8 As pharmacists, we are faced and deal with ethical dilemmas every day. Much of the time, we do not recognize them as dilemmas – just a situation that needs to be dealt with. This chapter will build on the ethical principles described in Chapter 7 and help you ponder on what you need to consider as the best course of action in a given situation. The GPhC publishes ‘Standards of conduct, ethics and performance’ that pharmacy professionals must follow. The GPhC is clear in this document that pharmacy professionals are registered pharmacists and pharmacy technicians (see Ch. 5). The standards of conduct has seven principles. As a pharmacy professional, you must: It is also important to remember that we are pharmacists all day every day. We will sometimes be faced with a decision when we are not working, which because we are pharmacists, will have an ethical element to it, which may not need to be considered by others. You are attending a party and several people at the party are drunk. You become aware that one of them is planning to drive home. As a non-pharmacist you will choose whether or not you want to get involved in the situation or ignore it. If the driver is then involved in an accident, unless you were in the car with them, there is unlikely to be any personal consequence of your inaction. As a pharmacist however, if you chose to ignore the drunken driver you may be in breach of the second principle of the standards of conduct, as you are not protecting the interests of the public and have not done your best to reduce risks to the public – this could mean that you are referred to the GPhC’s FtP committee (see Ch. 5). Your process should include the following:
Ethics in practice and ethical dilemmas
Introduction
Code of conduct, ethics and performance
What is an ethical dilemma?
Example of an ethical dilemma
Ethical decision-making processes
Define the problem
Reflect on values, conflicts of interest and if this is an ethical dilemma
You need to identify the values involved in the situation so that you can check whether your own innate values may influence your thought process
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