Clinical Pharmacist Role

Theme 1 – Role of clinical pharmacist
Participants described that the role of clinical pharmacist is essential in the medical team. Most of the participants stated that the role of clinical pharmacists is vague and need more clarifications. Some participants believed that owing to the new field of clinical pharmacy services, many healthcare providers lack the awareness of the role of clinical pharmacist.
"…I think sometimes the role of clinical pharmacist is not identified, because there is a difference between clinical pharmacist and pure pharmacist. There is a huge difference, so, we need to identify it in order to utilize them." (R2)
However, all participants agreed about the importance of clinical pharmacists’ role as they improve the

Like hypertension, one physician will add a medication and another physician will add another one. So, we will end up with five hypertensive medications. And then the clinical pharmacist will come and make the list shorter, which is really a positive thing for the patient. It is crazy for the patient to swallow all of these medications and no one try to correct it only clinical pharmacist." (N2)
Nearly all participants found that their views about the clinical pharmacists’ role is changing over the years. They agreed that the development of clinical pharmacy has increased the patient quality of care and safety. Having a clinical pharmacist around physicians and nurses eased their job and they noticed a decrease in the medication errors.
"To be honest with you, three years ago I thought it is just a waste of time and money. Honestly, nowadays I cannot work in my daily round without a clinical pharmacist. They're helping us with doses, assessing medications that need adjustment and everything. They're part of our team and we do not work without them. Now, I do not have any kind of phobia of making errors because a clinical pharmacist is with us! But before believe me it was tough!"

In contrast, nurses encouraged to give prescription privileges for them. Over the world, prescribing permissions for pharmacists differs from country to country. In 2002, the United Kingdom approved and allowed pharmacists to prescribe any medications under therapeutic plan that is initiated by an independent prescriber. Later on, to increase patients’ access to medications, legislations authorized qualified pharmacists for independent prescribing for medications with restrictions to controlled medications. In this case, certifications after training and testing are required to authorize pharmacists to be independent prescriber [23]. Maddox and colleagues [24] showed that pharmacists and nurses who are eligible prescribers find it inconvenient to prescribe in which factors such as competency and risk of prescribing limits taking full responsibility. In order to ensure safety and continuity of patient care, low self-perception in competency and confidence of pharmacists necessitate support, rich learning and non-blame environment to enhance prescribing and professional development [24-25]. In addition, regular competency assessment may help to encourage self-learning and continuation in