[The Ideal Role of Pharmacists: A Nurse's Perspective]

Drug-related work is one of the most difficult tasks for nurses. This may stem from the lack of knowledge of pharmacology as the minimum duration of the pharmacology course in basic nursing education is only 30 h (2 units). According to the Project to Collect Medical Near-miss/Adverse Event Information 2018 Annual Report of the Japan Council for Quality Health Care, 9.2% of incidents were related to medication and the majority involved nurses. Several medication management tasks in hospitals are currently managed by nurses, while at the same time many nurses have high expectations of pharmacists as experts in pharmacology. Nurses recognize that pharmacists working in hospital wards have great responsibilities. Furthermore, in hospitals that promote advanced treatments, the expertise of pharmacists is demonstrated in the fields of chemotherapy and palliative care in cancer treatment, infection control, and nutrition support team (NST). In many hospitals, however, nurses are responsible for several medication management tasks. Therefore, nurses believe that it would be beneficial for pharmacists to participate more in medical management tasks.