Welcome to the first edition of i2P (Information to Pharmacists) E-Magazine for the new year of 2018.
Have you made any New Year’s resolutions?
Given that 2017 was a difficult year for most pharmacists many are still trying to establish a suitable direction for their profession.
When looking for a bit of personal inspiration, I often turn to the blog of US marketing guru, Seth Godin.
He always seems to have the right words for a current view of what I am trying to visualise.
Like this little gem as I think about my own set of objectives for the New Year:
“Stuck on what’s next?
When confronted with too many good options, it’s easy to get paralyzed. The complaint is that we don’t know what to do next, because we’re pulled in many good directions–and doing one thing with focus means not doing something else.
This is a common way to get stuck. After all, if you’re at this crossroads, where more consideration means more possibility, while more action merely means walking away from a potentially better choice, it’s easy to settle for the apparently safe path, which is more study.
No one can blame you for careful consideration.
More careful consideration seems to insulate you from the criticism that follows taking action.
But getting stuck helps no one.
Here’s an alternative:
Write up a one-pager on each of the five best alternatives you are considering.
Use the document to sell each idea as hard as you can, highlighting the benefits for you and those you seek to serve.
Then, hand the proposals to your trusted advisers.
They vote (without you in the room) and you commit to doing whatever it is they choose.
Not thinking about it, but doing it.
Merely agreeing to this scenario is usually enough incentive to pick on your own and get to work.”
A simple and effective process.
Documenting thoughts in a logical and chronological order is a proven method for generating decisions involving direction and progress.
One of the thoughts uppermost in my mind is how professional activity could be stimulated within a community pharmacy setting and how can pharmacy culture be changed to that of an individual discovering the benefits of becoming an entrepreneur through originality – doing something yourself by creating a system for self-discovery – tapping into your own creativity to become innovative.
Innovation is the primary system for positive change.
Pharmacists continue to wait at the “crossroads” hoping to hitch a ride with someone or some organisation providing the heavy lifting.
It’s not going to happen unless you own what you want to do and begin the process of change and leading by example.
It’s only when you leave the crossroads and choose to go your own way that others will fall in behind you and assist you on your journey.
Again, guru Seth has some words on the subject:
“The four elements of entrepreneurship
Are successful entrepreneurs made or born?
We’d need to start with an understanding of what an entrepreneur is. They’re all over the map, which makes the question particularly difficult to navigate.
There’s the 14-year-old girl who hitches a ride to Costco, buys 100 bottles of water for thirty cents each, then sells them at the beach for a dollar a pop.
Scale that that every day for a summer and you can pay for college.
Or the 7-time venture-backed software geek who finds a niche, gets some funding, builds it out with a trusted team, sells it for $100 million in stock and then starts again.
Perhaps we’re talking about a non-profit entrepreneur, a woman who builds a useful asset, finds a scalable source of funding and changes the world as she does.
The mistake that’s easy to make is based in language. We say, “she’s an entrepreneur,” when we should be saying, “she’s acting like an entrepreneur.”
Since entrepreneurship is a verb, an action, a posture… then of course, it’s a choice. You might not want to act like one, but if you can model behavior, you can act like one.
And what do people do when they’re acting like entrepreneurs?
1. They make decisions.
2. They invest in activities and assets that aren’t a sure thing.
3. They persuade others to support a mission with a non-guaranteed outcome.
4. This one is the most amorphous, the most difficult to pin down and thus the juiciest: They embrace (instead of run from) the work of doing things that might not work.
As far as I can tell, that’s it. Everything else you can hire.
Buying into an existing business by buying a franchise, to pick one example–there’s very little of any of the four elements of entrepreneurial behavior. Yes, you’re swinging for a bigger win, you’re investing risk capital, you’re going outside the traditional mainstream. But what you’re doing is buying a proven business, not acting like an entrepreneur. The four elements aren’t really there. It’s a process instead. Nothing wrong with that.
All four of these elements are unnatural to most folks. Particularly if you were good at school, you’re not good at this. No right answers, no multiple choice, no findable bounds.
It’s easy to get hung up on the “risk taking” part of it, but if you’re acting like an entrepreneur, you don’t feel like you’re taking a huge risk. Risks are what happens at a casino, where you have little control over the outcome. People acting like entrepreneurs, however, feel as though the four most important elements of their work (see above) are well within their control.
If you’re hoping someone can hand you a Dummies guide, giving you the quick steps, the guaranteed method, the way to turn this process into a job–well, you’ve just announced that you don’t feel like acting like an entrepreneur.
But before you walk away from it, give it a try. Entrepreneurial behavior isn’t about scale, it’s about a desire for a certain kind of journey.
i2P content is always designed to stimulate new ideas and approaches.At this time of the year there is a major focus on sport, generally dominated by tennis.
One tennis player for Australia was Nick Kyrgios.
In the past, Nick’s behaviour professionally might have been deemed “out of bounds” and his press image became negative because of this.
Something changed this year and Nick seemed to have dramatically improved in his attitude and professionalism.
It transpired that Nick had set up a charitable foundation for underprivileged kids.
In other words he had undergone a cultural change of giving of himself as distinct from that of only taking from his sport.
Was this the reason for his newly acquired maturity and the increase in the refinement of his undoubted playing skills?
What transpired was a more positive press image and my becoming an interested TV viewer, rather than my normal impulse to switch to another channel when bad behaviour set in.
There is a parallel here for pharmacists and in our lead article we discuss the social dividend that derives from a “giving” culture and how the profession of pharmacy might benefit through an adjustment in its culture and a rearrangement of how it delivers its free services by aligning more closely with community need.
Read: Pro Bono Pharmacy Services Create a Social Dividend
Do recruited patients obtain full information relating to the risk or benefit of joining a particular trial?
Are they encouraged to seek input from their pharmacist – a health professional who should be in a position to help and advise a patient in any setting?
Gerald Quigley discuses some of these issues in his current article.
Read: Are your patients involved in a clinical trial?
And we “April Fools” are expected to take it on the chin when the system already lacks value for money.
Health out-of-pocket expenses are skyrocketing!
The federal government is to form a committee around the problem – a typical government ploy that is created when government has not planned for this contingency, even though it has been a building issue for some years.
i2P believes that the Australian government is progressively moving towards a US-style “user pays” system that locks in a regime that looks exclusively at illness issues (drug promotion) rather than health solutions (prevention and wellness) and ends up with an Australian version of a completely broken national health system.
Peter Sayers discusses these issues in his current article.
Read: Australia’s Health Care System Funding Needs Fixing
It is also illustrative of why the focus on illness only strategies are harmful.
For this reason i2P promotes the integrative model of health for pharmacy, believing that solutions found in clinical nutrition can improve wellness, reduce doses for mainstream drugs or even more efficaciously replace drugs.
Read: OMNS – Fat is My Friend
Flawed health policy generates bad laws and lowered community respect for policy and laws.
Yet again, Pharmacy is in a position to provide solutions very simply and simultaneously create opportunity for the profession to treat chronically ill patients efficiently and economically. Pharmacy leaders need to be proactive in the regulatory area because other health professionals are actively competing to lock pharmacy out of any opportunity whatsoever.
Potential for pharmacists is found in the compounding of THC and CBD in specific ratios to match the best result for patients with chronic illness.
Further pharmacist potential also lies in using cannabinoids in harm minimisation programs involving opioid dependencies and as an adjunct for the management of pain.
Pharmacists also need to be active and have a voice in the regulation of these substances ensuring that maximum patient access can be obtained through the application of Schedule 3 of the Poison’s Act.
Read: Understanding Medical Cannabis – 1. Sydney Criminal Lawyers: Medicinal Cannabis Doctor Is Being Held Behind Bars on Remand 2. Herb: Jeff Sessions: Anti-Weed Crusader Received Big Money From Big Tobacco 3. Cannabis Tech: Why The World Needs Hemp Plastic “The science is settled”. So say the people who promote vaccination as some form of extreme medical ideology. “Scientism is settled” is a more accurate description of the manipulation of the science surrounding vaccines – and it is certainly “unsettling” to hear the dishonest claims that blare out in all forms of media. “First do no harm” is the concept that underwrites all medical practice. Australian vaccination policy is so poor and damaging, that it beggars belief that legislators can be so close to manufacturer sales objectives as to guarantee them a market through coercive legislation that involves simultaneous removal of patient choice. The evidence supporting vaccine policy failure and its lack of safety is becoming so voluminous that it will eventually destroy the unnatural power alliance that desperately tries to hold it all together.
Read: The Safe Vaccine Debate – 1.Massive flu outbreak? Here’s the larger story the media won’t touch. The lies, the hoax, the scandal 2. Dr Judy Wilyman Report: Newsletters # 184, #185, # 187 3. World Mercury Project: A Lone FDA Scientist Could End the Autism Epidemic
Harvey Mackay has produced an article for our current edition that uniquely aligns with the editorial and the lead article for this edition.
He notes that a New Year begins with new beginnings and basically an opportunity to update, renew or improve the cultural concepts underpinning a business.
The primary driver of change is innovation.
And because of the disruptive nature of innovation it becomes a force for doing things differently and better.
Complacency or refusing to come to terms with contemporary issues sets up a pathway for a terminal outcome.
Read: A New Year Brings Change
We conclude our offering for this edition with a range of media releases from two pharmacy leadership organisations.
We hope you enjoy our content and if you wish to debate any opinion article, please write a comment in the space provided at the foot of each article page.
Neil Johnston
Editor, i2P E-Magazine
Monday 22 January 2018