Pharmacy U people

Honestly, my passion was always community pharmacy. I will never forget a professor quipping “What a waste” when I said I was going to practise in the community. I couldn’t understand why, but I certainly made sure it was not a waste.

My first job was as a pharmaceutical technician. I loved it. I loved helping our customers and patients, I loved the tight team I worked with. I loved learning about new treatments and compounding, and I even loved counting out tablets.

Having been originally trained as an engineer, I was drawn to the idea of functional medicine where they employ a systems approach to health. We have a real problem with over-medication in our culture, and I believe a lot of it stems from our siloed view of the human body.

I always believe that there is a way to improve, to optimize and to make things better, regardless of the profession. There is always going to be a newer technology that we can implement to make systems and processes safer.

There is so much potential for the profession and each and every person entering it. What used to be a primarily patient-facing career can be anything you’d like it to be.

Pharmacists have many hats, and your personal strengths and motivations help you leverage these diverse roles into meaningful careers. The role I will serve today may be vastly different from the role I serve next year, and certainly 10 years from now. The problems are endless, but the solutions, and subsequent opportunities for pharmacists, are as well.

Today there are many more career choices for pharmacists. My aspirations were similar to today’s graduating pharmacy student: I wanted to make a difference in the lives of my patients.

It is often said that a career should be a journey and not a destination. My intrinsic motivation to improve patient safety has led me to take on roles that allow me to progressively have a larger impact