My learning: Essential topics for pharmacy management
My name is Saira Baboolal, and I am currently in my second year at the University of Waterloo School of Pharmacy. Throughout my time in undergraduate studies and in pharmacy school, I have taken a variety of courses to strengthen my pharmaceutic and therapeutic knowledge. This year, I had the opportunity to take Pharm 226, which is a business-oriented course discussing essential topics for pharmacy management.
Throughout this course, I have grown to understand how business and pharmacy intersect and I discovered that due to the rapidly growing and evolving pharmacy field, an understanding of these connections is crucial for our continued success. The advice that I want to provide to fellow pharmacy students is to be open-minded when learning about business and to immerse yourself in opportunities that challenge not only your scientific knowledge, but also your business and collaboration skills.
As business content varies drastically compared to pharmacy content, at first it may be difficult for students to grasp how interconnected the two studies are and why learning about business will help us in the pharmacy field. My advice would be to reflect on your past pharmacy experience and think about how business played a role. For example, I had 2-3 years of experience working in community pharmacy and when I reflected on my time working as a pharmacy assistant, I understood how important business was and the impact that business related choices had on the success of the pharmacy.
Whether it be partnering with McKesson for medication orders, running a successful front-of-shop business in addition to a pharmacy or analyzing profit/loss forms to make necessary changes, there is an immense amount of behind-the-scenes work that goes into managing a successful pharmacy.
Taking the time to reflect and being open to learning business strategies will not only contribute to our overall success but also provides a greater appreciation for the intricacies of pharmacy.