RESPONDING TO CHANGE - THE CASE OF COMMUNITY PHARMACY IN GREAT-BRITAIN

In recent years pharmacy has increasingly striven sharply to define an d establish its role in the face of technological advance, The pre-pac kaging of medicines by the pharmaceutical industry and the use of comp uters in pharmacies and general practitioners' surgeries would seem to obviate pharmacists' traditional activities in the compounding and di spensing of medicines, and challenge their claim to professional statu s with an associated decline in their social and economic rewards, Thi s paper draws on the literature of the sociology of the professions to analyse the response of this occupational group to threats to its sta tus as a professional primary health care provider, It is argued that pharmacy has the necessary knowledge base to control the symbolic tran sformation of the pharmacological entity-the drug-into the social obje ct-the medicine, yet has failed to capitalise on this when attempting to define its professional role.