{"id":8327,"date":"2014-10-01T14:08:31","date_gmt":"2014-10-01T18:08:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=8327"},"modified":"2014-10-01T14:08:31","modified_gmt":"2014-10-01T18:08:31","slug":"aurora-pharmacist-aims-to-reach-thousands-with-new-diabetes-guidebook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/aurora-pharmacist-aims-to-reach-thousands-with-new-diabetes-guidebook\/","title":{"rendered":"Aurora pharmacist aims to reach thousands with new diabetes guidebook"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

As a pharmacist for more than 20 years, Dr. Lori MacCallum has found few things more rewarding than one-on-one interactions with patients.<\/p>\n

Sitting down with an individual to help them on what can often be a complex path to health brings a certain satisfaction, but Dr. MacCallum has been slightly removed from that in recent years.<\/p>\n

Over the past 12 months, the Aurora pharmacist, a program director at the Banting & Best Diabetes Centre at the University of Toronto, has been making up for lost time \u2013 going deep \u201cin the trenches\u201d to have a direct impact on thousands of patients across the country struggling with diabetes and the treatments that often go with it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am overjoyed because you work on this for over a year, you are into the little details of every little line, and it is hard to make something simple,\u201d she explains. \u201cFor a year, I have just been in the trenches with many other contributors and it becomes almost like your baby. You are putting it out in the world and you don\u2019t know what the response is going to be.\u201d
\nThe baby? The Guidebook for Pharmacists on Diabetes Management.<\/p>\n

The Guidebook, which brings together expertise and case studies from leading people in the diabetes field, was spearheaded by Dr. MacCallum to help pharmacists, particularly community pharmacists, in the direct role they play in their patients\u2019 health.<\/p>\n

\u201cA pharmacist has a huge role to play in the management of diabetes,\u201d says Dr. MacCallum. \u201cThey are frontline healthcare providers and people with diabetes will see a pharmacist more often than any other healthcare provider. We saw a real opportunity that way to support people with diabetes and give them the knowledge and the confidence of pharmacists in managing and caring for people and working with patients.\u201d<\/p>\n

Patients with the disease can often be on complex combinations of medications and battling other health issues that can add to the complexity, so the book is intended to be a resource pharmacists can have at their fingertips when they sit down with patients to help them manage. <\/p>\n

It covers everything from managing high blood sugar and blood pressure, to counselling and diet and exercise.<\/p>\n

In researching the book with fellow pharmacists from across Canada, Dr. MacCallum said they found over 85 per cent of people with diabetes are on more than just one medication, but over 50 per cent of these people don\u2019t take their medications properly. They set a threefold goal with the book: to help the individual pharmacist, provide a business model for a community pharmacy in providing that all-important one-on-one interaction with a patient, and suggested improvements for healthcare systems across the board. <\/p>\n

\u201cA community pharmacist needs to know so many medications, numerous diseases, almost like a family doctor,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

This week, 4,500 books are en-route to community pharmacists across Canada. In a grassroots effort to create strong bonds between this nation-wide group of pharmacists, they are also launching an online network to share these resources at diabetespharmacistsnetwork.ca to build on this model.
\nOnce the network is fully off the ground, stories can be shared on how tips in the guidebook have had an impact on patients, share ideas and best practices, and develop further programs based on that. <\/p>\n

Many community pharmacists in places like Aurora, King, and elsewhere don\u2019t have the \u201cluxury\u201d of leaving their practices for extended periods of time to attend academic roundtables at various hospitals, so this is a way to further that education and expertise, she says.<\/p>\n

Dr. MacCallum, a Nova Scotia native, began studying pharmacy in Toronto in 1998, prompted by her mother who said \u201cpharmacy is a good job for a woman.\u201d Years later, she says with a laugh that she still doesn\u2019t quite understand what her mom meant with that remark \u2013 but chalks it up to pure pragmatism. <\/p>\n

Evidently, however, her mom hit on something and it has been a passion for her daughter ever since. <\/p>\n

Delving deeper in to the area of study, Dr. MacCallum said she was struck by just how diverse a field it was, and eventually gravitated towards nephrology and eventually to diabetes research. <\/p>\n

\u201cNow that the book is out there, the most rewarding thing for me will be if I am walking in Metro, doing my grocery shopping, and I see a pharmacist sitting down with a patient using the book,\u201d she says. \u201cThey don\u2019t have to see me, they don\u2019t have to know who I am, but if I saw that I would be over the moon because I know it is making a difference for the individual patients.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my past work at St. Mike\u2019s, I was in a clinic dealing with patients very often and it is extremely rewarding to sit down with them and know you have made a difference and feel good about it. Now, I am helping thousands of pharmacists do that for their patients.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a pharmacist for more than 20 years, Dr. Lori MacCallum has found few things more rewarding than one-on-one interactions with patients.<\/p>\n

Sitting down with an individual to help them on what can often be a complex path to health brings a certain satisfaction, but…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":8300,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-2aj","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-19 10:12:33","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/2014-10-02-10.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}