Boundary encroachment and task delegation: clinical pharmacists on the medical team

Abstract

The sociological literature on pharmacy is sparse, relative to that on physicians and nurses, especially in light of recent changes in the nature of health care and pharmacy's expanded 'clinical' role. Moreover, some of this literature presents contradictory perceptions of the clinical pharmacy role; some are perceiving it as encroaching on physicians' role boundaries, while others perceive its few new tasks to be delegated. This article is based on extended participant observation of clinical pharmacists in two northeastern teaching hospitals in the U.S. Data are presented on the clinical tasks the pharmacists performed, the potential boundary conflicts they posed for other members of the medical team, the resolutions of these conflicts, and the role boundaries perceived by relevant participants. From this analysis it is argued that the literature on pharmacy's boundary encroachment is not so much contradictory as incomplete. Implications for pharmacy and the analysis of role boundaries is discussed in conclusion.

Object Lessons: Workplace Artifacts as Representations of Occupational Jurisdiction

“…However, a body of ethnographic literature about the professions, particularly in the medical field, suggests that the workplace is a consequential setting for jurisdictional struggles. In hospitals, workplaces with frequent cross-professional interaction, the informal practices and rhetorical strategies of professionals have been shown to blur and alter task boundaries (Mesler 1991;Chambliss 1997;Hughes 1980). Allen (2000), for instance, has demonstrated that the everyday "boundary work" of nurses is key to understanding how the division of labor in hospitals is accomplished.…”

Assessment of the knowledge, attitude and practice of pharmacovigilance by pharmacists in two states in southeastern Nigeria

“…Despite this, issues such as job overload, role conflict and role ambiguity are potential factors that could negatively influence participation in PV particularly among hospital pharmacists. For example, incidences of role conflict between pharmacists and doctors have been reported [24]. Lack of communication has been identified as a cause of poor doctors-pharmacists working relationship that inter-professional education could solve [25].…”

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Development of an interactive model for planning the care workforce for Alberta: case study

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