This article was corrected on April 25. Dr. Kate Cozart's name was misspelled.
Retaining pharmacy staff is difficult amid widespread burnout; one estimate from Accenture indicates that more than 40% of pharmacists are likely to leave their jobs in the next two years.
Fortunately, promoting the formation of a strong and clear professional identity can stem the loss of pharmacy staff and improve performance, speakers noted during the ASHP Midyear 2024 Clinical Meeting & Exhibition, in New Orleans.
“The stronger a pharmacist’s professional identity is, the better their quality of life, self-reported health measures, job satisfaction and work engagement,” explained Amy Henneman, PharmD, BCACP, BCPS, the chair of the Department of Pharmacy Practice at Belmont University Thomas F. Frist, Jr. College of Medicine, in Nashville, Tenn. “When we think about ways we can help address burnout, promoting professional identity is certainly an area that is not to be overlooked.”
This effort involves tackling three contributors to burnout: boredom, pharmacists’ conflicting identities and mismatches between employers’ demands and pharmacists’ skills. Kate Cozart, PharmD, MEd, BCACP, BCGP, BCPS, a primary care clinical pharmacy specialist and the residency coordinator for the VA Tennessee Valley Healthcare System, outlined strategies to manage these challenges.
Although burnout can occur across the pharmacy field, recent research suggests that the phenomenon is more common among younger pharmacists (Adv Health Sci Educ Theory Pract 2022;28[1]:305-318). Dr. Cozart advocates for offering mentorship and encouragement during training as ways to address the risk of losing a sense of identity and becoming bored.
“When a learning environment is more positive, learners are more engaged, pharmacists are more open to really forming their own professional identity and there is less burnout,” Dr. Cozart explained.
She concluded that positivity and mentorship in training can mean the difference between a pharmacist who burns out and one who becomes resilient, professional and competent.
Managing Conflicted Identities
The pharmacist’s role has changed significantly over the past two centuries, evolving from a compounder to a merchandiser to an expert medical advisor.
The change in how pharmacists are perceived has led to the pharmacist’s role sometimes becoming unclear. As a result, some pharmacists struggle to develop a professional identity, especially when incompatible pieces of each identity come together. For example, pharmacists may believe that their role of independent medical expert is threatened or compromised when their pharmacy expects them help reach revenue goals.
Dr. Kozar noted that the solution to this problem is not in leaning into any single identity but rather making sure that pharmacists are given clinically meaningful work, because “receiving such work is the most significant factor positively associated with professional fulfillment and negatively associated with burnout.”
Matching Employer And Employee Demands
Pharmacy practice continually requires new competencies, and pharmacists are at risk of feeling like they are not doing the job they signed up for or experiencing imposter syndrome. Dr. Cozart acknowledged the absolute necessity of having adequately trained pharmacists to ensure safety. However, she warned that pharmacists who lack control over their day-to-day routine are more likely to experience burnout and feel disconnected from their community and profession.
To better balance the needs of employers and pharmacists, Dr. Cozart advocates for “trying to create a workplace that helps pharmacists find and maintain their professional identity by helping them lean into those things that they’re good at [while making sure safety standards are met].”
The presenters recommended several resources to help explore how professional identity development can be supported on each pharmacy team:
- Stanford Professional Fulfillment Index
- ASHP Professional Identity Formation Worksheet
- ASHP Podcast: Establishing Professional Identity as a New Practitioner
Dr. Henneman stressed that the impact of bolstering pharmacists’ professional identity is not only crucial to retaining pharmacists but also to providing better patient care because “pharmacists who experience burnout have reduced empathy for patients, offer poorer quality of care and have increased medical error rates.”
The sources reported no relevant financial disclosures.
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