Practicing Up to Your License: The Next Generation of Diabetes Caregivers

Starlin Haydon-Greatting, MS, BSPharm, claims that pharmacist education has changed; by furthering education and credentials, a pharmacist’s role in the healthcare world can extend far beyond what were once thought to be the traditional roles of the pharmacist. Pharmacists’ involvement in programs such as the Medication Therapy Management, for example, can have a positive impact on health management in general.

“Pharmacy just keeps changing the name of what we do. Sometimes it's pharmaceutical care, sometimes it's drug regimen reviews, sometimes it’s drug utilization review, sometimes it’s counter detailing,” Haydon-Greatting says of the various functions a pharmacist performs.

“In the primary care providers, the nurse practitioners may only get them in for 3 to 4 times a year, if we're lucky. Because of that frequency and because they come to the stores to buy all their other over-the-counter medical products and so forth, we do have an opportunity to create access, a greater access,” she notes.

Pharmacists today are the bridges that can connect a patient and physician in the gap between visits, and prove to be an easily accessible and knowledgeable source of help and guidance.