Dear Members, for those who have been reading our eBulletin regularly, you wouldn’t fail to notice that for the past 24 months, every issue of the eBulletin has been preceded by a message by the President of the Pharmaceutical Society of Singapore (PSS).
Frankly, it takes a little bit of extra efforts to do this; but it’s for a good cause. Just like this one, a number of the messages I wrote previously were done when I was overseas on my job. Sometimes, it’s been extremely difficult due to obvious commitments and when it's further compounded by poor internet connection or when bandwidth is not amply conducive to go online.
As I plan to relinquish my Presidency and handover the leadership of the PSS to the next generation of Council during the forth coming AGM, it’s befitting for me to express my most sincere gratitude to the 2 Councils whom I have worked with closely, and also all the members who have contributed to make PSS stronger, be it through their willingness to join the membership, to answer to our call for help out, to the selfless and inspiring energy or brain power donated in various planning and working committees, to the advice from within and outside of Singapore etc. Like any other voluntary groupings, our volunteers fret not at sacrifices and seek no glories to drive the many acitivities we endured steadfastly; but all are for a common good – to ensure that PSS continues to advocate the professional interests of pharmacist and to champion the professional status of the various pharmacy professions in Singapore. These have all been very gratifying for me as President. Once again, I thank you all very much sincerely!
PSS has been working very closely with various stakeholders; and increasingly this will remain so in a very selective and strategic manner. Resources are always finite, and thus selective strategies and priorities must be the way forward.
In the contemporary world where we are bombarded with loads of information, effective communication is thus a vital part of our professional life. For instance, a drug recall affects pharmacists working in patient-care sector, so will this impact those working in the affected drug company, the regulatory agency, those working in the logistics and supply chain dealing with the products being recalled etc. We know that every organisation is finding it tough to communicate effectively to their staff and customers; likewise, PSS hasn’t found the best solution to communicate effectively to our customers, ie. our members; and likewise, members might find it cumbersome to get to us at times. Therefore, it’s fair to say that the difficulties are not one-sided, it’s a balancing act! Nonetheless, inaction is not an option. We have chosen to go electronic due to our heavy reliance on IT and the various online or electronic gadgets.
Like many other fellow pharmacists and colleagues, we are all juggling with various responsibilities and priorities in life; the only defining difference being at what stage of life we’re in. Professionally, we have to constantly remind ourselves that we owe a lot of our current professional position to the basic pharmacy training we received, either we are in patient-care or not; but so long as we still deal with drugs, their policy, the education, the R&D, the services, the friendly advice we dispense to our concerned neighbours etc. – it’s been the pharmacy education we received that lend us the key to land ourselves in the job or business we’re sitting on now, however senior or junior we may be in the organisation, institution or corporation.
Let’s be thankful and more importantly, let’s not forget to continue advancing our profession in every effort we could afford; for many of times, it’s the little efforts which we thought insignificant that cumulatively mean something significant.
Thank you all very much.
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Ng Cheng Tiang
President, Pharmaceutical Society of Singapore
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