Beyond the Dispensary: Pharmacists’ Perspectives on the Responsible Implementation of Emerging Clinical, Digital, and Ethically Sensitive Roles

Pharmacy practice is expanding into clinical, digital, and ethically sensitive areas, yet professional support may not translate into implementation. Building on previous studies in point-of-care testing (POCT), artificial intelligence (AI), and assisted suicide, this exploratory convergent mixed-methods study used a purpose-designed symposium workshop focused on responsible implementation. Participants completed an anonymous 15-item questionnaire and submitted anonymous online barrier entries during the workshop. Of 45 returned questionnaires, 42 met the predefined completeness criterion for inferential analyses; 186 barrier entries were analyzed using structured qualitative content analysis. POCT showed high perceived capability, relevance, support, and willingness, while barriers centered on resources and economic viability. AI was considered highly relevant, but perceived capability was lower and concerns focused on reliability, regulation, accountability, and uncritical use. Pharmacist involvement in assisted suicide was broadly supported, while perceived capability was lower and barriers spanned ethical, organizational, legal, communicative, and emotional domains. These field-specific patterns were heuristically summarized as endorsement-capacity, capability-governance, and support-preparedness gaps. The labels are descriptive, non-validated summaries rather than participant-level mismatches. The findings suggest that professional support alone is an insufficient indicator of implementation readiness, as each activity was characterized by a distinct combination of capability, organizational capacity, and governance or support needs.