The presenter admits he is somewhat contrarian, just one of his many eccentric traits. He was the first Australian pharmacist to complete a PhD in clinical pharmacy, but then worked as a hospital pharmacist for several years to develop his practical skills.
In this lecture, he will tackle and largely argue against the conference theme of ‘Innovation with Impact’, and most probably fail. The presenter is not the best or most innovative researcher, lecturer or practitioner, but has tried to juggle all these roles simultaneously and competently throughout his career. In defending his obvious shortcomings, he will deliver a case for the need for reliable all-rounders, in addition to innovators, in pharmacy academia and practice.
He will postulate that it is the academic all-rounders (or generalists) who link research with real-word practice, and have the greatest impact in improving the care of patients. The consistent all-rounders possess a diverse skill set that allows them to easily pivot between different demands. They can speak multiple “languages” within an organisation or system, effectively bridging the gap between hyper-specialised academic units and the practice setting.
The presenter will argue that the importance of competent and committed generalists has also never been so critical to the health care system, with the ageing and growing complexity of our multi-morbid patients, and many relatively simple clinical issues with significant ramifications falling between the cracks.
In what could become a rambling presentation, as might be expected for a generalist, the speaker will argue for the importance of more researchers and lecturers being in part-time practice, suggest that not all pharmacists are innovators (or indeed all-rounders) or the same in any other way and some professional services (e.g. prescribing) should consequently not be delivered by all pharmacists, vent frustrations over not being able to achieve team-based primary health care in Australia (completely uninnovative, but the “holy grail”), and discuss the “threat” of artificial intelligence to the profession of pharmacy.
In an attempt to add academic credibility, the presenter will include coverage of some recent research projects, illustrating a generalist mindset and lack of brilliance in any one area - including the use of large datasets from real-word practice to improve health outcomes for patients, through to pharmaceutical stability studies with immediate practical application. The only common and over-arching theme is that of attempting to help people to achieve better outcomes, whether they be patients, students or less experienced academics or pharmacists, or health-related organisations.