Steve Morris - The Transformative Journey of a Pharmacy Leader: the Evolution of Pharmaceutical Care

Steve Morris is the CEO, Pharmaceutical Society of Australia. Steve is motivated by making positive and real change in people’s lives through improved health care.

After completing a degree in pharmacy and spending time volunteering early in his career in India, Steve realised his strengths were strategic and that he wanted to make a wider difference with the work that he did.

Steve has worked in numerous clinical and management roles within health spanning pharmacy practice including hospital, community, primary care, industry and NGO sectors.

Career highlights have included three years driving change at NPS MedicineWise ensuring a collaborative and consumer centred approach to improving outcomes. Overseeing significant reform of pharmacy services in SA Health, developing and driving the strategy that increased efficiencies and reduced service inequities, increasing the employee base while simultaneously delivering $30 million in savings. Previous to that Steve developed and delivered a strategy to successfully bring more business focus, increasing the funding base and more flexible service delivery to the National Prescribing Centre in the UK.

You can find Steve Morris on LinkedIn.

Do you have questions about your pharmacy career? Then contact us or meet our team.

Transcript

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Your Pharmacy Career podcast proudly brought to you by Raven's Recruitment Australia's Pharmacy recruitment agency

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spotlights the Myriad of career options available to pharmacists your host Kristi Lee Patterson and her esteemed

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guests will be sharing invaluable career advice that you can Implement at any stage of your career

0:24

Journey welcome everyone to another exciting episode of your Pharmacy career podcast

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we are thrilled to have Steve Morris the CEO of the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia here with us to share his

0:38

insights into leadership and innovation in Pharmacy welcome Steve yeah thank you Kristi thanks for the invite I'd like

0:44

to ask you first about your journey from completing your Pharmacy degree but then

0:51

I read on your LinkedIn profile that you did some volunteering in India and that kind of LED you to the discovery of

0:57

strengths in in leadership so I'd like to understand yeah how these experiences

1:03

influenced your career and what did you learn from that time yeah thanks Kristi I'm I'm happy

1:10

to kind of talk about that uh look just maybe start by saying that my career has been uh probably not planned or

1:16

purposeful uh it's largely been informed by chance opportunity and taking some

1:22

risks you know postgraduation my first role was in Community Pharmacy and I really enjoyed

1:27

that role in Community Pharmacy and and engaging with patients and uh the local

1:32

community it was fantastic fantastic role and I really enjoyed that experience um but my first chance I

1:39

suppose or opportunity came up when I I had a chance meeting with uh someone had told me about an opportunity that the

1:44

local Rotary Club was sponsoring some to go work overseas in India in Kolkata uh

1:49

on the Street clinic and uh I went for the opportunity uh and secured it and went to work there for a period of time

1:56

looking it was a really enlightening experience in in many ways really and and taught me a number of valuable

2:03

lessons one of which was around uh how to be resilient in difficult

2:08

circumstances um the second was that that really small things can make a huge difference to patients in whatever

2:14

context they are whether you're destitute in Kolkata or in in a different kind of

2:19

Challenge and equally that any contribution you can make is often temporary and there was a great book I

2:26

read called uh Legacy by James Kerr who was writing about the All Blacks and one

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of the tenants of of of the all black team is that you should always try and leave the shirt in a better place so in

2:39

other words you know try and make the difference you can but whatever Legacy you have is around you know

2:44

sustainability and difference while you've been there because once you leave it's the legacy is then sustained by

2:50

others so it's whatever contribution you make I think it's always important to kind of reflect on that in terms of

2:56

whatever contribution you make will be temporary but try and make that difference for when you leave an organization and remember you often

3:03

remember people don't you um in your career rather than particular roles and

3:08

there was one individual particularly a leprosy patient who was probably one of the happiest people I've ever met

3:14

despite his significant challenges as as an individual and just that small Difference by taking the time to have a

3:21

chat with him uh largely through an interpreter made a huge difference to him and I think you know never under

3:27

underestimate the small things you do which kind of make a difference to patients and consumers now after you

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were in India um assuming you went back to the UK uh for a while and so what

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where did your life take you post India it kind of intimately was back to the UK

3:47

and back to India again so I kind of got roles back in Community Pharmacy mainly because I needed to earn some money but

3:54

but really I spent a period of time kind of yo-yoing between um the UK and India in terms of the roles of doing because

4:00

the work I was doing was IND was a volunteer work it was unpaid um which was more than happy to do but obviously I need to also have enough resource to

4:07

to live so I kind of for a period of time I worked between uh Community Pharmacy in the UK and in Kolkata so I

4:14

went back there numerous times and kind of maintain that connection to that charity even to this even to this day uh

4:20

however at some point you know I decided that maybe there are other challenges I also wanted to take up and I was really

4:27

interested then in moving into Hospital Pharmacy and at first I found that quite difficult because I had no experience of

4:33

working in hospitals I was then probably six seven years into into my Pharmacy degree so taking up opportunities um was

4:41

difficult however I think again it taught me that never give up on some of those things because even though you might get knock backed three or four

4:47

times for particular roles if it's something that you really believe that that you want to do just keep going and

4:53

so I kept going until eventually uh I got off with a role in the hospital uh and then that role kind of went from

4:59

being a dispensary based role to be you know clinical pharmacist on the wards to take up a wider governance role

5:06

including a role in trying to promote evidence-based medicine and and guidelines within the hospital so yeah

5:12

it kind kind of evolved over a period of time and during that period I got a real interest at the time because it was kind

5:17

of having a real kind of flow behind it was evidence-based medicine or what became evidence informed medicine so

5:23

there's a lot of kind of focus particularly in the UK at that time around how you how you how you enable

5:28

evidence-based practice to contribute to real patient outcomes and how you

5:35

influence clinici behavior in terms of of adopting evidence-based practice into

5:41

their practice and kind of a move away from what some would describe as Eminence based medicine to evidencebased

5:47

medicine so during that period I got really kind of into that kind of area of medicines and Pharmacy and I did

5:53

master's degree in health research and technology and really enjoyed that kind of evolution of the role in Pharmacy of

5:59

imp influencing those kind of decisions of conans within an acute

6:04

setting what you said about getting not backed and the resilience part of it uh

6:10

CU I think especially when I'm interviewing people such as yourself you've had such distinguished careers

6:17

and for someone that is maybe earlier on in their career or maybe they've had some setbacks and it can be bit

6:23

disheartening and I guess no one really talks about that the failures or the um

6:29

the struggles that they've had so say look no is ever is never no right

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there's always a possibility that you can get a yes so you got to keep yeah if that's what you want to do you just got

6:40

to keep going so you mentioned that you did a master's degree in Health technology assessment so what yeah why

6:48

why would you decide to do something like that because at the time I was as I said focusing on you evidence-based

6:54

medicine and again I think I've done a number of Masters in my career including NBA later on and I think they do provide

7:00

Frameworks in which it kind of um consolidates your own thinking um and so I was really interested thenar about a

7:07

understanding more about Health Services Research more broadly than medicines about the whole context and culture of

7:13

evidencebased medicine so that really helped me yeah and again it's often the people you do the course with as opposed

7:18

to the course itself which kind of you make the connections yeah you have much greater understanding of where the

7:23

people are thinking in terms of that space and so it's in the early days of of evidence-based medicine to be frank

7:29

so so it was good to kind of get into that space and understand it from a more academic

7:35

perspective yeah it's interesting that you've done the NBA as well i' I've definitely seen a bit of a I guess a

7:42

kind of a transition to some of lots of Pharmacists actually undergoing MBA programs or additional masters from your

7:50

perspective a a being a pharmacist it's it's almost like

7:55

lifelong Learning Journey isn't it that's right I don't I think it it ever ends and it shouldn't because I think

8:01

once you lose the kind of appetite for learning then you you lose the appetite for the profession in your role because

8:09

we're always learning you know whatever role we're doing I'm still learning now you know whatever what could be different context you're working in it

8:15

could be new things that are coming out whatever kind of your suppose scope of practice as a pharmacist is is that you

8:20

know we're constantly trying to pick up and learn new things and once you lose the appetite to do that I think yeah it

8:26

becomes difficult and so yeah constantly motivated by those things I think the

8:32

thing I would say just reflecting things like mbas is my other reflection would be try not to be one of those people

8:39

that does Masters like that and then talk like an MBA um dictionary

8:45

afterwards because in end it's just a framework for thinking you whether it's

8:51

from strategy risk or whatever con context of management it is it just provides you a framework to think things

8:57

through but still often common sense provid and the things that are really important still matter and there's nothing worse

9:03

than you sounding like an NBA dictionary to somebody else yeah great advice I'll definitely be taking that on board

9:10

absolutely yeah how did you end up in Australia and um getting a significant

9:17

role such as the um executive director of sa Pharmacy going back to my my

9:23

context of chance and opportunity so in the UK in um the early 2000s there was

9:28

massive investment in primary care under a 10year NHS plan at the time and there were really opportunities for Innovative

9:34

roles in primary care so I I left the hospital took up one of those roles it is really about driving improvement in

9:41

general practice we evolved having practice based pharmacist in virtually every GP practice um and just remember

9:48

the context that there pharmacist prescribing has been around in the UK for 20 years so I was right involved

9:55

right from the beginning of that that kind of construct of getting pharmacist to work with general practice evolving

10:01

their skills from suppose General medicines management reviews to evolving their own clinical workload becoming

10:07

supplementary prescribers so as part of that kind of whole journey and again it was just an opportunity that came up

10:12

where where I could see that this looks like a really interesting fascinating place right where we're evolving

10:17

Services there were organizations I won't go into the detail because it's from a UK context but I I'll describe

10:23

them as like phns on steroids so basically they had much more commissioning power much more ability to

10:29

determine what services were provided locally so we did things like set up anticoagulation Services out of

10:34

community pharmacist this was 20 years ago COPD service D Community pharmacist direct clinics working out GP practice

10:40

all those things were evolving at that time and it was a great time to be able to innovate because of there was both funding and a desire to make change so

10:48

it wasn't without its challenges so that's I spent maybe five or six years in that and my first I suppose non-

10:53

Pharmacy role was then as director of primary care so it meant that within a particular region I was able for GPS

11:00

dentists District nurses pharmacists all kind of health related Services really

11:05

so it's the first time that I'd led a kind of non- Pharmacy service and the lesson I learned from that was that I

11:11

started to see Pharmacy through a different set of eyes not Through The Eyes of a pharmacist but the eyes of

11:16

somebody who's accountable for providing all those services so in other words what could Pharmacy do to help me with

11:23

the problems that I had again that's a think a valuable lesson that I've kept with me in terms of when I'm now

11:28

advocating for Pharmacy services to see how other people might be viewing how you how you're advocating for those

11:34

Services because they'll be looking at it differently perhaps to how you would be as a complete advocate for pharmacy

11:40

and where Pharmacy sits so I think that role was the first time I kind of looked at Pharmacy with a different lens um

11:46

being responsible for collectiv services and then I went from that role to a national role working for National

11:52

prescribing Center and again did National work on advocacy policy education supporting Service delivery in

11:59

that organization and so did quite a bit in terms I suppose a national profile in

12:05

leading some work in medicines and Pharmacy sources and it's then from there another

12:10

chance opportunity came up where sound it sounds odd now talking

12:15

about it but I just basically met a friend in a pub and we had a chat about somebody he knew told him that there was

12:20

a job in Adelaide as Chief pharmacist I said to him where's adade and he said well that's this is where adade is oh

12:27

that sounds interesting so basically put my hat in the ring had the interview came and looked at Adela came

12:34

back discussed it with my family and went well let's do it yeah what what's the worst thing can happen well the

12:39

worst thing that happened is you have to go back to the UK so again you know it wasn't purposeful I just didn't

12:45

purposely set out to come to Australia but the opportunity came up and I just took it sounded like an interesting

12:50

opportunity and how did your family I guess take that um opportunity because I

12:56

think this is something that maybe isn't talked about a lot but I think having the support of your your

13:02

family and people around you in order to to take these roles so that would be a big shift to move your family halfway

13:09

across the the world interesting thisis is quite a snap decision but I just went for the interview came back and we

13:14

discussed it as a family and my family have always been really supportive my wife in particular going yeah let's do it and we we kind of have the same lens

13:21

on things that you know what you know what's the worst thing can happen well the worst thing that happen is it doesn't work out and you go back to the

13:26

UK and also you think about missing family and all those things and how you keep all those things connected but yeah

13:32

it happens rather rapidly I think you know another reflection would be often when people create lists of why they

13:37

should do something and why they shouldn't you probably never come to a conclusion because those two list balance themselves out so I think

13:44

sometimes you just have to go with your good feel and work out what's the worst outcome and if the worst outcome is

13:49

tenable then should be fine so we came to Australia hoping to stay and it was

13:54

one of the best decisions I ever made so yeah that was to come over to be Chief pharmacist in Sou Australia and that was the the first

14:02

time that role was actually created is that correct you're the the first I think there' been a previous

14:09

iteration but then there' been a bit of a gap I think and again it was a great opportunity for

14:15

me and I think maybe another reflection is that sometimes when you come into job

14:20

the job doesn't have to stay as it's been described and defined when you come into it so I come into that particular

14:26

role as a kind of Chief pharmacist role which often is is kind of you know defined by being largely around a

14:34

legislative function and and policy and Fortune I was in a space at the time where some of the ideas I had I suppose

14:40

coming from a different different system was to actually bring things like quality use

14:46

of medicines medicine safety uh and trying to address inequity into the role of the chief Pharmacy so we kind of

14:51

brought all those things together both the legislative function the kind of quality of medicine function the medicine safety function which don't

14:58

enable B to have more I think anyway on reflection more impact and how You'

15:04

evolve that role so one of the interesting things that that hit me when I first came to Australia

15:11

was the inequity that existed in hospitals in terms of access to medicines so basically whether you could

15:17

access to high cost medicine largely depended on potentially which hospital you went to in other words there was no

15:22

uniform you know each drug and therapeutic committees that might make different decisions so one of the things

15:28

that the I was able to address was to make that a Statewide kind of um

15:33

initiative in other words there was a Statewide decision body created which de made decisions around access to those

15:40

medicines but there's Z uniform across the whole system not just dependent on

15:45

which hospital you went to so the issue of inequity I think I said to you previously has constantly kind of been a reflection I've heard about how you

15:51

might address those things so yeah so again you know one lesson was the job

15:56

doesn't have to be as it was described when you first go into it if you get if you have thoughts ideas even within a

16:03

bureaucracy then you can often progress those if you make the right case and make it what you want it to

16:09

be great advice I think yeah I I could definitely see the the fact that you've

16:15

got that um that passion for that Equity that you that you um got from

16:21

your experience in India that's sounds like it's definitely something that is stuck with you throughout your roles and

16:27

then just going on to the so the again you sometimes things happen which you can't predict so for example the sa

16:33

Pharmacy and for those that want to be aware sa Pharmacy is a Statewide Pharmacy service so basically is

16:38

accountable for all the the hospital Services across the whole state and again you know when I came as

16:45

Chief pharmacist there was no no Prospect of that occurring but after about a year and a half I think it was a

16:50

a treasur initiative at the time which was based on cost savings to to establish the Statewide service and so

16:56

at that time I had a decision to make did I just stick in the chief pharmacist role or did I put my hat in the ring for

17:02

that role as happened I put my hat in the ring for that role secured that role

17:07

and then basically was told well can you just continue being Chief pharmacist as well which is interesting you know and I

17:14

did I agreed to that I did both roles for four or five years and it's an interesting Paradigm when you have both

17:19

the policy role and also the service delivery role in the same uh organization which has its challenges

17:26

but also means that you can often act policy into action uh in a much more uh

17:32

speedier timeline but that was a significant personal decision for me as to whether I I could carry on taking

17:39

both roles um because the workload was was not insignificant but I really enjoyed the

17:45

role in sa Pharmacy we transformed some of those Services we again going back to the equity issue we opened a number of

17:51

pharmacist in rural remote areas that never previously had a on-site Pharmacy uh we did an enormous amount of work

17:56

about addressing the mental healthare needs of patients because once you had the Statewide service you could look at those things more holistically in terms

18:03

of how you can establish Pharmacy services to improve health outcomes both based on particular Health needs in

18:09

particular demographics and and that service still exists now so it's been going for quite a few years now and so

18:15

again going back to the Legacy issue uh hopefully I contributed well obviously set up the organization and contributed

18:22

to its sustainability but others have taken on I suppose that role and it's doing even better more meaningful things

18:28

and increasingly does so so that was really satisfying I think being involved in setting something up from that from

18:35

it from its startup but also seeing how it's been sustained through others um the biggest personal challenge was how

18:41

you deal with a workload of of those two roles yeah I guess that comes from the

18:47

the support of your family again as well with that extra workload that definitely would have put some extra pressure yeah

18:53

looking again I am trying to reflect on the things I've learned through the process and I think one lesson I learned

18:59

partly through that process I didn't look after myself as much as I should have done and I probably didn't

19:04

prioritize my family as much as I should have done but I think if you can try and to take a step back you know seek seek

19:10

to have mentors outside of your organization I've always I always sought the advice of mentors in whatever role I've done um they don't have to be

19:17

long-term mentorships but they're just people you can trust to have conversations with um but I think it is

19:23

is easy particularly in leadership roles to be consumed by the role and I suppose

19:28

I've learned if a few things through things I didn't do as well as I should have done on reflection I guess the the

19:34

role at sa Pharmacy you've then moved on to roles such as at

19:39

arthritis and also The NPS medicine wise I guess it it sounds like they are

19:46

all very different roles with different responsibilities and so if you could maybe touch on yeah these experiences

19:53

and yeah so what did you learn yeah we I'll start off with NPS men wise CU I

19:59

went from um being well after exact director sa Pharmacy I then took on the

20:04

role of of um Statewide Services overall which was pathology radi radiology and

20:09

Pharmacy but then the opportunity came up to become CEO of MPS medicine wise uh I was really interested in that role

20:16

partly because some of its functions um related back to the National prescribing Center I worked for in the UK many years

20:22

ago and that kind of embeddedness of evidence-based medicine you know how do you turn that into into Behavior change

20:29

and then ultimately patient outcomes but the the three CEO roles I've had have all been quite different so that role um

20:36

came into an organization which was largely government funded and just before I started they had significant

20:42

budget cuts so my role the first of all often when you come in as a leader a CEO

20:47

in organization like that you're faced with that reality and sometimes you have to make reasonably um prompt decisions

20:55

just to sustain an organization so in that sit situation it was about how you articulate to people why you're doing

21:02

what you're having to do whilst at the same time creating some optimism for what the future could look like and I

21:09

think a lesson I learned from that was definitely you know there's no such thing as overcommunication you have to

21:15

communicate over and over again almost until you're bored with your own voice in terms of you know decisions you're

21:21

making why you're making them but to create optimism in the organization and now that time the organization was faced by significant cuts and it's always

21:27

difficult when staff who who who stay in the organization see their colleagues being made redundant or or you know have

21:34

roles that removed so during the time I was at NPS for about three years I think

21:39

we try to focus on what the future might look like uh as an organization get

21:44

involved in collaborative work with other organizations and have a complete and absolute focus on consumers of the

21:50

outcome of the organization however as you as you're aware you know I left MPS before it

21:55

finally closed but for that organization you decisions were made that there were

22:02

other things that could happen that could fulfill the functions of MPS medicine

22:08

wise yes I think I think but I think the legacy of NPS medicine wise has been sustained through obviously fantastic

22:14

work it did over many many years but also in terms of the individuals who are working for NPS Med wise who have now

22:20

secured amazing roles in other organizations and they're still kind of um promoting and being passionate about

22:27

quality of Cen in Australia when I um took the role so

22:33

then I had to again this is the intersection between Career and

22:38

um Family isn't it so I had to make a very difficult decision because I needed to be back in adlay because of one of

22:45

the challenges faced by my youngest daughter so I made a very difficult decision to leave NPS medicine wise when

22:52

it was in the organization was obviously in a difficult position but in the end I

22:58

took this de ision I had to come back to I'd like to support my English daughter so my intention was never to leave MPS

23:05

um medicine wise but a situation came up where I kind of had to and it was the right thing to do and again and I'm

23:12

being completely honest in this chat you know I should have probably made that decision six months earlier but I didn't

23:18

so I came back to Ade and again chance um pervaded and a role um working for a

23:25

Char called South Australia came up and their office was 10 minutes from where I lived so for once my focus um had to be

23:34

back on on on family while still retaining a job as a CEO in Organization

23:40

for which I could add some value yeah it can be challenging because when you have to make that decision um and not

23:47

everyone is going to know why you made that decision as well um and that can be challenging so thank you for being so

23:53

honest about that I think that's really important yeah so so then came back to to aday um but got the role with auth

24:00

srer and I was I really L that role it it was fantastic and the challenge I faced there was was another one my

24:06

favorite words again was sustainability so the challenges faced were lots of you know small not for profits who that

24:12

organization had been around for 45 years done some fantastic work to improve the health of of those suffering

24:17

from arthritis but it was suffering with potential for a sustainable pathway you

24:22

how do you make the work it did uh sustainable from a financial point of view um and so few things in there one I

24:29

to kind of try and refocus it back on the things it was doing to make a difference so we might secure a

24:35

significant amount of funding from the state government uh pre-election and from local phns so I was able to kind of

24:42

at lar you through you know quite obviously significant Network in South

24:47

Australia from previous roles so I was able to kind of use that and refocus the organization bring in some resource to

24:54

do more more services for for consumers and patients with arthritis but I soon realized that also what was needed was a

25:01

longer term sustainability pathway and so we did a lot of review work in terms of what would those options look like uh

25:08

and in the end we landed on the fact that the best option going forward was to merge with a much bigger charity uh

25:14

that CH is in is called the hospital Research Foundation so my role as CEO then was to make sure that that was um

25:22

based on evidence the right decision and take the board with me and then obviously to transact that decision so

25:29

once we've gone through that process had to go to a membership vote because the organization is a member organization uh

25:35

it then became part of that charity uh which created a sustainable pathway for it and at that point I kind of I've done

25:41

as much as I could um I could you know had a role working for the bigger

25:46

organization running a number of chis but then the opportunity to become CEO of PSA came up so again it wasn't

25:53

planned I was probably happy to then probably spend the rest of my career working the not for-profit site outside

25:59

of Pharmacy um you know just just doing doing work with different charities and would have probably sort under the c

26:05

role in that space and so the C PSA came up and I reflected on I thought well in

26:10

many ways look it's um I still I still am a registered pharmacist I'm still passionate about Pharmacy and medicines

26:15

I've had a wider career probably the most pharmacists so maybe this role was was a accumulation of all these things

26:22

together to bring together both my CEO experience but also still my passion for pharmacy and medicines

26:28

uh as CEO PSA so Ro came up and I was I'm happy that I was successful in

26:33

securing that position as the CEO of PSA I think you definitely bring a unique

26:40

perspective not just as a pharmacist but your experience across all the the other

26:46

healthc care sectors and the not for-profit with that leadership experience I think yeah sometimes as

26:53

Pharmacists and as an industry we can be very insular um and I say that we

26:59

sometimes have our blinkers on and you've been on the other side and I think that's important to see that yeah

27:05

when we're advocating for things how is that seen um on the other side for consumers or other health professionals

27:13

or for um politicians and things like that um there has been some I guess

27:19

chatter even around early career pharmacists about the relevancy of member organizations

27:26

such as the PSA uh would you be able to tell me about what your role is as CEO of the PSA and

27:36

yeah what's the importance of these initiatives that you're leading um on

27:42

the the focus for all farmacist yeah look I just just hook back on the membership I think

27:48

internationally you know membership as a as a construct has been declining over a number of years uh and so I think a a

27:56

lot of people um particularly younger generation prises other career prises question what does membership mean what

28:02

value do I have and I suppose in very simple terms it's my role as CEO of PSA

28:08

to demonstrate that that PSA has real value and is of meaning to every

28:13

pharmacist uh in terms of not only what we may be doing from a broad advocacy perspective but really making sure that

28:19

we're we're communicating what that means to an individual because I think that's in the end what will determine

28:26

whether people decide whether whether they wish to be be a member of PSA or not so we we we have to be able to

28:32

communicate why why should a pharmacist be a member of PSI um looking at

28:38

obviously I think there are many reasons for that and I think you know what is our role well if you if you kind of

28:44

reflect on the the I suppose the vision of the organization is that what we're trying to do is optimize the role of

28:50

Pharmacists in the Health Care system for the benefit of consumers and we do that by enabling equipping and embedding

28:56

pharmacists in the Australian health system so that's what we try and do we try to do that by what various

29:02

mechanisms in terms of advocacy now how do we Advocate as as robustly as we can with both um federal government state

29:08

governments in terms of supporting the roles of Pharmacists and obviously over over recent year we've seen a number of

29:15

changes particularly around scope of practice and prescribing Pilots uh which has been a result of that advocacy work

29:21

by as another organizations about how you start to really you know create that kind of momentum of change in scope of

29:27

practice in real terms not just talking about potential change but what does it mean in terms of real terms and I think

29:33

you know the other element we have to be a is to provide the the right education and support in the ways that people want

29:38

to receive it and that could be in multiple formats irrespective of kind of the role in Pharmacy you're going to

29:44

play so if you see your role in Community Pharmacy um if you see your role as an accredited pharmacist if you

29:50

see your role in Hare if you see your role in GP practice or in the hospital sector then how does do we as an

29:56

organization ensure that what what we offer is contemporary fit for purpose and meets your needs because look p is a

30:04

fairly broad Church you know we representing we're the only government Peak recognized organization so we

30:10

represent pharmacists in many many roles and it's often very difficult to to to

30:15

keep everybody happy within within that with that broad church because people will always say well why are you doing

30:21

more for them than us so you have to be your hand on heart say look we're doing all we can for everybody and make sure

30:27

that have enough um in I suppose in the things that you offer from an education CPD support perspective that people

30:34

believe there's genuine value of being member of organization obviously CEO I firmly believe there is and you know to

30:41

see the impact I suppose after six months in the role now of going from you know ideas to policy Evolution to to

30:48

advocacy and then seeing some of those things be put into practice so even things like on-site pharmacist and age

30:54

care which I think was announced just before Christmas that it will be be executed going into the new year then

31:00

that was due to a lot of advocacy work PSA did in the previous few years I think often it's difficult for people to

31:07

appreciate what advocacy actually means and what the end point is and so again I think that's a role we have to really

31:14

work out how we better communicate that to to members and the rest of the profession absolutely I think the the

31:21

key is that communication you mentioned earlier that in some of the other roles you found that you can't really over

31:28

communicate and that's maybe something potentially um that the PSA has maybe

31:34

not done as well in the past and um I've been in the PSA in um leadership roles

31:40

in the past before and and it is challenging to kind of um you're doing all this great work but then because it

31:47

is an advocacy role and sometimes there's things that are confidential that you

31:52

can't also speak about as well which is really challenging so um you seem like

31:58

someone that would like to be open and transparent 100% of the time but then in

32:04

the political space as well you need to um be mindful of what you are

32:09

communicating um and so I guess that's a challenging role as CEO to know what do you communicate and when yeah look you

32:18

you're right I firmly believe in transparency and communicating as much as you can but there are circumstances and I suppose the hcpa that we're

32:24

currently going into at the moment will be one example of that where you know sign NDA agreements and you can't fully

32:30

communicate everything you would like to talk about um so that's that's obviously a line that you've got to be careful

32:35

about how you define it um but I think most people um respect honesty and

32:41

openness um you know and when when our membership's currently I think 177,000

32:47

pharmacists of 17,000 pharmacists um it's always going to be very difficult to be able to satisfy every one of those

32:54

177,000 people I think what i' would like to from see be able to reflect on

32:59

is that we've done everything we can to support every one of those 17,000 people irres of where they work um and hand on

33:07

heart we can say that we've tried to do that really important um like this is

33:13

the year that we are now 10 years in from being able to be vaccinating

33:18

pharmacists yeah and now consumers just see that as a everyday thing that phes

33:25

can provide but just 10 years ago um so I graduated in 2014 and was able

33:32

to do vaccines um in my intern Year and that was very new and very scary but 10

33:39

years on look at us now and that's only through the the advocacy work of

33:44

organization such as the PSA yeah you're making me feel very old now Kristi oh

33:50

I'm sorry I graduated

33:55

1985 it's not all it's experience often say to people I am not the future of

34:01

Pharmacy I've said that in conferences a couple of times which I'm not I mean my role is the PSA is trying to get

34:06

Organization advocating for the future of the pharmacy but I'm personally not the future of Pharmacy um and I think

34:12

you know having being around fair at of time you know we go through flows of of positivity then flows of negativity and

34:19

I think Pharmacy overall is going in the right direction and I think the ne the next 10 years could be really exciting

34:25

really exciting obviously people the number of people taking the Community Pharmacy sector are very anxious about what happened last year in

34:33

terms of 60 days but if you look at where the professions going then we all have to be

34:39

optimistic um we have to be mindful obviously the challenge of ensuring services are appropriately remunerated

34:44

and servic are sustainable but I think from a profession point of view I think you know Co I think inflated our balloon

34:51

in terms of the opportunities because of vaccination and then I think 60 days slight well deflated it from many people

34:57

I think and so but the opportunity still exists and I think you just look at how the scope of practice Pilots have gone

35:03

and how every State's basically come on board and what that might mean for future roles in Pharmacy then is

35:09

exciting um not that it won't be with without it it won't be without its challenges but I think from a profession

35:15

point of view I think we're going Beyond just talking about pharmacist doing all these things to actually these things

35:21

happening and it gaining a lot of momentum in the system and you know way you the vision for pharmacy I would have

35:27

is being you know fully fully integrated into Primary Care everybody working to top of scope with a caveat that wishes

35:35

to work of top of scope because again I think sometimes we we always think about everybody wanting to do everything and

35:41

that's where the whole profession wants to go there are some pharmacists who who probably don't they're quite happy with the role they have now we always have to

35:47

be mindful of that but I think the opportunity will exist for pharmacist to be much more integrated into Primary

35:54

Care much having much more access to digital systems to be able have fully um discharged the abilities that Pharmacy

36:01

has as a most trusted profession in Australia yeah I think goes back to what I said that across all those 177,000

36:08

members we should be doing something to support all of them um it may look like we're focusing one area at a particular

36:14

time but that could be just just a an issue of opportunity that exists in in terms of an advocacy space but I think

36:21

you know at the end of the day I hope hand on heart PSA is providing a valuable contribution for people to work

36:29

to the scope of practice they wish to work to as a as a pharmacist um you know but also take some of those

36:35

opportunities i' I've frequently talked about because you know I think pharmacist should be more leadership

36:40

positions in the health system for example um often they're dominated by other professions um it's often because

36:48

or sometimes because pharmacist don't take up opportunities and sometimes you have to take those opportunities which

36:54

don't seem to have a direct line to evolving your career but they often it's just about doing different things in

37:00

different contexts which gives you a kind of wider level of experience of of Health if that's where you would like to

37:06

go but you just have to take those risks really because sometimes they won't lead to somewhere that will evolve your

37:12

career and sometimes they will yeah absolutely as we wrap up our conversation do you have any final

37:19

advice or insights you'd like to share with our listeners yeah I think Kristi some of

37:24

some of this will be a repeat of what I've probably said already I think I think the first thing is always focus on

37:30

the patient or consumer you know what difference in what you do will it have

37:35

on that individual that's the first thing the second is professionally uh don't be

37:41

deterred by setbacks you know uh careers are never a linear progression um but

37:47

take opportunities when they come up some of which will work out some of which won't um but try and develop some

37:53

resilience in that process always seek advice and support from others I'm a great believer in

37:59

people um taking mentors outside of organizations you work in just a safe place where you can have conversations

38:05

about any anxieties you have or any advice you want in terms of progressing your

38:10

career but I think you know be open to change be open to Opportunities don't be

38:16

deterred by risks which is a very un Pharmacy thing I would say the last bit yeah that's

38:24

right it's probably not our um yeah innate um ability to do that but really

38:30

great advice thank you so much Steve for joining us today and sharing your incredible journey with me and the

38:36

listeners I've certainly found it really valuable and I've learned a lot about yourself um which yet to be honest I'm

38:44

actually feeling really excited that you're our CEO of the PSA um I think

38:50

there's so much opportunity for pharmacists in the future and um I'm feeling yeah privileged that we have

38:56

someone like you leading our organization which is great so thank you Steve for being our guest on this

39:02

episode of your Pharmacy career podcast it was an honor to have you share your wealth of knowledge and experiences with

39:08

our listeners to our listeners we hope you have found this episode both informative and aspiring and if you'd

39:15

like to connect with Steve or learn more about the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia please check out our episode

39:22

description for Relevant links and resources thank you Steve yeah thanks CHR

39:28

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