E-drug: Brain-drain of health professionals (cont)
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I would suggest that you to consider whether the "brain drain" in the
broadest sense - if there is a brain drain, what are the reasons and
are they peculiar to health professionals, pharmacists.
Scott has raised very important points regarding creating
opportunities (perceived and actual)
In South Africa there are policy issues being debated which influence
the perceived opportunities available for pharmacists e.g opening up
the ownership of pharmacies to non-pharmacists, the prospect of
replacing the traditional mark-up on medicines with a professional
fee as the source of income for community pharmacists. In addition,
there are very real competitive pressures from mail order medicine,
drugs.com, and dispensing doctors together with the entry into the
market of the chain stores.
This has taken place in a climate of change in the role of the
community pharmacist from the traditional retailer to the
pharmaceutical care service provider - seen as threatening by some.
These pressures have resulted in many community pharmacists having
negative attitudes about future prospects and they do influence the
attitudes of new graduates, especially during their year of
internship.
But there are two factors which I believe are of particular
significance. Since 1994, we have become part of the global network
and it should be expected that young people want to travel and pursue
their careers in different countries. So we should be measuring
brain drain against brain gain - there are many health professionals
coming to work in South Africa.
Related to this is that there have been aggressive marketing
campaigns to recruit health professionals in South Africa. It may be
that the reason for brain drain is simply a case of effective
marketing!
Cheers
Billy
Billy Futter
Associate Professor
Faculty of Pharmacy
Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa
email B.Futter@ru.ac.za
phone 046 603 8494
fax 046 636 1205
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