Top 50 Pharmacist Blogs

This Pharmacy and Health Blog has been included in a list of the Top 50 Pharmacist and Health Blogs, in the category “Pharmacy News and Informational Blogs”.  For the rest of the list, please visit http://www.nursingdegreeguide.org/2008/top-50-pharmacist-blogs/

World Quality Day 2008

Quality and the benefits it gives to organisations that implement it, will be celebrated on World Quality Day, 13 November 2008.  This day gives organisations the opportunity to reinforce the quality message and celebrate the work people in their organisations do to achieve quality. 

Pharmacists in every industry has a role to play in the achievement and promotion of quality.  Successful quality awareness programmes presents a challenge to those of us responsible for implementing it in the workplace but without the support and cooperation of our colleagues or employees, our quality efforts will not be very successful.  However, something that must be remembered is that quality cannot be taught or imposed - it is a matter of the stand we take.  Our efforts should therefore not be directed at “educating” or “teaching” quality principles, but rather influencing employees’ values and beliefs, their way of thinking.  If employees apply the value or principle of ”excellence” in their work on a daily basis, quality will automatically be part of the deal.

For a basic introduction to Quality Assurance and to promote Quality Assurance Awareness in the workplace, visit www.pharmaconnect.co.za.  Click on  Information and then “Featured Products and Launches”.  In the Quest for Quality article you will find a short summary on this topic as well as instructions on how to receive your free slideshow on this topic which you can use for training in the workplace.  Check the website regularly for the next presentations in the series.

Pharmaconnect.co.za celebrates 1st birthday & Connection Survey 2008

We are very proud to be celebrating the first birthday of Pharmaconnect.co.za!  We believe that Pharmaconnect.co.za provides the unique opportunity to pharmacists and healthcare professionals in the pharmaceutical industry to connect.  We would like to thank everyone for their contribution to the growth of the website over the past year.  It has been an interesting journey and we connected wth many different individuals.   One of the improvements on the website this year was the addition of a flash window on the homepage: http://www.pharmaconnect.co.za, highlighting what the main purpose of the website is and providing an additional marketing opportunity to our partners.

To celebrate our first birthday, Pharmaconnect.co.za will be launching new tools for pharmacists as well as provide an exclusive marketing opportunity to our partners.

Here is to connecting with even more pharmacists and healthcare professionals in the year to come!

Pharmaconnect.co.za – Connection Survey 2008

We would like to know more about our users and their impression of Pharmaconnect.co.za.  Please take 2 minutes to complete our survey and help us to improve!    

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Pharmacy in the Garden – Echinacea

In the last couple of years, there has certainly been an increased awareness among the public regarding the use of herbs and medicinal plants.  Pharmaconnect.co.za decided to make “Pharmacy in the Garden” a regular feature on the website.  The first medicinal plant we chose to discuss, was Echinacea, especially because it’s winter and can be used in the prevention and treatment of colds and flu but also because it is easy to grow in your own garden!    

A fantastic sunny garden plant, with wonderful medicinal properties, this plant is long-lived and often seen in summer gardens to attract butterflies or for use as a cut flower.  It is almost essential to have this plant in your garden, not only for its medicinal properties, but also because it is a natural tonic for other plants in the garden.  Make a delicious tea from the flowers and leaves: Brew ¼ cup flowers and leaves and 1 cup boiling water.  Leave to brew for 5 minutes and strain.  Drink one cup fresh tea daily to strengthen the immune system, but not too regularly, only when you have flu or bronchitis. 

Medicinal uses:

Echinacea is well known for its anti-viral, anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, and anti-inflammatory properties.  Echinacea stimulates white blood cell activity, thereby increasing the body’s production of antiviral substances e.g. interferon and assist immune cells in fighting some of the viruses that cause bronchitis.  It is commonly recommended by herbalists as an agent to lessen the symptoms and duration at the onset of a cold or the flu.

For other medicinal uses and gardening tips, read the full article on Pharmaconnect.co.za – http://www.pharmaconnect.co.za  in the Interaction, Practical Advice section.

Pharmacy: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow

The pharmacy profession has changed.  The reason why a pharmacist choose pharmacy as a career, might not be the reason for still practising the profession today.  Or it may be the reason for not being in the profession anymore.  Especially in South Africa, pharmacists had to deal with a lot of change in the last couple of years.  The effect of this is evident in the decreasing number of students registering at the universities.   At first, pharmacists had to deal with doing community service for the first time and more recently, the new price legislation had an effect on all sectors of pharmacy.

Why are you a pharmacist?  What motivates you and what do you enjoy about pharmacy?  One of the reasons why I chose this career, was the different fields that pharmacists can enter after qualifying.  This is still true and you will find pharmacists in all kinds of professions outside the retail pharmacy.  But I still talk to a lot of friends who are not happy and who cannot seem to find the “ideal” job.  For some of them the reason for not being happy in their current position is the salary, for others the working conditions (long hours, colleagues ….).  But I believe that you will find all these factors in other professions as well. 

It would be interesting to hear the views of other pharmacists in various fields of pharmacy…

The involvement of the pharmacist in the fight against HIV/AIDS

Recently published statistics regarding the prevalence of HIV/AIDS, revealed that South Africa has the highest number of HIV-positive people in the world.  Mail & Guardian (23 July 2007, Sydney, Australia) reports the following:  ”according to the United Nations, close to 40-million people worldwide are infected with the Aids virus and treatment had dramatically expanded from 240 000 people in 2001 to 1,3-million by 2005.  South Africa has regained its number-one spot as the country with the greatest number of HIV-positive people, after the official estimate of India’s HIV-positive population was more than halved.   It is now estimated that 2,47-million people out of India’s more than 1,1-billion population have HIV, down from 5,7-million previously. An estimated 5,5-million South Africans carry the virus out of a total population of approximately 47-million”.

It is only logical that pharmacists are involved in the treatment of HIV patients at different levels.  The Mail & Guardian report stated that an absence of proper pharmaceutical storage had seen HIV/Aids drugs expire before they could be administered.  This is clearly an area which needs to be monitored closely, from manufacturing of the drug to distribution and eventually ordering stock for the hospital or pharmacy.   This is supported by guidelines published in a position paper by the South African Pharmacy Council.  The report stated that pharmacists must be utilised to ensure the supply of appropriate drugs for the prevention and treatment of opportunistic and HIV related diseases and by managing the procurement, distribution and use of these drugs. 

It was also mentioned that pharmacists play an important role in monitoring the cost of drugs, assisting with budgeting and forecasting demand of e.g.
· parenteral nutrition,
· antibiotics,
· anti-virals,
· anti-retrovirals,
· relevant vaccines,
· TB drugs, and
· antifungal drugs.

Evidently, pharmacists plays a key role in the management of HIV/AIDS.  Pharmacists are active in different pharmaceutical fields and may therefore be presented with opportunities to become involved in various ways.  The role of the pharmacist would therefore be determined by his/her area of speciality or the work he/she is currently doing, thereby contributing to the global effort in fighting this disease.   

The chronicles of weight loss

We all enjoy good food, good company and indulge a bit, in fact some of us indulge quite a lot. When the weekend has passed, it is back to work and our daily routine. We work hard and when we get home in the afternoon excercising isn’t actually on top of our list. Slowly but surely the kilojoules creep up on us and after a couple of months our trousers fit a lot tighter than it used to. Does this sound familiar?

You have decided to loose weight, maybe on recommendation from your doctor that being overweight is hazardous to your heart, blood pressure and general health, or maybe you would like to fit into that pair of jeans you paid quite a bit for… Diets and over the counter medication for weight loss claim to burn fat, build and tone muscle but this often only leads to frustration and is rarely effective over the long term. If a salesperson recommends a product that has the potential to change the shape of your body without excercise, the product is usually too good to be true. 

Although most of us would prefer that indeed such a magical product exists, excercise is still the only proven method of losing weight and maintaining your ideal weight. The secret of losing weight is for your body to burn more kilojoules than your daily intake, a principle I have seen to work very effectively in my own life.   

Welcome to the Pharmacy & Health blog

We are joining the blogniverse (blog + universe)!  The following quote best describes what we aim to achieve with this blog:

“Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?”  Edward Lorenz

The blog is a natural extension of the website www.pharmaconnect.co.za , with the aim of connecting the pharmaceutical and health community and every individual interested in pharmaceuticals and health care.