At a recent "board of governors" (alumni from the college of pharmacy who help contribute ideas on how to make the college more effective in producing successful pharmacists) in Ann Arbor last week, we spoke on how to prep the students to become well rounded, strong leaders, within the realm of pharmacy. Lately, there's been a lot of talk about leadership. I found it ironic that I left the meeting, logged onto the ASHP site, and lo and behold, there were a few blogs on it, and that ASHP had even done a
study on it. As Ashley and Sara have both stated, the Council on Pharmacy Management has made a huge push for pharmacists to stand up and assume leadership roles within their work environment. More specifically, they
stated that pharmacists are to "serve as leaders in the safe and effective use of medications and encourages pharmacy practitioners, adminstrators.... to advance patient care and strengthen the pharmacy profession by embracing the responsilbity to exert leadership in their practices...."
Don't get me wrong, I agree that pharmacists should be leaders in their environment...but really, how? Do we really believe that people are just "born" with this innate ability? Or is it an acquired trait dependent on the environment?
Some pharmacists at this meeting stated that a residency forces one to become a leader- with the projects that the individual has to do, the DUE's, and just the rigors of residency. However, with the lack of residencies all over the country, can we really just say that residency will prep the individual? Not saying that residency won't develop the future pharmacist- it does quite thoroughly, but with the number of pharmacy schools growing, the number of pharmacy students graduating, and the number of hospitals/residency programs not increasing at the same rate, there will be many individuals (as I'm sure is right now), who are over qualified as pharmacists and leaders who just simply, was unfortunate to not match.
Further on, can we teach it in pharmacy school? If so, how would that course look? But then again, leadership can not really be forced on an individual- it should be chosen by that individual. So often, in pharmacy school, we are taught and tested on our counseling skills..but how about how to interact with others? When I first started in inpatient care, I was not used to having to deal with nurses and physicians. Nurses wondering where that medication is, physicians wondering how to order a certain drug per policy of the hospital, and so on. These are the interactions I have every day...but I was not taught them, they were per the environment and other pharmacists along the way that served as mentors.
Leadership, to me, is not the number of high formal roles that the pharmacist can have- it's more of how you interact with others and how responsive the individuals are to your recommendations for effective drug therapy. I was recently reading
Pharmacy Practice News, where one of the writers commented that "True leadership begins with understanding. Understanding begins with listening." If we listen to others around us, we can see the holes that need to be filled, and step up and fill those holes with effective teamwork and management as well.
So how do we develop leaders for the profession of pharmacy? Pharmacists need to be coached- some type of mentor, or even some type of program, to help develop the skills they need to acquire as leaders, as well as an ability to focus on their strengths. A lot of deals, yes, with the personality of the individual, but a lot of it can be learned simply by listening to others. Leadership can be an obligation...but only an obligation if we provide effective ways of achieving it. From that, we become leaders not only in our work environments, but on the floors (say, the implementation in PPMI), other multidisclipinary health organizations, and in our community.