect for cultural and religious diversity
• Acknowledging professional responsibilities for the wider society
• Enhancing sensitivity to the values of other team members
The authors also recommend that the profession needs to acquire greater
literacy in ethics and values. Pharmacists tend to rely on a scientific,
rational approach to decisions, which is sometimes applied, inappropriately,
to situations that also have a significant ethical component, they say. “Limiting
pharmacists’ contribution to the ‘facts’ of treatment
may increasingly lead to their exclusion from shared care decision-making
with other health care professionals.”
The research also suggests that the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s
code of ethics is not valued as a guide for professional standards and
behaviour, with current knowledge of it limited and applicability primarily
a concern for community pharmacists.
Commenting on the report, Douglas Simpson, chairman of the Society’s
law and ethics committee, said: “It is an opportune time to publish
this report as the Society is currently reviewing its code of ethics
and these findings underline the importance of the code and the need
to keep it fit for
purpose.”
“Respect for medicines and respect for people: mapping pharmacist
practitioners’ perceptions
and experiences of ethics and values” is available as a PDF file
(290K). |
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