Integrating Family Medicine and Pharmacy to Advance Primary Care Therapeutics (IMPACT)

Abstract

Doing research has allowed me the freedom to think about innovation, to identify how I can do better, and to generate results that are applicable to everyday practice. What is engaging about doing research? In the same way as when my dad taught me to tie my shoes by giving me a piece of cardboard with cut-out holes and a shoelace, the research process involves receiving guidance from others, bringing my own creativity to the process, figuring out what objectives are important, coming up with a set approach, defining and measuring success, and creating a sustainable intervention that is applicable to and easy to replicate in similar situations. In other words, the research process is personally and professionally stimulating and an implicit part of everyday life. I was motivated to participate in the development of IMPACT because I felt it offered an exceptional opportunity to determine the best ways that pharmacists and family physicians can work together within the family practice health team environment. — Lisa Dolovich