Welcome to the current edition of i2P (Information to Pharmacists) E-Magazine, dated Monday 21 November 2016.
Since our last edition we have seen a Donald Trump victory in the US and a collapse of confidence in mainstream media, one that threatens its existence.
It was mainstream media that promoted most of the negative information designed to make Trump to be inept and having a flawed character.
That he won the election in such a stunning fashion ought to be a lesson for all leaders seeing to lead.
Trump was the only candidate promising real change and was able to tap into a cache of potential voters who, in the main, had deserted readership of mainstream publications because they could sense the fabrication and dishonesty.
They turned to the “underground” publications, which was the channel that Trump exploited and they are credited with helping him win the election, and it is a fact that Trump openly acknowledges.
Now mainstream media is in a bit of a panic because Trump’s principal adviser and strategist, Steve Bannon, is an open critic of mainstream media who remains at the side of Donald Trump and in support of underground publications.
As a person he has some flaws, but not to the extent he was portrayed.
Mainstream media has responded in its usual negative fashion and has deployed corporate power involving companies like Google to eliminate access to the underground sites through search engine manipulation either preventing access, posting adverse “flags” claiming the sites are purveyors of “fake news” or refusing to register applications such as Adsense, which often provides the funds that underground publications need to derive income from, to pay their operational costs.
It’s typical that the power behind mainstream media is unable to culturally accept that they are now irrelevant.
Instead of adjusting their culture to make mainstream publications more acceptable to most readers (simply by being honest and non-manipulative and to do their real job in a professional manner), they have chosen to opt-out and attempt to destroy and control.
That will no longer work so we will now see the current mainstream media fade away with the underground press replacing them to emerge as the new mainstream media.
While mainstream media, by not doing its job professionally, actually began destabilising democracy through not reporting corruption in politics, or restricting the freedom to communicate an opinion, the necessary adjustments have occurred through the democratic processes and voters tipped that adjustment.
We have come close to a “tipping point” where globalisation and a one-world corporate rule was being implemented to remove our freedoms and democratic rights.
As individuals we all have a responsibility to ensure that those we elect to govern our country or our profession always reflect our best interests.
The malaise that has contaminated US politicians also exists here in Australia and there is a “trickle-down” effect into industry associations, including pharmacy.
Our articles in this edition reflect the impacts of a Trump win in the US elections, the global impacts for pharmacy and the changing landscape for media outlets.
Our lead article concerns Amazon, the mega online retailer that has now developed the technology to dominate the retail sector – no matter what type of retail.
Amazon patented technology is a real threat, but also has positive benefits for pharmacy if it can gain ethical access to the Amazon technology or through another developer.
The complex technology is both expensive and complex, so there my be a considerable lead-time before a catch-up can occur.
Considerable damage may be inflicted during that lead-time.
Read: How Amazon Will Dominate Global Retail
Mouhamad Zoghbi is back and he provides an illuminating insight on how health professional culture can become desensitised and appear to present as uncaring.
It is happening in pharmacy and a culture change is urgently required.
Read: The Desensitised Culture
Maybe we thought that Australia’s vaccine debate couldn’t get any worse we are confronted with some alleged very bad behaviour by a Victorian politician.
This is typical of a mainstream media political strategy and given that the Australian Vaccination Policy is flawed through coercive policy, a major mainstream media owner with family ties to the largest vaccine producer in the world, and a conflict of interest with our most senior politician and that same large vaccine company which has already benefited that senior politician to the tune of $220 million +, is it little wonder that Australians may be seeking a Trump-like replacement to lead Australia back to an ethical pathway.
Read: The Vaccine Debate Gets Really Nasty
We also provide a snapshot of mainstream media and just a description of one of the issues that they are involved with.
The closeness to politicians and their biased reportage in favour of global corporates is something that will have to be tackled here in Australia.
In a sense, Donald Trump has done Australia a favour because the momentum he creates will flow through to reform processes in our country.
Read: Mainstream Media – the Downhill Slide
Mark Coleman reminds pharmacists in his current article that a service provided in older times may be picked up and funded by government.
It has, however, been identified by nurses and other health professionals as a major gap in health service provision, and not having a “patient navigator” results a major cost to the entire system.
Patient navigation has really been at the core of a community pharmacy operation, but has never been properly scoped and systemised.
It is definitely a method for increasing patient care and needs to be at the centre of pharmacy practice no matter who pays for it.
Read: Patient Navigation – An old-new Opportunity for Pharmacists
Gerald Quigley touches on one point of patient navigation and touches on the mentoring processes we should be extending to a patient subset prescribed statin drugs.
It is a lack of professional culture growth that keeps pharmacists in a gradually eroding holding position that allows those health professionals that are focussing on patient needs, to steal our turf away from us.
Would you have recognised that this is a real issue for pharmacists?
Read: Do we do enough for our statin patients?
Harvey Mackay is back with a simple message regarding the problem of gossip.
Patients are sometimes inspired to comment on some breach of privacy or some unethical alleged activity, and that form of gossip can do considerable damage to an otherwise well delivered heath service.
Read: Gossip is the devil’s messenger
And we conclude our offering for this edition with a range of media releases from leadership organisations:
We hope you enjoy the current range of articles and we invite you to make appropriate comments for each article in the panel provided at the foot of th article page.
Neil Johnston
Editor, i2P E-Magazine
Monday 21 November 2016