Y'know, apparently for a politician, announcing expanded practice for pharmacists is a career killer.Just after announcing the changes to what pharmacists can do in Ontario, the premier had to quit his job.That the two are not inextricably linked doesn’t really matter—when will the next politician want to go out on a limb and say that pharmacists can do more?To be fair, though, there are a whole lot of pharmacists who are worried about the change in what technicians in Ontario can do as well.And more than a few think that the changes that allow technicians to do some of the things that pharmacists used to exclusively do means that some pharmacists, like Dalton McGuinty, will be out of a job too.But what choice do we have, really?Everybody in the system who is not being used efficiently (and there is no doubt that pharmacists are ill-used and over-qualified for many of the things they spend there time doing and that is indeed very inefficient and not at all cost effective) will be asked to step up or step aside.We all like to go to work tomorrow and find things the way we left them, but that is not how things work anymore, despite how much we complain.The change in role of technicians has been being talked about for at least 10 years—the change for pharmacists a lot longer.The former had to happen first, however, to leave room for the latter to happen. And there are plenty of complaints that technicians are not ready, and when they step into the role it does not work out perfectly.Of course, it will be the same for pharmacists as they step up as well—it won’t be perfect, and it won’t always be pretty.Which is to say that we ought to cut some slack to the technicians who are brave enough to step up and take more responsibility for patients' health and actually put their signature on something—that is something that is not only new for them in a community practice setting, but also perhaps a little daunting.They are pioneers like us and we always complain about the lack of support and understanding from other professions—how about some for the ones we probably work the closest with.
