Int J Pharm Pract 2002:10:201-212
Lyndhurst, Burnthouse Lane, Toft Monks, Beccles, Suffolk, England NR34 0ES
Malcolm E. Brown, PhD, MRPharmS, pharmaceutical consultant and locum pharmacist
University of Salford
Paul Bellaby, MA, PhD, reader in sociology and director of Institute for Public Health Research and Policy
Correspondence:Dr Brown
Int J Pharm Pract 2002:10:201-12
Original Papers
Community pharmacy as a performance: a participant observer's account of a day in the life of a locum
MALCOLM E. BROWN and PAUL BELLABY
Objective
— To understand, from a dramaturgical viewpoint, the performance of "community
pharmacy."
Method — Participant observation supported by focus groups and
semi-structured interviews; the study adopted a grounded theory approach.
Setting — Fieldwork was conducted within 21 community pharmacies
in East Anglia, England.
Key findings — Pharmacists identify with their setting and stage
props. On the stage of community pharmacy, the pharmacist crucially converts
the drug into medicine, during a complex and well-rehearsed performance.
There are sometimes distractions, which make the performance sub-optimal.
Other insights included what counts as error, how to manage stress, and
the fact that the trust on which professional practice rests is at stake
when expressive performance fails.
Conclusion — It is possible to conduct ethnography of community
pharmacy and this is among the first such studies of British community
pharmacy. Were the pharmacist to leave the stage and its props (the drugs),
only to advise patients on medicines, the performance of community pharmacy,
as we know it, might disappear.