Time has come up a lot in recent months. Will we have time to administer injections? Do medication reviews? Assess for minor ailments? Will we have time to do all of these things and still have good relationships with our patients? All of these questions are legitimate and require careful thought to ensure solutions are realized and sustainable  for everyone.

      In thinking about these questions, I have been pondering the concept of time. Specifically our time as practitioners. For example, in the run of a day at many community pharmacies, there is not a lot of spare time. We could be at work for eight hours or more and are often running  from the time our shift starts. We run from one end of the counter to the other, answering the phone, ringing people in, counselling, recommending OTC’s. Unfortunately, it’s often difficult to have an extra minute to eat, let alone administer a flu shot.

      When I do have that extra minute, I try to spend it with my patients. I take an extra minute to talk to a mother about her son’s ADHD.  Perhaps the diagnosis was thrown at her and she doesn’t understand what is happening to her child. All it may take is three extra minutes and she leaves with more knowledge and comfort than when she arrived. Maybe you choose to spend it with a patient who has depression and has finally gotten up the energy and nerve to ask for help. Or perhaps with the elderly lady who can’t understand why her doctor has her on a stomach pill when she hasn’t had gastrointestinal problems for years.

      All of these little minutes add up. It may not seem like much, but I truly believe they cultivate our relationships with patients. Now we are faced with a changing scope of practice. When this expanded scope first came on my radar, I was scared. I was nervous that my relationships with my patients would suffer. Now I realize that I could choose to be scared and not do anything, which does no one any good,  or I can take the little minutes I have with patients and form them into an appointment to administer a flu shot, do a medication review or an assessment. I believe it will strengthen our bonds with our patients. Just because I’m giving a flu shot doesn’t mean I can’t ask the mother about her son’s ADHD, or the man about his depression, or the lady about her stomach. We can ask these questions, and we will, because they are still our patients and it is still their time. We’re just squeezing a few more services into it. Let’s face it- in the end, it’s just multi-tasking. And pharmacists are champion multi-taskers.

      We can do this.