An essay by fourth-year pharmacy student and MPA member Robert Haua won him the Future Pharmacist of the Year category in the Pharmacy Today/Guild Pharmacy Awards 2015!
Judges were so impressed that they asked that the essay be published in Pharmacy Today! Let’s help to get it out there whanau!
The topic given was:
How and what are you going to do to enhance the role of pharmacy in the primary care setting? Explain how and why your suggested changes will be acceptable to other members of the primary care team, and possibly to funders.
Here’s a snippet…
Recruiting of Maori and Pacific pharmacists essential
In direct consequence to the misunderstanding of pharmacy as a career come issues with recruitment into the profession, which is especially prevalent with Maori and Pacific. In New Zealand, approximately 1.5% and 0.9% of practising pharmacists are of Maori or Pacific descent, respectively.[24]
Literature suggests that a lack of cultural concordance between patients and health professionals may reduce patient satisfaction, access and adherence to treatments.[25,26]
Indigenous people worldwide are subject to substantial inequities in healthcare access, healthcare quality and ultimately health outcomes, with long-lasting disparities in life expectancy, morbidity and mortality when compared with people of a nonindigenous descent.[27,28]
Combating the underrepresentation of indigenous health professionals, including pharmacists, has been identified internationally as an essential approach to reducing indigenous health inequities.[29]
Check out the full essay here!
