Survey on the pharmacists' and pharmacy students' opinion on the organizational and legal form of the pharmacist profession according to obligatory act on the pharmacist profession

Abstract

The subject of this research are organizational and legal forms of performing pharmaceutical profession with particular consideration of two new forms included in new pharmaceutical profession act. This two forms are volunteering and sole proprietorship. The purpose of this research was to analyze the opinion of pharmacy masters and students about possible forms of hiring. The study focused on pharmacists' activities other than community pharmacies, because the main aim was to search for new directions in the development of pharmaceutical practice. A cross-sectional e-survey was conduct. The questionnaire was made from 16 questions, some of them were closed and some were open. Pharmacists from the Pomeranian Voivodeship and students of the Faculty of Pharmacy of the Medical University of Gdańsk were invited to participate in the study. E-survey has been distributed through the social media. In the study group were 185 respondents: 138 pharmacy students and 47 working pharmacists. The study was conducted in the period from 21 of January to 29 of March 2020. The obtained results prove that 47% of all respondents see the possibility of practicing the profession of pharmacist in the form of voluntary work, including 63.2% of all respondents who believe that a pharmacist should be able to perform his profession in the form of volunteering in a hospice. The respondents also see the possibility of working in a hospice in the form of a private pharmaceutical practice. Respondents expressed interest in participating in a pain management team and in the role of a family pharmacist. The first hypothesis posed in the study: pharmacists with long work experience more often than pharmacy students believe that volunteering should be legally recognized as a form of practicing a profession was rejected. The vast majority of respondents positively accept the possibility of performing their profession in the form of self-employment. No differences in responses depending on the length of work-experience were found in this area.

Keywords

• pharmacist
• hospice
• volunteering
• medical profession
• pharmacy law
• forms of profession performing