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Medical Culture (and others) in Decline – the real reason for attacks on pharmacy and other health modalities.
We have been witnessing some extraordinary behaviour by the leaders of the medical profession (AMA, RACGP) that might make you wonder what hallucinogen they may have been taking, given the extreme claims of pharmacy creating a turf war, and their ridiculous claims of highly-trained pharmacists lacking skills to perform at different levels. They act panic-stricken…
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Australia is Number Two in Global Health Rankings – But for How Long?
Periodically, the US-based Commonwealth Fund organisation compares the US health system to that of other countries, including Australia. The Australian health system ranks very high in its performance and i2P believes there are two major reasons for this outside of the criteria established by the Commonwealth Fund. The first is the diversity of health practitioners…
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Pathology Services – Better Options for Community Pharmacy
The recent pressure applied by the AMA and the RACGP in respect of the Sigma / Sonic Healthcare Project, to offer paid pathology tests through the AMCAL franchise must be bordering on unacceptable conduct under the Australian Trade Practices Act. The medical profession is looking and acting more like a cartel in every respect and…
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Friendships can lead to good working relationships
Two friends were walking through a dense jungle. Knowing the dangers, they promised to stick together whatever happened. Suddenly a tiger appeared in the bushes. One friend immediately turned and ran, climbing up a tree and leaving his companion behind. He watched as his friend dropped to the ground and played dead. The tiger…
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Pain, anxiety and depression, memory issues
Do we really understand what quality-of-life affects pain has on a person who we see regularly for their opioids? Really? Findings published in the Journal of Affective Disorders related to a survey of adults with anxiety or a mood disorder showed that over half cope with chronic pain. It seems that the dual burden of…
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Setting up an Open Innovation Program
Let’s face it – community pharmacy is in a knowledge transfer bind. It can no longer function under its own self reliance. It is bogged down because pharmacy leadership has developed hardening of the arteries and finds itself immobile inside each of its traditional infrastructures. The primary cause is twofold: * Information is being collated…
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Are we obsessed with numbers and forget who our patients are?
We live in a world where patience is a diminishing commodity. We want each day to wrap up like an episode of a TV show. We want to end all arguments by having the perfectly worded Facebook post. We want to work out the solutions to our problems, meet our soul-mate, elect the perfect candidate,…
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Mentoring Works Both Ways
Anyone who doesn’t understand the value of one minute hasn’t been paying attention to my good friend Ken Blanchard. Starting with his “One Minute Manager” and moving through a series of bestsellers, he has shown his millions of fans how just sixty seconds can improve your chances for success. Good news – he’s at it…
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Health Literacy – A Concept for a Valid Direction for Community Pharmacy
Recently, I had a conversation with a health professional involved in the public health system. Research had emerged that large pockets of populations were experiencing epidemic levels of chronic illness such as obesity, diabetes, asthma, and heart disease. These population pockets correlated with areas of low socio-economic households where people had generally poor diets and…
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Complementary Medicine – Are You In or Are you Out?
I’m tired of the same old, same old criticisms of complementary medicines being thrown by sensationalizing media like 4Corners and the like. Mind you, some of their research shows that some pharmacists are happy to bank the dollars generated by the slick marketing of these products by a variety of companies. Where do you sit…