The primary care pharmacist.

Abstract

Community pharmacy practice is primary care. There, I said it. But many folks don’t agree. Community pharmacists are an important, but largely unrecognized, part of our primary health care system. Recently, I was working on a team grant that contained a few different projects, including a community pharmacy‒based smoking cessation study. The team members (policy-makers and researchers) kept talking about “the primary care project” (the one with family physicians) and the “pharmacy project.” I objected to the terminology, insisting that pharmacy is primary care, so why don’t we present a broader view of primary care (one that includes pharmacy). Eventually, they agreed, but it was enlightening that getting that point across to a bunch of “primary care” researchers was so difficult. Part of the problem is that it is so entrenched that primary care = family physicians, and we just accept that as fact. Indeed, most people equate primary care only with family physicians. Nothing against family physicians, but this ignores the much bigger picture of primary care. And, given that about a third of Canadians do not have or cannot easily see a family physician,1 this places more importance on the “other” parts of primary care.