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The Pharmacist's Obligations to Patients: Dependent or Independent of the Physician's Obligations?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Jason V. Altilio
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Extract

It has been 40 years since the seminal papers on pharmacy’s status as a profession sparked debate about the pharmacist’s role in health care, yet the questions they raised are just as poignant today as they were then. The issue of pharmacy’s status as a profession and its role in health care has again been brought into question, albeit in a roundabout manner, through discussions over the pharmacist’s right to refrain from dispensing emergency contraception. The key to understanding the contemporary pharmacist’s role as part of the health care team, as well as the pharmacist’s alleged right to refrain from dispensing emergency contraception, is to examine a situation that almost every contemporary pharmacist experiences.

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Independent
Information
Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , Volume 37 , Issue 2 , Summer 2009 , pp. 358 - 368
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 2009

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