I want to commend to your reading Sunday’s New York Times editorial, “When the Doctor is Not Needed,” which correctly points out that pharmacists providing patient care can help meet the shortage of primary care physicians.

The unsigned editorial said that the U.S. Public Health Service report to the Surgeon General “argued persuasively that pharmacists are ‘remarkably underutilized’ given their education, training, and closeness to the community.” Pharmacists who work in federal agencies deliver “a lot of health care with minimal supervision”; after a physician does the initial diagnosis, federal pharmacists take care of patients for whom medications are the primary treatment.

“Various state and federal laws make it hard for pharmacists in private practice to perform such services without a doctor’s supervision, even though patients often like dealing with a pharmacist, especially for routine matters,” the Times continued. Nurse practitioners, retail clinics in pharmacies and big retail stores, community aides, and self-care by patients were also named in the editorial as ways to address a short supply of physicians.

As demonstrated by the report to the Surgeon General (see December Pharmacy Today for a profile of lead author Scott Giberson), pharmacists can practice at a high level in collaboration with physicians. We’re pleased to see the editorial side of the New York Times take note of this report, and of expanded roles for pharmacists. We didn’t write the headline, but I agree totally with the premise of the article. We see our rapidly and much-needed evolving roles as team-based rather than as replacing our other colleagues in health care. Much of our work these days is focused on establishing recognized value for pharmacists in team-based care, and in establishing better connectivity in electronic health records for pharmacists.

This article is one of many we’ve seen in recent years. Thanks to the good work of so many pharmacists, more public observers are recognizing your value. Keep up the great work!