Kristin Xenos - Combating Health Misinformation: Leadership in Pharmacy Education

Kristin Xenos is the Education Lead for the NSW Government Pharmacy Trial at the University of Newcastle. Her experience includes roles in community pharmacy, hospital pharmacy and government organisations.

Kristin is a Subject Matter Expert for the Australian Pharmacy Council, a member of the Society of Hospital Pharmacists Australia Infectious Diseases Leadership Committee and cohosts the Purple Pen Podcast, a clinical pharmacy podcast.

Kristin also has experience in developing and reviewing educational offerings for pharmacists.

You can find Kristin Xenos 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 paths available to pharmacist your host Kristi Lee Patterson and her esteem

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

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another episode of your Pharmacy career podcast I'm your host Kristi Lee Patterson and today we're joined by Kristin Xenos

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a pharmacist with a rich background both in community and Hospital Pharmacy as well as Government organizations Kristin

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is also the co-host of the purple pen podcast a platform dedicated to

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enhancing clinical knowledge among healthc Care Professionals Kristin it is great to have you with us how does it

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feel sitting in the guest chair for a change I was going to say it's a bit weird but it's actually nice nice to

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kind of uh experience what the other guests we have on the podcast must experience when I'm chatting to them

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excellent now let's just dive straight in now Kristin your career has

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transitioned both from Community Pharmacy to significant roles in Hospital Pharmacy and even beyond that

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so can you share with our listeners what sparked these changes and how you navigated these opportunities yeah

1:20

definitely I mean my Pharmacy career goes right back to when I was 14 years old and I worked in um the front of shop

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in the local Community Pharmacy around the corner from my house it was my second job ever and um I just loved it I

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loved interacting with customers I loved watching and learning from the

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pharmacist who I worked with at the time and it was a very small Pharmacy and that really is what spiked my interest

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in pursuing Pharmacy as a degree at Sydney uni and then from there I moved

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into different placements within my Pharmacy degree and one of the placements was at a larger Pharmacy much

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larger than the one I was working at and I was offered a job there and kind of the rest is history in terms of working

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at Harper Pharmacy in earwood because I did my intern year there and continued

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on to be a pharmacist working there but obviously not possible for that for Alex

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to keep every person he trains on as a as a full-time pharmacist on goinging so

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that's kind of what prompted my interest to pursue Hospital Pharmacy and that's

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where I kind of segwayed there and in terms of how I got an interest in Hospital Pharmacy that really came down

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to I remember I was in first year Pharmacy and we had a lecture series on all the different places a pharmacy

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degree take you and there was one lecture given by Dr Lisa Pont who is a

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really excellent Ambassador for the society for Hospital pharmacists Australia or shpa and she basically

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converted me so listening to her talk about what it was like to work as a hospital pharmacist and engage with a

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multi-disciplinary team on a daily basis really sounded right up my alley and

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kind of cemented my ambition at that point that I thought at some point in my career I'd really love to experience

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what it's like to work in a a Hospital Pharmacy environment and after I finished my intern year I thought kind

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of was a bit disheartened because I thought to myself it's going to be pretty impossible for me to get a position as a hospital pharmacist

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because I didn't do my intern year in Hospital Pharmacy and that's usually quite a a rate limiting step because um

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at the time there was a lot of interest in Hospital Pharmacy roles from Pharmacists and obviously at some point

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you've got to kind of cull the the lists of candidates and usually Hospital Pharmacy experience is one of the first

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criteria that people look at so I was very lucky and thankful that I

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encountered a wonderful team at Sydney Eye Hospital and that particular

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pharmacist Celia we herself had a background in Community Pharmacy so I think wasn't as uh kind of didn't have

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the same kind of fixation on a Hospital Pharmacy background and gave me a shot

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and I think that's the rest is history I kind of had my foot in the door and then once you've got Hospital Pharmacy

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experience I think jumping between roles becomes a little bit more easy to

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navigate no I definitely agree it's interesting that you had that thought about it being difficult to make that

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jump from Community to hospital and I'm sure there's plenty of other community pharmacists out there that are maybe

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thinking the same thing or oh I've been in community for a long time it's just going to be too hard I don't want to go

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down that route but do you think being a community pharmacist does that make you

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a a better Hospital pharmacist you took the words right out of my mouth Kristi Lee because you have a different skill

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set as a community pharmacist from someone who's never experienced that environment and I can tell you some

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Hospital pharmacists are plenty scared of Community Pharmacy because it's an intense environment and I think one that

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not often a lot of people appreciate I mean you get a little bit of a taste of it in an outpatient pharmacy environment

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but there's nothing like working in a Community Pharmacy with a limited team a busy one at that trying to offer a great

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kind of clinical service to your consumers but you don't have the resources on tap to you like you do in

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hospital Pharmacy and the workflow and the work Pace kind of it it comes at you

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whether you like it or not and you have to manage that and manage consumers and

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prioritize and multitask and all those skills are completely transferable to Hospital Pharmacy environment and I

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think the other thing that you have a different perspective on and is what it's like for patients when they leave

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the hospital you know I've been that pharmacist on a Saturday morning where a patient's been discharged from hospital

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clutching discharge letters random boxes of medications not sure what to do next

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so I think the way you work as a hospital pharmacist is informed by that perspective of well what's it going to

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be like for this patient to go into the community what should I tell them what resources should I give them what

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additional support and contacts should I Endeavor to do to make that transition

6:23

from acute care back into primary and Community Care as smooth as possible for

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that patient because we know now transitions of care are really high-risk environments for

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patients no I totally agree and I've definitely been that pharmacist on a Saturday morning or a Sunday

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afternoon yeah I definitely feel there's always a bit of a influx of people being

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discharged prior to the weekend or just on the weekend before Monday starts so

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definitely yeah have felt that so I think that's a really interesting Insight but your career is also delved

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into some other avenues which I thought was really interesting and one of that's

7:06

the the World Health Organization so I think as a maybe prior to co some people

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probably thought the World Health Organization was I don't know just this thing that kind of worked in the background people probably didn't really

7:17

know what they did but now postco I think everyone in the world has heard of the World Health Organization now yeah

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how does someone get involved in the World Health Organization you're a member of the fidz network of healthcare

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influencers that sounds quite interesting and fun yeah can you explain

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what this involves and why it's important to you yeah definitely so the name fidz she was the the Roman goddess

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of trust so I think that's an important kind of detail to highlight there and I think as you said chrisy Lee postco

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there has been an explosion exponentially of the kind of information

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that is available to Consumers throughout the world and the discourse and I think social media has a huge role

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to play in that as well and it's excellent because it's democratized a lot of things to Consumers and made that

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possible but it's also meant that the checks and balances in terms of reviewing information considering how

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it's going to be interpreted and acted upon by the end listeners isn't always necessarily there and anyone has a voice

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on social media and I think there are lots of perspectives of whether that's a good thing are a bad thing but in the

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the context of health information and education I think it's important to note

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that a lot of the behaviors that people kind of engage in and the information they act upon have consequences not only

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for themselves but for the people in the communities they live in as well so I

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think that the aim of fidz was to kind of bring together like-minded Health

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clinicians who have public kind of personas in social media

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and podcasting and more broadly and align a lot of the content in terms of

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what information's been provided and create an awareness globally as to who

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are the people that are offering good quality evidence-based information on a

9:17

kind of public scale and support them to be able to do that better so I think

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that's one of the the great things about the feds Network and I have to give a shout out to one of the people that I'm

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connected with on social media Jessica cludes who provides really excellent

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clinical content and she had posted about it and kind of spared my interest and that's where I went to from there

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and how I kind of fell into working with that particular organization and I think it's really important because I think as

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pharmacists don't want to generalize but a lot of the time we are very kind of a bit conservative and risk averse in

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terms of putting ourselves out there there and I can I don't understand the hesitation about doing that on a so on

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an outward facing platform like a podcast or on a social media account

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because there might be limit very valid limitations for example your workplace might have a media policy that you have

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to operate within and that's completely valid and you understand why it's there so the appetite for a pharmacist to put

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themselves out there in that particular context is going to be limited but I think it's really important to balance

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the narrative and the resources available to people because people are still going to look on social media for

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information and for advice and for education so having really useful

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resources that are readily available to people that aren't necessarily behind a pay wall is important yeah I totally

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agree and you just maybe triggered me a little bit when you mentioned about organizations having um social media

10:57

policies and and things like that but but yeah you do have to be mindful of what you post and and how you come

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across on yeah social media or even professional social media Pages as well

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and yeah it can be a bit daunting um putting yourself out there and

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understanding yeah the reasons why those organizations might have those policies

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and yeah that's been a learning curve for me in my career over the years and yeah sometimes you make mistakes and you

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learn from them and but then you're like okay well how can I learn from this and

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how can I move forward and do it better for everyone so yeah I think that was a really great point that you you made

11:38

about that well because there are like lots of things to navigate as well because we have a pharmacy board with a

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professional code of you know conduct and ethical standards which is important and then you also want to be careful

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because there are very important guidances from things like the therapeutic Goods administration of

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advertising medicines and you just want to make sure that your always keeping those broader things in your mind so

12:03

that you're not doing something that can be interpreted to be inappropriate yeah absolutely I guess

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this is probably a really great time to jump in and start talking about the purple pen podcast but first of all I

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want to ask why purple pen in the name I think I know why but I would like to

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yeah get your feedback on that look the thing is we're we're in too deep now it's all the merch and the website so

12:28

but go going back to why and we totally understand why the question comes because back in my day we had paper

12:35

charts in hospitals and not electronic charts so there's a whole cohort of Pharmacists coming through now who would

12:42

never have even touched a paper chart in a hospital but back when we used to have paper charts the pharmacists usually

12:49

would annotate in a purple colored pen and that was most commonly in the state of Victoria where the purple pen podcast

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has its Origins with the amazing Jane booth and Dan gadoni who created the

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purple pen podcast but in New South Wales Hospital pharmacists use a green pen in the ACT Sometimes they used a red

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pen so that's the origins of the name purple pen podcast interesting yes I was sure that

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it was had something to do with um the types of pen you were using on the charts but yeah you're right there are

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some pharmacists now coming through that have probably never seen that so now that's and I'm someone who loves

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alliteration so I mean it kind of it appeals to me on that sense as well RS off the tone yeah no I like it and it

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yeah makes you think hm what is this I want to listen to it so what actually inspired you to yeah become a co-host on

13:45

a podcast yeah so I was as I my career

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evolved in Hospital Pharmacy I went from the Sydney ey Hospital covering a maternity Lea contract and I have to say

13:59

for someone looking to get into Hospital Pharmacy really fortunate to have people

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going on breaks whether that's for sment or maternity leaves or extended trips

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overseas it's an excellent opportunity just to do a short-term contract to gain that experience and you know one of the

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things that's good about Hospital Pharmacy is that people move around a little bit for you know numerous reasons

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and that can often create a foot in the door so from Sydney ey hospital I moved to southernland hospital and then ended

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up at West me hospital and became more and more involved with the society for

14:35

Hospital pharmacists from there and involved in the New South Wales branch and started attending medicine's

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management scientific conferences which were a really exciting space for someone who hadn't been to a professional uh

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scientific conference before and it was a really wonderful environment of

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like-minded people sharing what they're doing in their workplaces in hospital Pharmacy and I found it really exciting

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and I really enjoyed networking with the different pharmacists across different

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states and it was there that I met Jane and Dan and actually they approached me after we met and became colleagues and

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then friends and I think I was on their podcast as a guest initially when I was

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on the scientific committee for the mm 2017 conference that was in Sydney so

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they were attending as podcast co-hosts and interviewed me about what it was like to be on the conference organizing

15:34

committee and I think they probably had a bit of an agenda from that point on and thought it would be good to get

15:41

another co-host because there is quite a lot of work involved in running a podcast and I think between the two of

15:48

them they were just finding the workload a bit difficult to manage and probably also thinking about sucession planning

15:53

about maybe if one day they didn't want to be involved as actively anymore but still really thought it was a valuable

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contribution to have the podcast could they hand it over to somebody they trusted and thought would continue the

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legacy of the podcast so I was uh a bit hesitant at first and very nervous and

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wasn't sure about what it involved so they said you know come on and see how you like it and I liked it so just

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continued from there and I flew over to Victoria where they were both based at the time and they gave me a a one-day

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workshop on how to do podcast so how do we record how do we edit the content how

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do we run the social media accounts how do we find guests and it was really from

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there that I kind of became more and more involved in the podcast and it's something that I think it's something

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that I don't get paid for so you have to be passionate about it and enjoy it and

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I do so that that makes it easy for me to kind of well not easy but easier to

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continue doing the work that I do for the I was actually thinking of asking you what has kept you on the air for so many

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years now which I think you kind of answered it with your passion there because yeah you're right as someone who

17:09

also does podcasting it's um yeah there is a lot of work involved and I yeah

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cudos to anyone that's producing and hosting podcasts it's it's not easy it's

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not just as simple as just jumping on a mic exactly and it's a tricky space to

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navigate especially with sponsorship and and perceived conflicts of interest so it's something that we've been very

17:33

mindful of with sticking true to the ethos of the pharmacy podcast and wanting to just offer clinical content

17:41

from a place of curiosity with a decent evidence base so that people never felt

17:47

that we were violating their ethical code about listening to us and I think

17:53

that we've had lots of Interest over the years by various sponsors and it's something that we just thought was EAS

17:58

easier to St clear of so that the space never really became mudded for us yeah

18:05

good point that's um it's good that the purple pen podcast is sticking to the

18:10

the origins and the values of why you started in the first place and that can be applied to any organization I think

18:18

or anything that people do so yeah I really really love that yeah you're

18:23

sticking true to yeah those ethical values it's very important so I think that's s like what's the point of it so

18:30

I suppose the point of it is you know when I worked in Hospital Pharmacy especially in West me we had a really

18:35

excident Excellence CPD program so that's something that I enjoyed monthly we would have one of the clinicians in

18:42

the hospital whether that was a doctor or an Allied Health professional and pharmacists would rotate taking turns

18:49

about organizing who would speak to us as a department about a topic of interest and it was just something I

18:55

really enjoyed keeping up to date with and learning about and when I moved out of Hospital Pharmacy to work for the

19:02

Australian Commission on safety and quality and Healthcare something that I missed was that real Pharmacy clinical

19:09

dedicated CPD where it was just a particular topic of Interest whether that was a medicine or a disease State

19:18

and just getting an update about the basics of it and what's kind of emerging in the space so I think when I moved out

19:24

of that space what really motivated me to keep going with the podcast was well

19:30

I missed the CPD at my fingertips so I can create that and ensure that one of

19:36

the things that isn't as accessible to me in a current role like you know working for a government organization is

19:43

that clinical face tof face with the patient so the podcast kind of keeps me

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in touch with keeping up to date with clinical content which is I think something really important as a

19:54

practicing healthc care professional absolutely do you know or do you have

19:59

any examples of how the podcast has impacted your listeners it's the pop P

20:05

podcast I believe is been on air for over five years now I think maybe even

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going on eight years actually wow that's amazing um so yeah obviously people are

20:17

listening to it which is great but um yeah how do yeah have you got any memorable feedback that stands out to or

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yeah I mean a couple of months ago I think so it's lovely if people leave stars on the various podcast apps so

20:31

it's you know four stars five stars whatever but I really as you know we don't don't get paid so I take my little

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moments of gratitude when I read the the words of people leaving reviews whether

20:42

that's on Apple podcasts or wherever and last month we got a review that was along the lines of you know the podcast

20:49

is easy to listen to accessible indepth knowledge on relevant topics and that

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they felt that it was a great resource especially for people who have had breaks from the workforce and feeling

21:03

their confidence wobble and that was something that really resonated with me as someone who's had two periods of

21:09

maternity leave and whilst I've moved around my roles quite a lot something

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that stayed constant is my casual shifts in Community Pharmacy and I can tell you stepping back into Community Pharmacy

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after 12 months off and picking up something like I remember I came back from my first baby and I picked up a

21:28

script and it was for inuve and I was like what the hell is inuve I was like got to pull out the amh

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and have a look a whole new medication had been come onto the market in the 12 months i' been off and I didn't even

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know the indication for it but luckily I was able to create a podcast about it so

21:46

I said you know what if this is new for me I bet you it's new for other people as well so an episode on you know the

21:53

latest developments in ADHD medications was created so it feels to me that

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anytime I encounter a topic whether that's in Community Pharmacy or my family often joke if you have a look at

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the podcast history they can see our family history of conditions kind of evolving because as things unfold you

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know a family member getting shingles I was like oh lots of questions very valid

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questions that I had to look up the answers to that really wasn't at my fingertips let's create a podcast about

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it oh I love that that's actually thinking oh I need to go back and maybe listen to some of your order episodes

22:29

and see if there's any relevant information in there for some of my family members to States as well it's

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nice to be able to share it with someone and whilst we're a podcast that's aimed at healthc Care Professionals and

22:41

education there is some things that I think that are accessible to the general public and that's why because we try and

22:47

Pitch it at a really accessible level because we understand the medium people are listening to the podcast on their

22:54

commute to work you know when they're gardening when they're walking the dog so you want to keep it at a level that

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people feel they can follow and don't feel too overwhelmed by the knowledge of so I think that's what makes it kind of

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accessible to a wide audience because I mean we've got the benefit of having a

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look at how many episodes are downloaded and what is getting traction and you

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know we've got listeners actually in lots of countries across the world not just Australia so the UK and America and

23:25

Canada and New Zealand and Europe countries like that so it's kind of

23:30

interesting to see how it trickles out across across the world yeah wow that's so exciting for you guys that yeah there

23:38

people listening all over the world very very exciting so well done I think oh

23:44

yeah I'd like to ask you now about how your work across different Health

23:51

Care settings probably gives you quite a unique perspective especially when it comes to yeah deciding what type of

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topics you're going to be talking about on the podcast and I can definitely hear

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your passion too for having information or education about Healthcare in easy to

24:10

understand language and making it accessible for people in whatever format

24:16

so depending on where they are what they're doing they can get that information easily why is that so

24:23

important to you I feel like that's something that's definitely come out in our conversation and is yeah has there

24:30

been maybe a particular moment in your life that made you really passionate about ensuring people can have that

24:37

access to information easily I think it's probably tied to my personality Kristi Lee I'm the kind of person that

24:44

if I found a cafe that's got really excellent coffee I've got to share it

24:49

with people you know you've got to know about this Cafe it's really great it's got great coffee and I had a really

24:55

delicious cake so I think that that's probably where comes from as well as my personality type so if someone if I

25:02

encounter someone in my Professional Network who's really knowledgeable about a topic but not just knowledgeable

25:09

because I think there are lots of really smart people out there what makes it

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that what I think is a different skill is can they translate their smarts to another audience and it's not easy to

25:22

find those kinds of people so I think I've been really lucky to work across lots of different hospital hospitals and

25:29

develop a a network of people who I've encountered who you know what is their

25:35

passion topic and you know when I encounter someone who's really really knowledgeable about something I'm like

25:41

hey you explained that really well to me do you think that you'd be interested in doing a podcast on this particular topic

25:47

so that resource is available to lots of people I remember when I worked at southernland hospital I did a lot of

25:53

Warr and counseling warer and counseling again and again and again and again and I kept thinking to myself only there was

25:59

some video or audio that I could play to someone so that they got the basic

26:04

understanding of what I was saying and then I could come in at the end and direct them further I think that would

26:09

be a better use of time so I think that's the philosophy of the podcast is we don't pres you know we don't try and

26:15

put ourselves out there as exhausting every valid discussion point on a

26:21

particular topic but it's a starting point to give someone a basic understanding and a scaffold in which to

26:27

develop knowledge and go for further Avenues from there so a lot of the times in our show notes we'll link for

26:34

additional resources for people to read but hopefully after the 20 or 30 minutes

26:39

that the person's had to listen they know a little bit more than they did at the start and feel like they know where

26:45

to go for their next steps in terms of how we find guests it's really like what

26:51

myself and Natalie tusker who's my now current amazing podcast co-host who do

26:56

we work with what are we encountering so you'll see that there's a definite slant to infectious diseases in a very kind of

27:04

concentrated period of the podcasts and that's reflecting my history as the antimicrobial stewardship pharmacist for

27:11

Western Sydney lhd and that's because at the time I was interested in all things and still am really interested in all

27:18

things antimicrobials and infectious diseases and when you encounter people like that that's what you want to share

27:24

the podcast with and that content for yeah yeah absolutely totally agree and

27:30

yeah sometimes finding guests can be difficult but yeah I feel that there's

27:36

this whole network of amazing pharmacists out there that are maybe going under the radar 100% yeah we we

27:44

need to get that their knowledge and so yeah maybe there people who really underplay themselves you know we had an

27:49

amazing podcast with KL Winkle on met foreman and one of our uh recent guests

27:55

was KL Winkle who discussed foreman and the commentary from Carl when we

28:01

approached him was who would want to hear from me and he totally underplayed himself and it was one of our most

28:07

downloaded episodes ever because you know people loved hearing from a pharmacist who was supremely

28:12

knowledgeable and really passionate about a topic and I think it's inspiring for people to he hear that and it's

28:18

something that nigh is a goal for us for 2024 is to Showcase more pharmacists

28:24

because you look back at previous podcast episodes and we do have a lot of medical practitioners and doctors and I

28:32

think it's because they are more well practiced in talking about particular topics and it's a little bit harder to

28:39

approach pharmacists I think sometimes so I think that's definitely a goal for us moving forward and sometimes it's

28:45

about having a crack as well so I read an article and that was one of The

28:51

Inspirations for a recent podcast and it was about deep ascribing psychotropics

28:57

and anti-depressants and that was from Dr Mark Horowitz and it was a an ABC News article and I just

29:04

took a punt and emailed him from his the email I found online and he was more than happy to come and chat to us so I

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think sometimes if you don't ask then you don't get so things that it's not

29:16

just necessarily your network but also reading articles and research papers

29:21

from universities that are being shared on social media accounts is how we find a lot of content as well okay so looking

29:28

ahead what are your future aspirations for the purple pen podcast um looking

29:35

ahead I think NY are just Keen to continue on really I think that's

29:42

something that's not an easy task is putting out content on a consistent basis I think as I said earlier it's

29:50

really a goal of ours to Showcase more pharmacists as our hosts as our as our

29:56

guests on the podcast so moving forward that's something that I think is important to us and I think

30:04

continuing to develop content that's relevant for our listeners and I think

30:10

hopefully by having more Pharmacy guests we can dive into more medication related

30:16

topics rather than disease dates so much because that's been something that

30:21

people have been really interested in so some of our best performing episodes have been about deep ascribing Psych

30:28

Tropics met Foreman we recently had a podcast with

30:33

the wonderful Adam lavori about cholesteral medications and when you look at the stats that's what the people

30:39

want to hear so I think that responding to what our metrics are telling us that

30:45

people are enjoying and delivering more of that kind of content thank you so much Kristin for being a guest on our

30:51

show today I really look forward to tuning into the purple pen podcast so

30:56

thank you again Kristin and to our listeners thank you for tuning in thanks so

31:01

much you've been listening to Your Pharmacy Career podcast brought to you by Raven's Recruitment don't miss our next

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