Essay: Professionalism in pharmacy

Professionalism is a crucial element in every healthcare profession, so every healthcare professional views or defines professionalism differently using the context of their work environment. According to Kelly Masters and AmJ Pharm Edu, “professionalism is a person’s ability to demonstrate the personalities of a professional. The idea that both article are trying to get across is that a person who is dedicated and committed to excellence, honesty, integrity, leadership, accountability for his/her performance, one that respects the opinions of others and also appears professional”.1,2 Moreover, schools organize a White Coat ceremony prior to school starting for students in their first professional year of pharmacy school to educate them in professionalism and the symbolic meaning of the white coat. The white coat ceremony symbolizes the day in which all pharmacy students acknowledge to the commitments of the pharmacy profession and dedicate themselves to decency, respect, and additional responsibilities that come with the white coat. According to Kelly Masters, “The interest on pharmacist who demonstrates a high level of professional skill, will turn out to be more essential and prominent with the development of pharmacy”.1 Due to this reason, becoming a professional healthcare provider is an essential step towards offering higher degree of patient care.
Professionalism is important in pharmacy because it determines a person’s impression towards the profession, credibility, school, and mainly self. AmJ Pharm Edu mentions that “fostering professionalism should be done in the initial periods of professional years of the pharmacy schools”.2 Likewise, I agree with AmJ Pharma Edu that if students get exposure to what professionalism means early on, moreover they will be trained in a way that may help them in their training/practice. For instance, it might be helpful for students during their rotations because professionalism plays a critical role throughout their rotations and even throughout their life long patient care practice. Additionally, Kelly Masters mentions that “encouraging professionalism in students is vital because professionalism cannot be studied from books but needs to be taught or cultured by emphasizing from the day one in the pharmacy school”.1 I agree with Kelly’s Masters idea, for instance, attending both the P1 orientation and the white coat ceremony made a great impact on me because both events had greatly emphasized on professionalism and many other aspects of the pharmacy profession such as the filling out the white coat which is going to help me throughout my career pathway.
Furthermore, according to the AmJ Pharm Edu, “the job of the pharmacist has developed to incorporate more patient care practice and less apportioning practice, professionalism as a skill has developed into more of an important attribute that gives patients a higher level of patient care in the pharmacy profession”.2 In the same fashion I think this is true because as a pharmacist our goal is to provide optimal patient care and the best therapeutic outcomes towards patient’s health.  Nowadays many pharmacy fields are providing direct patient care as a result the development of professionalism is becoming an important attribute. Similarly, Kelly Masters said that “fostering students on professionalism is also important because to educate them on how professionalism methodology influences their day by day training”.1 This education in professionalism will benefit students throughout their career because they will be working with patients and other healthcare or insurance experts. I agree with Kelly Masters idea about promoting students’ traits of professionalism because pharmacists will not only have to dispense drugs, but they also have different other roles depending on the work place of the pharmacist where professionalism play a key role. For instance, as a clinical practice which is a direct patient care, the pharmacist’s responsibilities includes not only dispensing, but also counseling patients and communicating with the physician. Also, pharmacists will be interacting in groups with the other healthcare professional to achieve the best possible health outcome for a patient. Under this circumstances, I think professionalism matters when working with medical group associates and other healthcare providers.
Similarly, to professionalism in practice developing e-professionalism or online professionalism is also significantly important according to —–. “A person’s behavior in online field like social networking, emails, and media sharing sites normally insinuates online professionalism”.3 “The article was a study done where they found that most cases that were considered unprofessional where students were using e-mail, and Facebook. This would be categorized under the professionalism group of respect for others and excellence”.3 “This article also mentions that hiring decisions can be affected by some unusual behavior towards online professionalism”.3 I agree with the authors idea because I think that by this point a student in a graduated school should be able to identify or differentiate between what is personal and professional. Moreover, students should know that any posting can be an image or a phrase on social media are available to not only one, but to numerous people. Due to this, in order to avoid being perceived as having poor e-professionalism behavior, I believe one should look at his/her post before posting their opinions. Also, he or she should make sure the picture they are posting, or language used is appropriate and its doesn’t violate the any patient’s privacy. If someone creates a post on social media of a patient which is considered as unpermitted disclosure of patient’s information online and that person is considered violating the HIPAA law. This also shows poor e-professional behavior. As a result of this he/she has to face consequences related to the violation. If someone is found of violating HIPAA at the work place, he/she could lose his/her job as the article mentions.
Additionally, email is a part of e-professionalism where most students shows poor e-professionalism, when sending email. This includes things such as sending multiple emails at a time, inappropriate use of language, and improper salutation are considered unprofessional behavior when sending email. This would be very important when applying for residency training because the hiring committees look for every skill that a candidate shows and then find a match.
The newer knowledge that I discovered while doing the paper was about e-professionalism behavior which is equally important as the professionalism in practice. Both e-professionalism and professionalism in practice are considered important for me because the career pathway that I am interested in pursuing is to be a clinical pharmacist and there they play a key role. To become a clinical specialist its recommended to do additional training in some specialized areas where most students do residency. To get into residency training I have to be excellent in following e-professionalism and professionalism in practice because not only grades will be my entry ticket, but mainly professionalism. Also, clinical pharmacist deals with direct patient care and have a direct interaction with the other healthcare providers so professionalism is important. If showing a poor professional behavior, the hiring decision could be affected and also where I could even lose job. So, I will build my professionalism skills all throughout my 4 years and will apply that towards providing an optimal patient care.