[18] Again, issues such as how well remunerated the staff are, and how well staffed the pharmacy is, might also be important in determining the level of professionalism in place. Although this definition

was developed with US pharmacies in mind, some of the issues raised are at the heart of pharmacy practice in the UK and beyond, where often community pharmacists are described by other healthcare professionals as shopkeepers. In many developed countries, including selleck screening library the UK, the majority of pharmacists have been forced into either employee status or into locum positions, thereby minimising their impact on the professional development of pharmacy. The situation in the less developed nations is even more pathetic, as the pharmacy business is often controlled by traders, many of whom are involved in the illicit

supply of adulterated or expired medicines. These ownership arrangements have a direct negative impact on professionalism and pharmacists’ ability to meet government agendas for the enhanced role of pharmacists in public health. One of the strategies accepted by many as being very effective in this occupational professionalisation is the professional socialisation process,[5,18] small molecule library screening which tends to occur during both student education and professional practice Galactosylceramidase and has been defined as the process by which students learn and adopt the values, attitudes and practice behaviours

of a profession.[18] It has also been agreed that, in general, formal curricula, including experiential learning (work experience), help to socialise students, hopefully in a positive direction, while ‘hidden curricula’ (i.e. attitudes and behaviours that are formally taught) and experiences outside the formal curriculum are also helpful in socialising students in positive or negative directions.[18] A balance of positive influences in both student education and professional practice is therefore required to produce a professional practitioner,[5] but often this expected balance does not occur. In order to explain this imbalance, the term ‘inconsistent socialisation’ has been developed to explain the conflict that regularly occurs between the forces of socialisation and leads to differences between students’ and recent graduates’ expectations concerning their role in health care and other individuals’ expectations of this role.