Almost hidden amid a low contrast cover, the Summer 2019-20 issue of GRIT asks readers to consider ‘what we can’t see’. Given much-needed airtime to ‘invisible’ diseases, members describe challenging stigma to improve care, with features on the building epidemic mental illness, equipping people with take-home naloxone, introducing discussions about alcohol and one pharmacist’s hidden but excruciating experience of ulcerative colitis.
By Winter, COVID-19 in Australia has a steady but uncertain rhythm and is embedded in our everyday collective consciousness. The cover’s coffee table spread shows this new reality, as features explored business as (un)usual on two concurrent paths: one focused on daily case counts, new clinical information on coronavirus and the ongoing battle to identify, contain and suppress outbreaks, and the other addressing other issues and opportunities in hospital pharmacy that remained just as relevant as they were before the pandemic shadow arose.
The blood-red of the Spring 2020 issue brings together the person and the practice; blending pharmacy (medicine) and the pharmacist (fingerprint) as a reminder that the human experience is intrinsic to the function of the profession, and the delivery of patient care. As life amid COVID-19 continues, members explore the vulnerability of frontline healthcare workers under strain, and the benefits of mindfulness in pharmacy practice.
A systematic review aims to identify relevant studies, appraise them, and then summarise the results using a reproducible search strategy. For help in deciding if a systematic review is the correct approach for your query, please refer to ‘Writing a systematic review: Part 1’ by Liu et al.
A white-hot molten core embodies the dazzling intensity of the hospital pharmacy profession, shining at the centre of the biggest public health challenge in a century: the COVID-19 vaccine roll-out. In a special double issue, members share their stories from the frontline of large state and territory run clinics to tiny outreach programs, from Perth to Melbourne and Kangaroo Island to the Gold Coast, reporting stress and strength, inundation and ingenuity, trials and, above all, teamwork.
Celebrate the first published Research Reflection article by sharing Abigail A. Pinto's research experience during the emergence of COVID-19.
In Spring 2021, members explore how pharmacists, as natural 'systems thinkers', are uniquely positioned to drive change in the health care system. This issue discusses how, long accustomed to doing the most with the least in busy and cost-constrained environments, hospital pharmacists are used to navigating complex processes and hierarchies to achieve what they need for their patients.
From looking forward to zooming out, the first 2018 volume of Pharmacy GRIT kicks off exploring the bigger picture of medicines shortages. With high interest from stakeholders across health care and government following SHPA’s landmark 2017 medicines shortages report, the lead feature took a macro view to see the frontline ingenuity, hear louder member voices, and understand industry perspectives.
Given what has transpired across the world in 2020-21, it is bittersweet to reflect on the optimistic realism of the Summer 2018-19 cover that asks ‘Are we ready?’ for three growing healthcare challenges of an ageing population, obesity and diabetes. Nonetheless, the issue is a powerhouse, exploring demographic change through the lens of Port Macquarie (NSW), the obesity crisis through a critique of the ubiquitous Body Mass Index and the evidence base – or lack thereof – to guide dosing calculations in larger patients, and diabetes through the state of play in insulin and challenging misunderstandings and stigma.
Released the week before SHPA’s Medication Leadership Forum on the same topic, the Winter 2019 issue explores many facets of transitions of care, leading with the proposition that the entire medicines management pathway – from admission to, and discharge from hospital – needs to be scrutinised if we are to ensure safer transitions for hospital patients. Behind a stark hospital-home split screen, members explore other ‘transitions’, including an innovative outpatient antenatal pharmacist advice clinic supporting the transition into motherhood, and the advent of immunotherapies, which represent an enormous transition toward less harmful treatments.
