Martine Kruijtbosch

210 Append i ces moral reflectivity should be jointly monitored by all the pharmacy educational institutions in a country. Professional ethics education for senior pharmacists and supervisors in pharmacy practice is needed as they are the role models for young pharmacists. Special interest groups of pharmacists professionals with experience in moral reflection should be organised as they can inspire and support these role models. Combined professional ethics education classes or MCD with both pharmacists and physicians might stimulate interprofessional collaboration and prevent moral dilemmas in the context of that collaboration. We emphasised that professional bodies will have to play an important role in establishing ethical competencies of (future) pharmacists. They could develop and implement a national charter of professionalism. They could raise awareness among policy makers, regulators and educators on the importance of fostering ethical competencies of community pharmacists. They could emphasise the importance of a pharmaceutical care reimbursement system that fosters pharmacists’ social role and strengthens their professional autonomy. They should lobby for the availability of clinical information for prescribing for pharmacists. They could make MCD mandatory, including as part of community pharmacists’ lifelong learning. Moreover, they could promote the healthcare role of pharmacists, also beyond dispensing, in public communication. Finally, we recommended investigation of the longitudinal moral development of students in pharmacy and pharmacists throughout their career. Further research is needed to measure the effectiveness of interventions that aim to improve ethical competencies, to measure the extent of moral distress among community pharmacists and to explore the consequences of such distress, and to study the barriers and facilitators that influence professional behaviour in the context of providing pharmaceutical care in the best interests of patients.