Le métier de pharmacien titulaire d'officine face à l'incertitude du marché de la santé

The health sector is currently undergoing several changes which have important implications for patients but also for practitioners. This article proposes to examine the profession of pharmacist. This one is a major player in the drug distribution channel because it has a monopoly on drug dispensing. However, their salary mainly depends for the time being on their business activity. Thus, their originality is to have a hybrid status between health and trade. This situation is less and less comfortable for the pharmacist as this closed market has gradually opened up with the government reforms (delisting, lower margins ...), with a more aggressive competition from large retailers, with an Internet distribution for certain products and a changing consumer behavior. All these changes seem to have a significant impact on the practice of their profession. By studying the characteristics of their business through the skills they have and the missions they undertake, the aim is to highlight the nature of it and consider the challenges the incumbent has to face. The managerial challenges are more and more daunting for the pharmacist if they expect to master the increasing uncertainty of the environment. This research is based on the concept of business and on the concept of individual competence to deal with the changes in the profession. Indeed, the concept of trade refers to a set of knowledge, expertise and inter-personal skills connected with the individual competences held by a person. These are evaluated in a professional situation. It seems interesting to analyze the pharmacist's profession in terms of their hybrid status and the required skills. The problem is: what are the characteristics of the profession of a pharmacist who holds a pharmacy? Right in a period of change in their officinal practice and in the way they manage their business, the pharmacist is contributing to the evolution of their profession. The approach is exploratory. A qualitative methodology through the comparative study of four cases is retained. Twenty-four semi-structured interviews, observations of workplaces and an analysis of secondary documents have allowed the collection of the information. It is clear from the content analysis of that the profession of pharmacist is based on three major components: managing your business, ensuring a certain mission in the drug distribution channel and holding technical and managerial competences. Thus, in spite of simple strategic orientations the owner of the dispensary yet demonstrates a large ability to adapt to market changes with a good knowledge of it. In addition, the ambivalence of their missions (health and distribution) shows how difficult it is to manage two aspects of their profession requiring a double competence. They then link the use of both technical and managerial skills for the practice of their profession. It seems that the combination of those competences and their development is of strategic guidance to the pharmacy and the missions undertaken by the manager. These results open up several points of discussion. This work allows further insights into the concept of individual business and helps give it an important place in the management of organizations. Going back over the characteristics of the profession of an incumbent pharmacist we can see that they participate in saying that their analysis opens up onto new pathways to consider its future. Moreover, this research highlights the importance of understanding individual competences in terms of attributes and process. This one is useful to understand the competence in context. Indeed, it is the action in a work situation that validates competence. For this purpose, it is found that for the incumbent pharmacist their competences do express themselves through the various missions undertaken.