Glen Pearson
By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.
—Benjamin Franklin
Starting out in my professional practice over 20 years ago, I had the goals of being a successful patient care provider and of pushing the envelope of pharmacy practice. As an ambitious but naive practitioner, I had no idea what such a practice would look like or what it would take to succeed. Looking back now, it is clear that my desire for achievement was flawed from the outset, because “a goal without a plan is just a wish” (words of wisdom variously attributed to Antoine de Saint Exupéry and US radio and television personality Larry Elder).
So, when did I start planning? Well, looking back, planning actually occurred every day, as I encountered patients and set out to provide direct patient care in a collaborative practice environment. Developing patient care plans to achieve specific and measurable health outcomes, which I learned in the experiential component of pharmacy school, was a skill that I was able to transfer and apply to other aspects of my career. For example, practice-based research starts with a carefully and thoughtfully formulated research question, which then flows into defining a specific hypothesis, project aims, methodology, time-line, and so on. In the educational process (academic classroom or continuing education), planning consists of setting goals and objectives, then creating the program and delivering it to enable participants to achieve them. Consequently, I have learned to plan for every aspect of my professional practice. I have also learned through these experiences that planning leads to success—or at least that having a plan sets things up for more likely achievement of a successful outcome.
Like each individual practitioner planning his or her patients’ care, the Canadian Society of Hospital Pharmacists (CSHP) must constantly plan its actions to stay true to its mission, vision, and values. As the national voluntary organization of pharmacists committed to patient care through the advancement of safe, effective medication use in hospitals and other collaborative healthcare settings, the plan must be focused, the efforts to achieve specific goals responsive to the environment and our resources, and the expected outcomes defined and measurable. To this end, CSHP 2015 has been a major project for the organization over the past few years and is now nearing culmination. Yet the measure of our future success as both an organization and a profession remains to be determined.
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With the end of one phase, we must develop a new plan for the direction of CSHP. In the coming months, the organization will begin developing new goals and directions, beginning with the CSHP Strategic Planning Session in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, in early August. I look forward to joining the CSHP Executive team for my term as one of CSHP’s Presidential Officers, helping to chart the future course of the organization and attain further success. I hope that you too will do your part as an individual member to support CSHP along this future path. Whether you perceive your efforts as large or small, every contribution counts. Although the Nike slogan “Just do it” is popular and subscribed to by many (including, at times, myself), I would prefer to say “Start planning and then do it.” What is your plan?
Canadian Journal of Hospital Pharmacy , VOLUME 67 , NUMBER 4 , July-August 2014