The feature articles below are "opinion" pieces and reflect the views of the individual authors. They are not the views of AusPharm.net.au P/L, its directors or editorial group unless explicitly stated to be so.

A fair crack of the whip :: Bill Arnold : 28/6/2009 : I remember many many years ago hearing a senior (=old) Guild official admonishing us young agitators by telling us that we did not know all the wondrous things “we have done for you”, and how “you are in a good position (now) because of our (past) hard work”. One of us reminded him that our future was in front of us, his behind him.

That said, I see a troublesome lack of perspective in some of the discussions now taking place, and a brief look at ancient times might be a good thing.   More...

How to attract and retain the right employees... :: Lisa Amarant : 23/6/2009 :

Anyone who owns a business or is responsible for managing employees always wants to know the secret to finding and retaining talented employees.

Talented and high performing employees are instrumental to business success - and with more management focus than ever before on retaining great employees, many business owners are left wondering: why are our retention rates and loyalty so low? Why is it so difficult to find the right employees?

So, here are some top tips from Lisa Amarant, Business Development Manager for Raven's Recruitment.   More...

Codeine containing products should go to schedule 3 :: Michael Scavone : 2/6/2009 : At its meeting later this month, the National Drugs and Poisons Scheduling Committee will consider proposals to up-schedule codeine containing products from Schedule 2 to Schedule 3. It will also look at a some related issues, including limiting pack size.

No doubt many submissions have been put forward to the committee and there has certainly been much discussion on AusPharmList (eg here) over the years on OTC codeine.    More...

How Austin Powers and Ben Folds affect Australian consumer behaviour :: somepharmacyguy : 26/5/2009 : "I just drove to the store for some Preparation H" - Ben Folds, Rocking the Suburbs
"Preparation A to G failed, I call this device Preparation H" - Dr Evil, Austin Powers

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somepharmacy guy is back, with a quirky tale on the influence of TV and the Internet.    More...

Marketing: replacing inertia with action :: Frank Morgan : 19/5/2009 : Being interested in success is not enough.

Any marketing plan for your business requires total commitment; commitment to spending time, commitment to spending money and commitment to continually grow.

You can all feel the sizzle and excitement of new ideas, but you don’t need to go broke implementing them.    More...

Pharmacist prescribing and funding recognition for pharmacists - where's the leadership when we really need it? :: Ron Batagol : 12/5/2009 : In today's AusPharm feature Ron Batagol asks why it is, when optometrists have access to the PBS and nurses look set to follow, that pharmacists are lagging behind?

"In the recent AusPharmList discussion on the issue of prescribing rights for pharmacists (here), participants have, quite correctly in my view, noted that this matter  is one that, if effectively implemented, would represent a shift of quantum proportions in the way that pharmacists carry out their professional activities and, therefore, the issue must to be driven by the peak pharmacy professional organisations working together."    More...

Under a bushel: Rob Smallwood - guitar maker :: : 5/5/2009 : Back in February we ran the first of our 'Under a bushel' features exposing the hitherto hidden (photography) talents of David Haworth.

We recently got wind of another 'lister with a special hidden talent and snuck up on him while he wasn't looking.

Rob Smallwood is a NSW south coast pharmacist who makes guitars on the side (or is that a guitar maker who practises pharmacy on the side?).    More...

Record Keeping for Tax Purposes :: Ian Wessling : 28/4/2009 : In today's AusPharm feature JR Pharmacy Services' Manager Ian Wessling talks about  some of the things you need to do to keep the tax man happy.

"Is the office space at the pharmacy over flowing with till printouts, invoices and POS Reports? Is it starting to spread to your garage and home office? 

Before you throw it out or start renting short term storage to hold it you need to consider what you are required to hold for tax purposes."    More...

The Great Crash of ’08 - Being a discussion of men, money and morality :: John Chapman : 21/4/2009 : In today's feature, Australian College of Pharmacy Practice and Management CEO John Chapman tries to give some meaning to what the Global Financial Crisis might mean for pharmacy.

"Let me say at the outset that I’m not an economist however a long time ago I did study micro and macro economics and that arguably gives me some chance of interpreting the words of experts. What I’ve tried to do for this evening presentation is to gather a range of commentary on the current situation, blend it with some purely academic reading, and, in the process, hopefully produce a result that is both intelligible and helpful to you."    More...

What's good enough for remote Australia is good enough for urban Australia :: Andrew Roberts : 7/4/2009 : Nurses have been in the news a lot in recent times. Back in February the mainstream media picked up on one of the ideas floated in the Maternity Services Report, that midwives might perhaps be able to write PBS prescriptions.

Peter Crothers commented in an AusPharmList post earlier this year that nurses also do 'pharmacy' work in at least 50 NSW hospitals.

Today's AusPharm feature begins with comments from pharmacist Patti Placebo on her retirement from pharmacy in 2015. Patti talks about the decision taken by the Rudd government in 2010 to recast pharmacy services across the country to bring them into line with the successful model used in remote Australia. The remote model successfully added a pharmacy role to nursing work.    More...

What's in a name? :: David Haworth : 31/3/2009 : A new art form has evolved as pharmacies clamour to raise themselves above the rest of the pack.

Traditional naming protocols are giving way to inventive and emotive signage. Clever, punchy or just plain wacky pharmacy names are being dreamed up to grab the consumers attention and lure them into themodern, well designed premises.

Save and Deliver, You Save Chemist and Ice Cream Parlor, Drug Plus Mega-Save Outlet.

All right, I made up the last one.    More...

Don’t just stand there, *do* something :: Frank Morgan : 25/3/2009 : Often when I visit retail outlets and talk to staff, I am amazed to find that apart from learning how to use the cash register ... NOTHING …

As the owner or manager of a business you rely for your success or failure on the performance of your team. Possibly, you have invested many hundreds of thousands of dollars in your business. Train your staff as though they write the cheque for your pay ..... because they do.    More...

How long is your piece of string? :: Irwin the evil chemist : 17/3/2009 : Frequently, a foot is what you might want to plant forcefully in the backside of a lazy, non-performing employee.  Non-performing employees who exist in that state for lack of cognitive ability to carry out their – so straightforward that a lobotomised lemur might also be able to accomplish – task are far more deserving of an open-palmed smack to the back of the head.

An open-palmed smack to the front of the head is usually administered to one’s self and typically for reasons of self stupidity where, sadly, there can be nobody else to blame, and perhaps the magnitude of the accomplishment can only be met by such self forehead flagellation.    More...

Competition is good, yes? Well maybe! :: Ron Batagol : 10/3/2009 : Isn't it funny how, as you travel through the highways and byways of life, something you've read, heard or seen - a piece of literature, prose or even a TV show, seems to crystallise into a prophetic commentary on life in general, or at least on specific aspects of the social fabric that inextricably binds us together as a community.

Two of the most powerful and abiding images of 2008 have got to be, firstly, at the start of the world financial meltdown, the top financial gurus of Wall Street, hastily leaving the city with bulging briefcases , in chauffeured limousines.  Then, some weeks later, the heads of the major auto manufacturers arriving in their private jets, to meet with the U.S.Congress and beg for billions of taxpayer dollars to enable their companies to survive!    More...

Under a bushel: David Haworth, photographer :: : 17/2/2009 : After the 'serious' nature of our features over the last few weeks we thought that this week would be a good time to run with something a little lighter.

In the first of what will be occasional contributions from 'listers with talents outside pharmacy, David Haworth tells us about his other passion. (Thanks to Peter Allen for asking the questions.)

We've included some thumbnails of David's work. Click any of these to link to the full sized versions on his website.    More...

Promotion of ‘discounted’ medicines :: Michael Scavone : 10/2/2009 : Not one pharmacist I know enjoys having one of their customers hand them a leaflet promoting heavily discounted medicines, often sold substantially lower than their regular wholesale price.

Why does this practice go on, supposedly unchecked and accepted because it is ‘legal’?    More...

Time to scrap to RMMR referral process? :: Michael Page : 1/2/2009 : A New South Wales general practitioner commented recently in a popular medical magazine on the usefulness of uniform facility-initiated medication reviews (Residential Medication Management Reviews, or RMMRs) provided by pharmacists.

He considered that these reviews often “misrepresent data on adverse reactions and ignore any benefit-risk decision considered by the prescriber”. Perhaps more disappointingly, he goes on to state that he “generally ignores the pharmacist’s review rather than… agreeing with the obvious, or arguing against the irrelevant”.

This is one man’s opinion and it may or may not be widely held, although it may be so that pharmacists have heard similar complaints from different doctors.    More...

The Private Practitioner Pharmacist - A Third Career Path :: John Gibson : 27/1/2009 : In the first of our features for 2009, former Pharmaceutical Council of Western Australia member, John Gibson, says it is time for a third career pathway to  be developed for pharmacists.

"The National Primary Health Care Strategy currently being developed by the Federal Government offers an unequalled opportunity for pharmacists to be recognised as key primary health care providers, along with physiotherapists, occupational therapists and other allied health practitioners, and to receive payment for same."

However, according to John, not all industry players are on side.

"If the [Pharmacy] Guild maintains its traditional resistance to the provision of services outside the control of the community pharmacy during the development of the National Primary Health Care Strategy, it may well destroy a once in a generation opportunity to move pharmacy forward to a new level of professionalism and cripple the chance for thousands of pharmacy graduates to fully utilise the skills that they have developed during their training."    More...

Forged and altered scripts: how we detect and handle them :: Curtis Ruhnau : 20/1/2009 : With all the talk on AusPharmList recently about forged scripts, we thought it might be good to republish Curtis Ruhnau's excellent artilce from January, 2007.

As a special treat for our non premium members (so that you can see what you're missing out on!), we've made it available to ALL registered AusPharm members (not just premium members) for THE NEXT WEEK ONLY (until 27/1/09). Read on.....

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So, what helps us to detect forgeries? It can be many things, but it seems that like so many things in this life - if it looks crook, it probably is. Our folder has quite a few examples of what has been done to try to get us to dispense scripts which have been forged or altered, but some of the 'triggers' which arouse our suspicion are......    More...

Weight loss in the pharmacy :: Stuart Adams : 12/1/2009 : AusPharm first published this article from nutritionist Stuart Adams back in October 2007. We thought you might like another look at it in the light of  David Gillespie's comments  questioning the efficacy of weight loss shakes, published in Crikey last week.

As a special treat for our non-premium members (so you can see what you're missing by not taking out a premium subscription to AusPharm) we've made it available to you too for this week only (until 20/1/09). Read on.....

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"When pharmacists abuse their positions as trusted health care professionals to use their pharmacies as vehicles to push faddish weight loss schemes, one has to seriously question the validity of the pharmacy as a reliable source of information on weight loss or anything nutrition related."    More...

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