The public expects healthcare professionals to not only conform to laws and regulations, but to exercise moral judgement, empathy and care for the patient.
Handling ethical dilemmas in the provision of medicines information requires good moral reasoning skills, good clinical judgement, and good communication skills. Often the issue is about privacy, and you must be alert to privacy laws and regulations as well as ethical principles. Sometimes it may be an issue of even greater concern, such as a patient who appears to be in danger but refuses assistance. It is essential to reflect on the probability of receiving such enquiries and how you would handle the dilemma under the pressure of real time circumstances.
There are resources available that help formulate an ethical approach to delivering information about medicines and these are explored in this module.
Accreditation number for this module: S2019/97
This module has been accredited for 30 minutes of Group-1 CPD (or 0.5 CPD credits) or 30 minutes of Group-2 CPD (or 1 CPD credit) upon successful completion of the module's Test yourself multiple choice questions, suitable for inclusion in an individual pharmacist’s CPD plan.
