PHARMACISTS AND DOCTORS

     PHARMACIST AND DOCTORS: FRIENDS FOES OR PROFESSIONAL COLLEAGUES
         Foes are enemies, they never want their path to cross, they therefore, move either parallel or in opposite directions, so there could be no connection between them. Friends are happy and they sustain a cordial relationship between themselves, they could be allies; they get along easily and hence are not easily provoked by their actions. But between the definitions of foes and friends there is a vacuum; where a relationship binds you with a compulsory obligation to a partner which will require a special conduct or quality to sustain. This is professionalism. This I suppose is the only cord that binds the Doctors and the Pharmacist obligated, especially in the hospital setting. This relationship as it is now in Nigeria is so strained that the ant when overfed can make it exceed its elastic limit.
         Although borne out of the same purpose –to save life-they are not friends because the pharmacist are like persons who are robbed of their birthright and made to be remanded in the background while their supposed “younger twin” is displaying himself as the eldest. Because they are given almost the same training, the same duration (PHARMD) and hence sometimes practice in the same setting they are therefore practically working out the Darwinian theory of ‘the survival of the fittest’. The sense of competition that is inherent in all humans. But in the entire struggle the only factor making it not like the ‘third world war’ is our profession. It would also be catastrophic to classify them as foes because if they were, the hospital would not accommodate the duo. There would be no Pharmacy in hospitals, after seeing the doctor you would walk a mile or two to get drugs which could affect the purpose for which both professions was borne.click to get update on drugs

         The Pharmacist is trained to be a drug expert. “They deal on drugs and get acquainted with them to the extent of identifying them with just feeling” Hence they are usually referred to as ‘drug wizards’. Which underline their importance in hospitals where doctors work; since our profession has brought us together then we ought to play our part independently so the patient could achieve his purpose of visit which is to get medical advice and drugs. The doctors would trouble shoot the problem of the patient by prescribing drugs, outside that it would be extracurricular which is not needed. That is why it beats my imagination why the beautiful-young-female-patients spend more time with the doctor in a consulting room than the time the doctor would need for an appendix operation, thereby causing long queues. The doctors carry out operation on the patients whose needs cannot be meant by taking drugs or therapy. Although the doctors have these qualities he is just a mere story teller without the help of other professionals which pharmacist are included ….unlike Pharmacists that are dependent on nobody.

          In all these, the doctors seem to know all and hence most times dominate the co-ordination of the medical chain. This is where they ‘the doctors’ veer off at a tangent forgetting that apart from entering the theatre every other thing they do is discuss, which the Pharmacist are familiar with. This problem of hierarchy has brought the relationship between the pharmacist and the doctors below the ‘height of friendship’ and almost gotten to the ‘enemy’s court’ but for professionalism which provided a middle ground. "Saying only Doctors should head hospitals is just like saying politics should only be played by graduates of political science. That is a piece of crap". "Anyone with requisite record in the medical field should be eligible to head a hospital." Pharmacy; evolving from a technician job to a professional academia is trying to get itself off the grips of this medical cabal built by the doctors, but it would not be easy. After undergoing such severe training they are now left with nothing except being placed lower than their professional counterparts -the doctors-who’s training would be no where near that of a pharmacist’s. The doctors prescribe but the pharmacist dispense so they say but it should be rephrased as the doctors writes and the pharmacist checks if what was written was correct. If otherwise the doctor is given the opportunity to re-prescribe’, something that sounds like carryover in the academic setting. With the light of this since the pharmacist corrects what the doctors do, it is unfair that the doctors have preeminence of the hospital since he doesn’t know how much the pharmacist knows except in the theatre. click to get medical news

          

At this juncture, we have to choose between knowledge about the theatre and knowledge about drugs; which would be the criteria for hierarchy! Well it ends by saying use a doctor for what he is needed for and a pharmacist for what he is needed; hence the essence of our profession, but wait a minute what is a doctor doing as head of NAFDAC! Has he lost his surgical tools! Professionalism is the only thread that keeps a doctor and the Pharmacist together, except it is being improved upon real fast "by allowing any individual with decades of experience to head health institution, irrespective of their field, so long the individual has excelled and have a proven track record", it is going to rupture and that kind of society we do not want to experience. Thank You.