Professionalism is paramount when dealing with careers that affect people’s lives. In the healthcare field particularly, there is a great deal of public trust bestowed upon workers in these professions, and enormous consequences arise from mistakes or abuse of that trust. The professionalism for a pharmacist is the competent delivery of pharmaceutical care to his or her client. To me, this simple statement encompasses everything a pharmacist needs to do to be considered professional.Competent delivery of pharmaceutical care involves not only appropriate patient counseling or precise prescription filling, but leading by example and trying to foster the continued growth of the profession. In the future, there are many things I would like to do to promote the professionalism of the pharmacist. Once I have begun my professional career I would like to institute mentoring programs for new pharmacist in my organizations.
The objective would be to help guide pharmacists through the transition from academia to a practice setting before taking on the full liability and responsibility of running his or her own pharmacy.I would also like to institute some type of annual award for pharmacists with the most community service because it is important for health care professionals to be trusted, and by volunteering in the community, one shows his or her desire to be trusted and to give to the community. In the world of healthcare, professionalism must be more than just a catch phrase or corporate objective; it must permeate through all professionals and leave the lasting impression on the people we serve that we are competent, caring professionals.
