Help!This is my first step in a journey into the blogosphere. They tell me it's an opportunity for some thought and discussion in a more open and accessible venue. They told me it wasn't an opportunity to shoot off my mouth and damn the consequences. It is important to know where the boundaries are, so that you can skirt the edges—or even sneak over the line when no one's looking. Or maybe to see IF anyone is looking.I'm a pharmacist by trade and education. I'm a health professional by profession and calling. As such, I am completely biased about the profession of pharmacy and how its wonderful potential has been squandered through a combination of inattention, misdirection, greed, and ignorance.The reason is pretty simple. Pharmacists (as in, the real pharmacists who interact with patients and use their skills and knowledge to hopefully provide our public better outcomes) have had very little say in the structures that support the delivery of pharmacy care. Meanwhile, everyone from governments to pharmacy owners—corporate to independent—has had more influence over how pharmacy works than is their due.This is not to lay the blame on those who have stepped into the void to create what we have today. The reason pharmacy is in the mess it is in, however, is that we have never had all hands (that is, the hands of practicing pharmacists, employed by someone else) on deck to put pharmacists in the best position to reach their potential. Healthcare delivery is in turmoil, and the coming demands are destined to create a different healthcare system; probably one that’s far different than the system we have right now. Every other profession is jockeying for position, and if there ever was a time when pharmacy needed all hands on deck it would be now.I am pretty sure that physicians don’t look to hospitals or clinics to advance their profession. Why do so many pharmacists sit on their hands while their future is determined for them? Here is your chance, because big change is coming. Do nothing, and you will get what someone else thinks you should have.Did I step over any lines yet??Ken Burns is a pharmacist at Errington Guardian Pharmacy in Chelmsford, Ontario.
