Wes Mountain/The Pharmaceutical Journal
As the pharmacy profession continues to orientate towards prescribing-based roles and assumes greater levels of clinical accountability, the ability to handle uncertainty, risk and conflicting interests becomes essential. While prescribers can draw from evidence-based guidelines and professional codes to inform their approach, each patient is unique and there will be situations where formal guidance does not directly address the particular needs of the patient or where the evidence may be limited. As a result, prescribers will encounter situations during their practice where a clear ‘right’ answer is lacking or there are factors that pull decision-making in different directions. But how should prescribers approach these types of situations? What process should they follow?
To explore this crucial aspect of prescribing, we have developed a new article format and series, part of The Pharmaceutical Journal’s prescribing collection, which focus on a specific dilemma faced by a pharmacist prescriber. Each article explores how an experienced pharmacist prescriber approached the situation, how they worked through options and used their clinical judgement to settle on an eventual person-centred approach. The dilemmas are drawn from genuine practice examples and provide an opportunity for readers to hear the reflection directly from the pharmacist involved, who outlines important considerations for others facing similar dilemmas. Each dilemma is also mapped to the relevant competencies from the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s ‘Competency framework for all prescribers’.
The dilemmas article series is not intended to be used as a guide to practice — it is possible that readers will disagree with the approach described or have alternative views on how they may have acted in a similar situation. However, by sharing these experiences, we hope that the series will provoke discussion and debate and provide an opportunity for reflective learning. We encourage you to join the case discussion and add your comments on the article directly or share your thoughts on social media using #PJdilemmas.
The dilemmas series will become a regular feature within The Pharmaceutical Journal’s CPD and learning content, and we would like to hear from more prescribing pharmacists who are willing to share their practice experiences.
Have you experienced a situation where you had to balance conflicting interests or felt unsure about the best way forward? Were you faced with a dilemma where risks and benefits were particularly hard to balance?
If you are interested in sharing your experience with us for publication in The Pharmaceutical Journal, please complete the contact form below and a member of the learning team will get back to you.
