Pharmacists taking larger role in health care, says retired registrar
After graduating from college, Ray Joubert’s six-month job ended up stretching over four decades.
“It’s been a long six months,” the newly retired registrar of the Saskatchewan College of Pharmacy Professionals said with a laugh.
Over the decades, he has seen many changes, including three association name changes and an expanded scope of practice for pharmacists.
When Joubert graduated from the University of Saskatchewan in 1974, he could not have foreseen that pharmacists would administer drugs by injection, prescribe some drugs and order lab tests.
Following graduation, the pharmacy professional took a six-month trial job with the thenSaskatchewan Pharmaceutical Association and went on to become registrar of the association in 1985.
His retirement on Dec. 31 marked 40-plus years with the association.
“The biggest change has been the evolution of the role of the pharmacist from product-focused to more patient-focused to doing what we can to help patients maximize the benefits of their drug therapy,” Joubert said.
“From an organizational point of view, the shift from what used to be a dual mandate of advocacy and public protection to simply being sole mandated regulatory body in the best interests of the public — those would be the two big highlights.”
For the remainder of 2018, Joubert will be associate registrar for the Saskatchewan College of Pharmacy Professionals, where he will play an advisory role and work on special projects.
He doesn’t anticipate the future will hold the same expansion that pharmacists have experienced over the past decade.
“I think the big opportunity right now is for the pharmacist to become a really strong functioning member of the primary healthcare team,” Joubert said.
However, he expects pharmacists will expand their skills from administering flu vaccines to other preventable diseases.
“(We’ll be) working with all sorts of stakeholders in population health to make sure that we contribute as much as we can to a healthy population with things like a reduction in the rates of HIV/ AIDS infections and all of the consequences with respect to addictions,” he said.
There is a growing trend of opioid misuse in Saskatchewan outside the control of pharmacists or the prescribing process, but Joubert cautions that other drugs, like sleeping pills, also carry risk.
“We need to be careful about making sure that as we focus on the opioid crisis that we don’t overlook what might be other contributing factors,” he said.
Pharmacists, in collaboration with other members of the primary health-care team, play key roles in educating the public about opioids to ensure they are used effectively and safely to avoid addiction.
As he gradually moves to retirement, Joubert muses about his career as pharmacy professional and regulator.
“If I’ve played a small part in ensuring that patients continue to benefit from the wonderful services of the pharmacist, I think I will have accomplished something,” he said.
In retirement, volunteering will be high on his priority list.
“I’d like to give back as a volunteer if I could, not necessarily to the profession, but to the community,” Joubert said. “I might go back to school and take some classes, do some travelling and see places in North America and the rest of the world that I’ve heard about but haven’t had a chance to get to and revisit some places that really appeal to me.”