Y’know, since I wrote the last blog about enterprising and impressive pharmacists, I have wondered where I might be struck by yet another pharmacist doing something awesome.It happened at the CDA conference in Winnipeg a couple of weeks ago. I attended the pharmacist-specific program, and heard about some neat things our colleagues are doing.(Notably, most of the team stuff they talk about at the conference still does not have a pharmacist on the team. But that’s another discussion for another day. This program did, however, provide where pharmacists are going.)A young pharmacist, one of the first class from University of Waterloo, galvanized a group of pharmacists in her area to begin collaborating with the local diabetes education centre.The clinicians recognized that they shared not only common patients and a role in helping them manage their diabetes, but also the expertise of CDE pharmacists.And so they created a pilot program, and already have learned a few things about working together. This is not the easiest thing to do.When I first obtained my CDE 20 years ago I thought it would be a great idea to coordinate some care between community pharmacists, who see patients with diabetes way more often than everyone else combined, with the diabetes education program in my area.I was told to get lost because they were the ones who would deliver diabetes education in the area, thank you very much. (OK, maybe not those exact words. But definitely the gist.) Collaboration certainly is much more engendered now. Nonetheless, it still isn’t easy.So these kids (I can call them kids because they are the age of my kids) took a problem and found a pharmacist solution to it.It makes you feel good about being a pharmacist (even an old one) when they try something they have never tried before, with little previous experience to draw on, and make it work with the goal to change how we do things for the long term.So c’mon, folks, let’s keep hearing about those awesome pharmacists out there. I told you about two of them, and I can’t be the only one noticing these things.After all, there are some things to celebrate about being a pharmacist. But how can we celebrate them if we don’t hear about them?Ken Burns is a pharmacist at the Diabetes Care Centre at Sudbury Regional Hospital.
