A Portrait of the Pharmacy Profession Globally: Pharmacist Universal Professional Identity and Establishment of Global Pharmacy Council

Abstract

The roles of pharmacists are transforming throughout history and modern pharmacist has a crucial role in ensuring the efficacy and safety of applied drugs. It is a wonder that the pharmacy profession is still being viewed through an antiquated lens that is inconsistent with the diversity and extent of pharmacists’ current scope of practice. There is still much debate in the academic as well as the policy literature about the role of pharmacists and their unique contribution to healthcare. However, pharmacists have been variously characterized as makers of medicines, as pill pushers, pill counters, and bottle labelers, as managers, and as entrepreneurs. Given this variety of roles, the ‘professional identity’ of pharmacists could be viewed as problematic or confused. Having a clear professional identity provides a sense of worth, belonging, or purpose for the individual as well as the group and if that identity is unambiguous then the profession also becomes clearer and more focused. Thus, the purpose of this article was to provide an idea of the universal professional identity of pharmacists as healthcare practitioners’ under the Global Pharmacy Council (GPC). This GPC will enhance the impact of the profession of pharmacy on people’s lives in the context of healthcare trends.

Keywords

• Pharmacist, universal professional identity, Global Pharmacy Council