Clinical Pharmacology & Biopharmaceutics
Open Access

Abstract

The philosophy of pharmacy practice determines pharmacists as health professionals with the knowledge, skills and attributes to take responsibility for the management of medicines with the aim of optimizing health outcomes. This includes both the technical aspects of pharmacy services and the more recent patient-centred care. A pharmacist may be faced with conflicting professional responsibilities; ethics and ethical dilemmas are encountered frequently in pharmacists� daily practice nowadays. Pharmacists should be aware of common ethical principles such as privacy, confidentiality, veracity, beneficence and justice that they need to consider while providing pharmaceutical care to their patients. These principles apply to all pharmacists, irrespective of their work setting or job responsibilities and are intended to express the responsibilities and professional values fundamental to the pharmacy profession. Consequently, it is essential that pharmacists use their professional judgment when deciding on a course of action to be undertaken; often, they ground their decisions in dealing with ethical dilemmas on their own attitudes, beliefs, religion, patients� wishes, institutional policy, and pharmacy code of conduct. To improve pharmacists� awareness of ethics and enhance their moral judgment, important areas needing to be studied include: how ethics should be taught to pharmacists, the kinds of ethical problems that are possible, how frequently they occur, how well pharmacists are dealing with the ethical problems of their work, and what impact this may have on the services they provide.

Biography

Email: shasan@sharjah.ac.ae