- 11/18/2024
I remember working on a medication adherence program with colleagues who, while supportive of the idea, raised concerns about the required effort. I left those meetings feeling frustrated. I wanted things to be better for our pharmacy teams and the patients we serve, but I couldn’t make that change alone.
- 11/11/2024
In my career I’ve been able to witness value creation firsthand. A powerful example of it came when we, in the pharmacy where I was working, were scaling our immunization program and discovered a significant gap in our training. Reports indicated that our CPR training—a vital skill for pharmacists—was highly inconsistent.
- 11/5/2024
One of the earliest lessons I learned in pharmacy school was that pharmacy is always changing. My experience over my own career has certainly proven this to be true. However, while we were told to expect change, what I wasn't prepared for was how to embrace it, let alone lead others through it.
- 10/28/2024
In honour of the recent Pharmacy Technician Day, I want to take a moment to recognize and express my deepest gratitude to all the pharmacy technicians out there. In the fast-paced world of pharmacy, it’s easy to get caught up in the tasks, deadlines, and the endless flow of patients needing care. But behind every successful pharmacy and every patient served is a dedicated team of technicians who keep everything running smoothly.
- 10/22/2024
Too often, we “recruit” for our teams and processes. We fill gaps with what's available, sometimes settling for what works “for now.” Maybe we hire a support staff member because we urgently need help, and once the position is filled, we stop thinking about what could be better.
- 10/15/2024
Over the years, it has become increasingly obvious to me that the heart of so many of our struggles as pharmacists comes from a lack of good leadership skills. This is not surprising. There was minimal emphasis on leadership skills during my formal education.
- 10/8/2024
In 2007, I found myself accepting a promotion to help develop clinical programs for pharmacists across multiple states. But what started as excitement soon turned to concern as it hit me like a ton of bricks that I would now be finding myself in some of the largest cities in North America.
- 10/1/2024
In the world of medications, we want patients to take their appropriately prescribed medications regularly to obtain the intended benefit. Is this done through compliance or adherence? The intent of the two terms is the same, but the spirit is entirely different. And it’s the spirit that counts in the end when leading patients to take their medications.
- 9/27/2024
Make no mistake, as leaders, it is important to develop the people around us. This is not limited to support staff. It also includes helping to develop our peers and even the people we report to. When we develop people, we increase the overall capacity of the organization, and we instill an increased feeling of ownership with our team members.
- 9/17/2024
Earlier in my career, I served on a team that was to develop new revenue streams for our pharmacies. Anything that was not traditional dispensing was labelled “clinical” and given to our team to work through. In those days, we set out to participate in as many of these projects as possible.
- 9/10/2024
For decades, pharmacists have been listed among the most trusted professionals. That trust comes from character. It comes from heart. It comes from having access to all sorts of powerful tools (medications) and making sure they are used to their greatest benefit!
- 9/3/2024
By developing our charisma as a learned skill, we can have a greater impact on the people we encounter. Given so many of the headwinds that pharmacists face, developing this skill can pay huge dividends. Here are a few ways we can develop our charisma.
