Pharmacy: a profession in transition or a transitory profession?

Areas in pharmacy that are in transition are described, and ways to prevent the perception of pharmacy as a transitory profession are detailed. Pharmacy has adapted itself over the past 75 years to changes in the health-care system and in societal demands of the profession. The evolution of pharmacy functions has included drug product preparation, establishment of standards, drug distribution, and clinical pharmacy. The profession is continuing to change in reaction to economic and social forces. Hospital pharmacy flourished when it shifted from a profit to a cost center because pharmacy practice researchers documented the contribution of clinical pharmacy to patient care and because hospital pharmacy administrators developed sound management procedures to maintain efficient inventories. Current controversies in pharmacy practice are discussed, including pharmacist prescribing, physician dispensing, and therapeutic substitution. These terms inadequately describe the concepts, especially when they are taken out of context of the total health-care process involving a physician-pharmacist team. Because of the success of this teamwork in acute-care institutions, ambulatory pharmaceutical services should involve cooperative activities of pharmacists in professional service administrative organizations (PSAOs) and physicians in independent practice associations. The cost-effectiveness of PSAOs is discussed. Marketing of drug products is changing as the physician-pharmacist interaction becomes integral to the drug therapy decision-making process. Drug distribution should not be viewed as less professional than clinical activities. Although the pharmacy profession is reorienting itself toward patient care and the rational use of drugs in society, it must maintain its authority over the drug distribution system.