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Should pharmaceutical scientists be allowed to join the RPSGB

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Yes
45% (65 votes)
No
46% (66 votes)
Undecided
8% (12 votes)
Total votes: 143

Yes

This will bring breadth and depth of knowledge to the RPSGB.

Yes

It will then be able to fully represent the pharmaceutical process at all ends of the spectrum and become the authority on medicines - their delevopment and delivery.

Yes

We need leadership for pharmacy and pharmacists.

Yes

Pharmaceutical scientists do as much for the profession as pharmacists do. It's important to retain that scientific element of the profession as opposed to a purely clinical one - gives us the differential. I'm always being told that my pedantic attention to detail is me 'being a pharmacist' by other clinicians. Makes us different - everyone thinks they know about medicines but we know we're the experts, with the scientists providing the wholely scientific end of the pharmaceutical spectrum!

Undecided

There is one thing that does not seem to have been considered. Why would a pharmaceutical scientist want to join the RPSGB? It is going to cost money, so any pharmaceutical scientist is going to want to know what they are going to get for their cash.

Yes - or at least it would be if the system allowed me to vote

If the RPS is to be able to speak for the whole of pharmacy then it needs to be able to include in its membership those pharmaceutical scientists who already contribute much to our profession - for example non-pharmacist academics and those formulation scientists working in the pharmaceutical industry.

Pharmaceutical scientists

I've voted undecided. I think there ought to be a body for pharmacists, by which I mean those who earn, or used to earn (ie retired pharmacists like me), their living from activities regulated by the GPhC. However, I also think that those who are interested in pharmaceutical activities, such as pharmacologists and pharmaceutical chemists in industry, and those social scientists who have moved into the management of pharmaceutical activity, should be allowed to be "associated" with that body. I don't think, though, that the tail should be allowed to wag the dog! I don't think that those associates should have political power.

No

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society should solely represent the interests of registered pharmacists and those that are formally registerd pharmacists. It should be by pharmacists and for pharmacists. I agree with Miall - associateship might be possibly but strictly no dilution of political power in the profession. It serves no benefit to allow outsiders to have political power in our new Society.

NO

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society should be for pharmacists only. Leadership will be diluted if others are admitted. Are Path Lab technicians admitted to the BMA? In any event, the present definition of 'Pharmaceutical Scientist' could lead to non-pharmacist area managers being able to claim membership.

Yes

I think that as a profession we have nothing to fear from Pharmaceutical Scientists. We should resist the temptation to be insular- otherwise the only thing that gets diluted are our ideas and innovation. If we carefully design our entrance criteria we can select appropriately qualified pharmaceutical scientists, e.g. asking for proof of publications in the area will effectively exclude non-pharmacist area managers. I think it is highly insulting to equate the rich contribution our non-pharmacist scientist colleagues in academia and industry make with "path lab technicians". Aside from this, it would be extremely unimaginative to underestimate the positive contribution they can make to our political pull as a profession. We are all aware that nurses acquired prescribing rights before us- is this not a travesty considering that we are the experts on medicines? Perhaps if we had been seen to have the might of the Pharmaceutical industry within our ranks this might not have happened.