This cartoon by Ed Tan, an Australian pharmacist who produces a blog ‘Ed’s rant’, sums up how pharmacists can be undervalued by patients and other health professionals.
Did you know a pharmacy degree takes 4 years followed by 52 weeks as an intern? In NZ, pharmacy can only be studied in Dunedin and Auckland.
INR Online (funder of this blog) produces the software for the NZ Community Pharmacy Anticoagulant Management Service (CPAMS) so we are well aware of the capabilities of pharmacists. More than 300 pharmacists at 150 New Zealand pharmacies offer the CPAMS service to 6,000 patients.
If you are a patient using the CPAMS service, perhaps you could take this opportunity to thank the pharmacists involved, next time you have your INR measured and warfarin dosed.
Meanwhile INR Online thanks all our pharmacists for providing such an excellent service. Long may it continue and hopefully expand.
Love the cartoon! I agree that pharmacists are often undervalued by their customers/clients, which is a real shame.
A big thank you to all the pharmacists who look after us. And who wouldn’t thank the pharmacist who does their INR? I am very grateful for the service. Thanks to INR Online too.