FIP (the International Pharmaceutical Federation) have published a competency framework for pharmacy professionals who work in the humanitarian sector (and support health programs in emergency, fragile, and humanitarian contexts).
"The aim of this work was as to provide an international competency framework for pharmacists working in the humanitarian arena, that would be used to guide education and training programmes in this increasingly important field of practice."
After years of discussion and hard work, it's finally out! I'm very happy to have had the opportunity to be a part of this wonderful initiative.
But...
Even though this framework offers a huge first step towards guiding education, training, and professionalisation for those working in pharmacy in the humanitarian sector, much remains to be done.
With such an enormous, diverse, and undefined field, there will certainly be errors, omissions, ambiguities, and controversies in this document that need to be worked through. (Indeed, during development we even needed to define what we meant by humanitarian pharmacy!)
So, whilst I am pragmatic about the completeness of this work, I also believe that there is huge cause to celebrate. The first step is often the hardest - and now we have a focus for debate!
Therefore, I hope that you and your organisation will benefit from this work. However, I also hope that rather than using it as an authoritative document, you will offer constructive feedback and criticism, so that future versions will benefit from healthy debate and broad input.
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