How will you celebrate World Pharmacists Day 2021?

Save the date and get ready to mark this year’s World Pharmacists Day (WPD 2021) on Saturday 25 September.

After a tremendous contribution to Australia’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout and being selected to spearhead the Moderna vaccine campaign, there is much for pharmacists to celebrate this year. 

This important role in safeguarding the community is perfectly encapsulated in the WPD 2021 theme: ‘Pharmacy: Always trusted for your health.’

According to the International Pharmaceutical Federation, pharmacists and educators are consistently named among the world’s most trusted professionals, with recent research placing scientists at the top. These three elements form the backbone of the pharmacy profession.

As the most accessible healthcare professionals, pharmacists have long been trusted to provide medicines information and health advice to patients. 

The extra efforts pharmacists put into patient care during the COVID-19 pandemic has only bolstered the public’s trust in the profession. 

Pharmacists are also central to challenging vaccine hesitancy on the ground by serving as trusted reservoirs of evidence-based information about the benefits of vaccines to the wider community.

Pharmacists’ scope of practice is also continually expanding, with the profession now trusted with more services, including vaccines and testing, delivered in a variety of practice settings. 

Pharmacy leaders on World Pharmacists Day

The PSA National President Associate Professor Chris Freeman said pharmacists should be excited to celebrate this day marked in their honour. 

The recently announced Chairs of PSA’s Communities of Special Interest also shared their thoughts on WPD.

According to Interdisciplinary Team-based Care CSI Chair Debbie Rigby FPS, WPD is ‘a time to celebrate the diverse role of pharmacists, and reflect on our individual and collective successes’. 

Contemporary Community Pharmacy CSI Chair Dr Fei Sim FPS said the day is not just about pharmacists, but about everyone in the community.

‘The work we do, day-in-day-out has an enormous impact on people’s lives,’ Dr Sim told Australian Pharmacist. 

‘WPD is special because the selfless and important role we play often goes unnoticed, and a day like this serves to remind everyone of the positive impact pharmacists [have] on local communities.’

Early Career Pharmacist CSI Chair Deanna Mill MPS agreed, saying WPD provides a chance for pharmacists to stop and reflect on the good things the profession continues to do locally, nationally and around the world. 

‘Pharmacists rarely stop to celebrate all of the good they do for the health of society and [the] added stressors of the ongoing pandemic have made it harder again,’ she said. 

‘But we [pharmacists] give so much of our lives to improve the health of others and deserve to stop and give ourselves a pat on the back.’

How to get involved in WPD 2021

The PSA will kick off the celebrations in the week leading up to WPD by highlighting the variety of different practice areas and the many roles that pharmacists are trusted to fulfil.

There are several ways to join in the fun, including:

• Posting about your own ideas and experiences around the ‘trust’ theme, including photos or patient stories
• Sharing PSA’s specially crafted tiles on your social pages
• Printing off PSA’s trust-themed speech bubble, where you can write your own statement and include a photo
• Filming and posting a clip about your role and the trust between yourself, your patients and your employer to social media.

Don’t forget to tag PSA in your posts and use the hashtags #WPD2021 and #pharmacistsalwaystrusted.

You can celebrate the achievements of your fellow pharmacists on the eve of WPD 2021 by tuning into the PSA Excellence Awards Livestream, which will commence on Friday, 24 September at 5:30 pm.

‘The announcement of the PSA Excellence Awards is a time to recognise and celebrate those pharmacists who make such a valuable contribution to the profession and to society,’ Ms Rigby said.

‘I’ll definitely be live streaming the PSA Excellence Awards because there’s nothing like cheering on and celebrating the best of the best,’ Ms Mill added.

Find more information about World Pharmacists Day 2021 here.