Pharmacists' role

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32895, 19 April 1972, Page 18

Pharmacists ' role

The “bogy” of pharmacists acting as doctors sounds like a voice from the seventeenth century, Mr N. Manning, Dean of the Victorian College of Pharmacy, in Australia, said in Christchurch yesterday. Mr Manning was defending the remarks of Mr M. S. J. Wilson, president of the Pharmaceutical Society against comments made by Dr R. Elliot, chairman of the council of the Medical Association of New Zealand, and Dr E. Geiringer, president of the New Zealand Medical Association. Both doctors said that it was bad practice for chemists to give medical advice. Mr Manning said that both took Mr Wilson’s remarks out of context. Mr Manning was a main guest speaker at the pharmacy conference held in Rotorua during the weekend. “The pharmacist is an expert on drugs and an expert on medicines,” said Mr Manning. “To deny the pharmacist’s role in advising the public and the health professions about drugs is like denying the physicist’s role in advising on radioactive drugs. “I assure you that no suggestions made minimised in anywav the doctor’s role of being in charge of the patient. “The pharmacist studies drugs in three major tertiary areas. These are: the structure (chemistry), the action (pharmacology), and delivery to the right organ (pharmaceutics), “This knowledge assets the doctor and safeguards the patient. Drugs are the main tools with which doctors intervene in diseased processes,” he said.