Your Pharmacy Career Podcast
The “Your Pharmacy Career” Podcast will feature a leader from the profession, discussing their career and sharing their experiences and learnings.
Hosted by Pharmacist, Krysti-Lee Patterson, get ready to be inspired, informed, and empowered as Krysti-Lee shares her wisdom, experiences, and interviews some of the brightest minds in the field. Whether you're a seasoned professional, a budding pharmacist, or just curious about the diverse opportunities in pharmacy, "Your Pharmacy Career" is your go-to podcast.
This is the Podcast of Raven's Recruitment, an Australian owned recruitment agency specialising in permanent and locum Pharmacist recruitment for the Pharmacy Industry since 1987 across Australia and New Zealand.
Your Pharmacy Career Podcast
Sarah Gray - Blending Nutrition and Pharmacy for Better Health
When it comes to health, Sarah Gray is a trusted expert and innovator, working to deliver products and services that truly change the healthcare landscape in Australia. Sarah’s personal purpose is to challenge the status quo, and make a difference to the health and happiness of all creatures (humans and animals) on the planet.
As a registered pharmacist and nutritionist, together with holding a Global Executive MBA qualification, Sarah is able to apply a commercial and strategic lens to health focused businesses, while providing deep knowledge of the sector, resulting in disruptive innovation, entrepreneurial ventures and thought leadership.
Sarah has a special talent to empower, coach and mentor teams to deliver world-first services that are changing the face of healthcare. Sarah’s authentic and inclusive leadership style is demonstrated through strong relatability and connections with others, both internal and external stakeholders.
Sarah is passionate about providing a psychologically safe environment to foster teams and businesses to reach their full potential. Her influential and tenacious style, lays the foundations for successful leadership and business growth.
As well as being a valued leader in health, Sarah is a non-executive director in the sporting sector, driving community mental health benefits and fostering diversity and inclusivity in the sector.
You can find Sarah Gray on LinkedIn.
Do you have questions about your pharmacy career? Then contact us or meet our team.
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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 esteemed
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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 Krysti Lee Patterson and today we have a very
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special guest with us Sarah gray Sarah has an impressive career that spans traditional Pharmacy roles and
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significant leadership positions including general manager and chief of
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Health operations and Innovation and has also had previous roles as general
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manager of the olive Wellness Institute in today's episode we'll be diving into
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Sarah's Journey exploring how she has integrated her passion for nutrition
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technology and Innovative strategies into her work and discussing her insights on the future of Pharmacy and
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holistic health we'll also hear some of her personal stories and get her advice for aspiring pharmacists looking to
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expand their roles so without further Ado let's get started welcome to the show Sarah thank you CH thanks for
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having me um appreciate you asking me and thanks for the great yeah sure absolutely cuton past so I'll send it
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over for you so I'll rip straight in and I'd like to ask you yeah if you could
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share some of your Journey from the traditional Pharmacy role to yeah your current position at healthy life um I'm
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sure you could probably speak about it for a lot longer than a couple of minutes but yeah I'd love to kind of
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hear your thoughts on how you got to where you were yeah sure um and yeah I'll give you the short version but we
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can dive into any parts that you'd like to to learn more about like most of us I started off in you you can to choose two
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routes mainly Community or hospital and I chose Community Pharmacy I loved that and I still do love Community Pharmacy
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um I just love helping people that's the reason why I think most people become a pharmacist um and it wasn't until I was
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actually myself personally started to experience some food intolerances I became a bit interested in nutrition and
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studied nutrition as a result of that so I did a masters of nutrition with Deacon University but even prior to that I knew
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after spending probably a good maybe five or six years after my intern years
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of course in a pharmacy managing a store I always felt there was something else that I wanted to do so I really loved
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helping people and individuals but what I wanted to do was help more people and a larger group of the population with
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more of a public health lens so I'd already before I studied my nutrition degree i' already moved out of that
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traditional Pharmacy role full-time I was still doing a lot of part-time work in a store and then I moved into working
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for the pharmaceutical Society of Australia where I I looked at you know education I looked after the national
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intern program and I really started love or get a feel for how nice it was to help influence lots of other
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pharmacists then I transitioned over to the food industry or sort of therapeutic good industry while I studied nutrition
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so I'll Circle back to that if I forget please remind me but that's one of the key things around career transition that
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change really adding something else to my Pharmacy degree really gave me some unique
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opportunities um yeah then I did my master of nutrition and from there really everything's fallen into place
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I've done a couple of these career podcasts across different forums before and often say that I'm lucky and the
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feedback I get is well maybe it's not luck because in a way you create your own luck yes you do have to sometimes be
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in the right place at the right time but I've generally put my out there and done
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different things so that when opportunities become available people have usually had a chat with me or chat
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to people that know me and then I've had gotten jobs usually just through word of mouth I haven't really done that
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traditional route of applying for a job throughout the last I'd say 15 20 years of my career so that's a bit of a I'll
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give you a flavor for it maybe we can dive into parts that you think are more interesting because I could go on about it all day yeah absolutely I think um
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yeah that power of networking is really important and I look back on my own
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career and when I was early on like just straight out of University I probably
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didn't really appreciate how important it is um people would come and speak at
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University and say oh you need to network you need to go to these events and I kind of thought on know if you
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work really hard and you're good at what you do those opportunities will yeah people will I guess tap you on the
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shoulder but that isn't actually reality and so yeah I found that even with
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myself putting yourself out there which is really scary but your networking is is definitely helped U me in my career
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so I think yeah would love to hear your thoughts on yeah what you did to kind of
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make those connections in the first place yeah it's an excellent point and I think we're connected because you've
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reached out to me here that's an example of how that networking can deliver you different connections and you can learn
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more things about people um and definitely for me that was probably one of the number one things the networking
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like your network is your net worth they usually say so always met people I always went to conferences I did
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volunteer work at STS at napsa I'd speak to students to other pharmacists to
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different professionals and that was actually probably key to me getting the different steps that I got along the way
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as well as having that different differentiator as well so when you've got a pharmacy degree I think usually as
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pharmacists we're really humble like I even went and did a store visit recently and met the pharmacist and she said I'm just the loc and I said you're not just
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the locom you're the pharmacist here today so we're such humble people by Nature we think it's just oh we're just
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a pharmacist but you know we can talk about anything from gut health through to immune Health through to chronic
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disease everything really and that's quite a unique skill set to have so you've already got that I think
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sometimes adding something to it or specializing in one area makes you really even more special and that's that
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together with my network has probably lent me to most of my opportunities in my career so just studying that masters
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of nutrition and meeting people at conferences I then got my first kind of job in more of the in Industry space and
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I worked for hydroly for about five years and I got that job because I was doing nutrition and I was a pharmacist
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and I met people so those three things together really create a nice kind of roll arounded Circle if you like to help
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me get that opportunity and then from there people just kind of get to know you so you know you yourself chis have
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got your own sort of Niche that people know you for and all other pharmacists that I know and good connections with often have a niche so if I need to talk
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to somebody about e scripts or script exchange I've got someone who's an expert in that or Professional Services
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or whatever that might be and people talk it's a very small world especially in the health industry in Australia so
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when a role comes up where they need and nutrition and a pharmacist well there's probably not thousands of us there's
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probably down to probably 10 to 20 of us in Australia so the opportunities are few and far between because those jobs
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don't come up very often but when they do come up you're one of 10 people that potentially could be up for that job
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versus the pool of all the other pharmacists or nutritionists going for those roles so it is a bit of a
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double-edged sword in that if you do want to change roles it can take time because there's not really stuff people
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look at your CV and think what are you you are you a pharmacist are you a nutritionist do you do reg Affairs do you do marketing if you done an NBA like
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who who actually are you but at some point that unique set of skills together
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is really well suited for one particular role so for me that's the probably the few keys of success or how I've sort of
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GED success throughout my career yeah I just want to touch on when you talked about when people say oh like who are
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you and I've definitely felt that I actually spent a lot of money on a executive resim and career
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organization that helps like create your resume and your LinkedIn profile and
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they said that exact thing to me they're like I'm not really sure what you are and I'm like well I don't know
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either I'm just myself but yeah trying to I think when you see a role that you
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think you could do tailoring and picking out the aspects of
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your expertise and tailoring it to that I think is quite unique
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and I think sometimes it can be very time consuming when you are do need to put your CV or resum together you put
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all these things that aren't relevant to that role but yeah trying to really think okay what are some of the other
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things that you've done and and tailoring it to that I know that helped me a lot and I'm not saying everyone
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needs to go and spend the money that I did but I certainly found it just
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helpful even just maybe just talking it out loud with maybe a friend or a colleague so that you can easily
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articulate who you are yeah definitely and also in that piece not undervaluing
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the kind of foundational skills you have as a pharmacist so example and a health
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professional generally you have a really kind of critical analysis critical analysis skill if that makes sense so
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you can look at things you critically analyze things you read information you want to know where the evidence is what
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type of evidence was that we're very process driven people and I think you have to be like that because you have to
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have a process with everything that you do to make sure that you have that consistency and for patient safety
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ultimately so what I've often found is that even though I'm not a quality assurance expert I am becoming one and
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even though I wasn't a Regulatory Affairs expert or expert in Warehouse processes or other things that aren't
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necessarily things that I've done those skills as a pharmacist were really valuable so even listing out what are
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the things you can do as a pharmacist that are really valuable so you can critically analyze bits of research so
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are you going for a medical writing job or a job with the government or with industry those skills are just they're
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very few and far between that somebody can really analyze something and then pull out the key points so what are
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those bits that you can do as a pharmacist inherently that you just probably undervalue every day of the week that you can actually highlight on
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the CV because people won't know that about you unless you actually tell them and that's probably the most interesting
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thing that I found just having that health professionals generally have have a very critical mindset when they're
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looking at things and you can give them things that aren't necessarily related to health even outside of Health it
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might be analyze a paper on this business or analyze the digital Health landscape they apply that mindset which
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I think is a truly undervalued skill that we have absolutely and but it's
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such a valued skill for so many different Avenues or just in life in
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general I find it quite useful um I'd like to touch on your career transends
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into the nutrition space I think that is obviously something you're very passionate about and when you shared
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earlier in the conversation that it stem from your own food intolerances I think
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yeah when you've got that kind of personal connection to something it can lead to maybe things that you you didn't
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realize so I'd love to hear yeah your journey on that and let you down that
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path to nutrition yeah yeah certainly so I
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through my own experiences obviously I had my tolerances and I've visited a range of dietitians and I guess I just
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got really curious about the treatment and the way that they were handled in my case but also sort of saw a bit of a a
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gap in that the dietician can help you with the food side of things and how to manage all of that but then the doctor
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manages the medicines and the pharmacist tells you what supplements might support you so really having that the skill set
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of adding the nutrition has given me not only the foundations of understanding the strained diger guidelines food
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standards all the the foundations you need as nutrition and professional but it's also given me um that ability to
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understand what are the things that actually you can do that are integrative and how can I look at sort of nutritional supplements in a different
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way that I was before so when I first studied Nutrition a lot of people in my you know sort of Pharmacy Network were
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like well how's that going to work are you just going to forget your pharmacist now and go and be a nutritionist and I'm like no I'm going to do the two together
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and then as I started to do the two together it just became really obvious to me like food drug interactions food
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nutrient interactions depletions that drugs cause with nutrients like I very early on helped put together a chapter
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in the APF I don't even know what number it was but it was around food drug interactions and you're looking at
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people with barric surgery those with intermitted fasting and how drugs were impacted in the absorption so that's a
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whole stream in itself really where nutrition and Pharmacy really go well together but then also doing shifts in a
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pharmacy when I was previously and had when had graduated as nutritionist customers coming in asking about weight
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loss shakes or asking about nutritional supplements practitioner range supplements having a bit more of an in-depth understanding of those but then
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also understanding the pharmacy side of them around pharmacology and drug interaction so really having that together is quite well-rounded so really
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actually came together better than what I thought I thought I would probably go off and work in a private clinic and start my own nutrition practice but then
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I realized it actually had a lot of value to give in organizations around bringing those two things together and
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then the other piece that kind of fell out of that was Regulatory Affairs so you know I can look after things from
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food standards s to therapeutic Goods or scheduled medicines across that whole gamut and most people specialize in one
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little bit of that so I've enjoyed being able to use my Pharmacy skills on more of the scheduled side of things and the
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nutrition around TGA and food so that those things together have really worked a lot better than what I thought they
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would and my roles have always being centered around those kinds of things but it doesn't have to be nutrition so I
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often get asked this question like how did you do it how did you add nutrition and make it work well it kind of just
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happened as I delved into it more I discovered these things but you know I had one young pharmacist reach out once
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who was really interested in exercise physiology and Physiotherapy and I encouraged them to go ahead and look
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into that because think about the use of opioids or anti-inflammatories for pain with physiotherapists are treating that
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having that in-depth understanding as a pharmacist it's just invaluable so I think you don't necessarily have to do
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another degree but if there's something that interests you can really try and Niche down on that space and you become
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a more of a specialist without having the official accreditation in that area yeah absolutely and I think that's a
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really good advice as well that you don't you don't have to go and do degrees in these things and get
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certifications some people do and I know I'm I'm one of those serial degree
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people that I should say oh I'm never going to study again in the next thing you know I'm saying to my husband oh by the way I've signed up for this
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so um I've been um I've been put on a um I put myself on an imposed ban I'm not doing
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any more courses I did the aicd course this year and it was really is actually
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probably harder than my NBA so I'm not doing anymore but I think that just shows curiosity of mind so although we
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might not do any more courses we may you can still become interested in things so
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obviously have an interest in digital health and innovative ways of delivering Health Services to Consumers so I'm now
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trying to become an expert in that space and understanding all of that and just spending time in there and actually applying those skills you do become
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quite knowledgeable so you don't have to always do a degree but you can do that to formalize it one thing that just came
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to mind though is the MBA is quite an interesting one though because that was something I did a bit later on and my
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main reason for doing that was sometimes when you're a pharmacist or a health professional working in a bigger
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corporate medium to Big corporate organization you're seen as the pharmacist so he's Chris Lee here's
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Sarah you're the pharmacist so you can go on the corner and do the stuff the pharmacists do you can look after dispensaries Professional Services you
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can write articles you can do but we actually I actually wanted to be involved in the business side of stuff I
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wanted to be setting up the strategy I wanted to be doing the the governance I wanted to do the corporate Affairs I
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wanted all that stuff but it was really hard to get into any of those positions because people sort of thought well
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you're a pharmacist what would you really know about business that's kind of the reaction I got when I sort of
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floated it with different people so doing the NBA although yes I now have a skill set in finance and all those other
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areas of business and I have learned an incredible amount I'm not that different a person that I was before I did all of
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those things it's just now on my CV people say well she's done an executive NBA therefore she knows everything about
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business therefore if she's applying for a commercial role as head of commercial
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Industries or whatever yet we're going to look at her CV because she's done the NBA so the business one is probably the
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only one where I'd say that if you do really have a commercial mindset and you're having trouble breaking through
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potentially that's one to consider because that's something that really helps people realize your potential but
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then even yourself so I left my NBA thinking I might even go and work in banking or a completely different
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industry because you can actually bring in those skills as a pharmacist outside into the business world so that's
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probably the only one I'd say consider additional training if you really want to but again you could just read up and
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become more knowledgeable if something that's just an interest as well I found the exact same in my career as well
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which is why I decided to do the MBA as well and there was some people that said to me you don't need to and I'm like I
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know I don't need to but yeah you're right when you're competing um yeah maybe against people that have worked
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for the big four Consulting companies or do have their NBAs I know once I I've
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got three subjects go so can't wait to actually finish this year it's taking me forever but even just saying I was an
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NBA candidate actually had a hell of a lot more weight and especially for some
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of my roles in the not for-profit space as well sitting on boards say want
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people that have that clinical knowledge but then also the commercial sense as well and so I know yeah in my experience
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i' I've certainly came across those challenges as well it might not have been the same for everyone I know
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there's people that are in strategic roles and they haven't done it but I I definitely have found that for me it it
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has certainly helped you don't necessarily need it but I think we're probably both in the same position that I would never turn I would never take
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back what I did it because I think now one of my friends once said my colleagues once said it's almost like
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it's wrapped around you like you've got this clear silk scarf wrapped around you of that NBA so you're applying that
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business lens to everything you're doing now naturally without even thinking about it so I do recommend that if
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you're looking into doing business things but yes to allow yourself a lot of time to to get on it's quite intense
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yeah absolutely I think I'd like to chat to you now about maybe Innovation and
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you mentioned your passion around digital health and yeah I'd like to chat to you now about digital health and
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innovation in that space you're working with healthy life now you've got your
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wealth of knowledge around the nutrition space and your Pharmacy expertise but
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where do you see digital health and Technology being being a part of your career now and I guess the the need for
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that in pharmacy now as well yeah yeah of course so um for those who don't know
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healthy life is a a digital health and wellness platform so we're actually a fully owned subsidiary of the wwor group
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so um we do lots of things with health and wellness we get out of bed every day just everyone is very passionate about
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health and really I didn't think 3 years ago or over three years ago when I took
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on this role I probably didn't appreciate the importance of really understanding the
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digital Health landscape and how much I really would start to become really knowledgeable about technology about
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product development about all those things in the technology land it was a very steep learning curve but now one
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that I think it's really important that lots of people people in health are really aware of is not just coming like
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Ai and health and digital Health not just coming it's already here so if we're not accepting it and acknowledging
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it thinking it will just go away it's not it's just it's going to get more and more important so there's probably two
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things that I've seen and I've leared around digital health and how I see it empowering us in the future and one I'll
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start with the health services one's probably more relevant for the for this audience particularly but you know we
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know that there's a multitude of different telea Health Providers Health Service Providers and I think it's all
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going to flip around so we think about the traditional model of Health years
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ago when you know we used to go and see our doctor physically all the time pretty much much and it was a one directional kind of relationship is how
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I see it so you go to your doctor you get the service you get you kind of accept it and you go home you challenge it you might ask a few questions but
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you've got sort of a one-way relationship where your service level expectation is yet I'm going to get the service that I get it's completely
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flipped the other side now it's much more bidirectional consumers are saying well I want to treat my health I want to
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take it in my own hands and I want to speak to a doctor but I also really want them to understand it's B directional I
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expect this level of service and so the standards of service are just going up and up and up for those doctors or those
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health professionals offering these services and it's really good because consumers are empowered to question things to ask more detail to ask for
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medications they might have heard about and I think that's really changed the dynamic and I think for me even though
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there are some limitations with what digital Health Services can do the upside is just wonderful like giving
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access to health services for people that can't access them in remote areas of Australia you know offering it to a
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mom with two kids needs at home on a Saturday night and can't get out of the house and really needs care for her child so it's certainly not there to
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replace the regular GP 100% you need a regular GP you need that you know
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continuity chronic disease management but there's a lot of times when you can't access your GP we know we've got a
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shortage of GPS in Australia even worldwide so I think it's just going to become more and more important and it's
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become now not just an sort of add-on it's an ad jump it's there it's part of what everyone is doing so I think for me
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what i' I'd like to see is that kind of jelling a bit more like with the traditional medical system and the way
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the government funds um you tell Health at the moment's a bit limited after Co but there still is some funding
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available I think the two systems working together are really important so how can we get the traditional sort of
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GP model working with some of these Health Services now see it's difficult right because there's so many new tele
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Health Providers every day you and you one launches and is the governance around those Services as strong as it
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could be in all cases well maybe not and you could try them for yourself if you wanted to find out more but that's the
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connection there so for me that really has sented for me if you remember back at the beginning I was talking about
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you're a pharmacist you can help one person at a time you move into a role like I have now and have the privilege
23:14
of having at healthy life you can now impact lots more people a lot a bigger customer base and have a really positive
23:21
impact at a public health level for a lot of people so to me it's you've got all these people doing the the shopping
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how can you actually connect those people to Quality healthare and incidental healthare so you know I
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recently did a field trip to New Zealand I think it was actually it was last year feels like it was recent but it was last
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year and they have a different model where they've got pharmacies inside the
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countdown soon to be ww Worth's um supermarkets they're inside they're either a store in store or they're in an
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aisle Health aisle kind of converts and I've got mixed thoughts about both models but I won't share my my comments
23:57
on those but one thing that I found was fantastic I spoke to one of the pharmacists who was in the in aisle once
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so imagine like the health food aisle converted to a little Pharmacy it's quite narrow privacy is probably questionable I said to the to the
24:09
gentleman you know pharmacist what do you like about this what don't you like about it and he only talked about what
24:14
he liked and he said the thing he likes is that you might have somebody a 45-year old man walking past that aisle
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who's had a Legion on his hand for six months that he hasn't bothered going to a doctor about but he's grabbing his his
24:26
bread and his cheese or whatever for the week and he thinks well I'll just show the pharmacist because they're just standing right there and then there you
24:33
go incidental health care and that person is helped at that point where they are so going to where the people
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are versus waiting for people to come to you so to me that's an area that is so
24:44
much more to be done then on the other side of things because of wearing my nutrition hat again digital health and
24:51
Innovation and and all the things that can be done are incredible so you know we have massive issue in this country
24:58
country and in the world with chronic disease related to nutrition I think the stats show that if you eat one extra
25:04
server vegetables a day you can reduce your risk of chronic disease by around
25:09
14% And that's a carrot or half a cup of frozen peas cooked like it's not a big deal but getting that message to
25:16
Consumers is just it's hard like year on year we don't see change in that I do I
25:22
don't work with the supermarket team but obviously you know in the group there is the supermarket business which is you
25:27
know providing food for for Australian so what can we do there so one of the things I'm really proud of is our
25:32
Healthy Life Food tracker which we created which says we know what you're buying in your shopping let us now show
25:38
you how that looks compared to the austrain DI your guidelines your salt Su or fat could you buy less of some things
25:43
more of others can you crage your diet out with healthy foods and how can you swap to healthier products and to me
25:50
that's really meaningful because customers can look at their basket and think what can I do to make swaps for my
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family and that's a it's a free resource it's a free tool that offer so there's so much that can be done I think we're
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really just at the tip of the iceberg with what we're exploring at the moment but the impact you know at the moment
26:07
we've got a campaign where you buy fruit and veg and you get bonus points for that know that's a big change from what
26:13
our Supermarket traditionally is doing with you know specials on sort of discretionary Foods so I think with
26:18
health at the moment the opportunities with digital are inless you can probably hear my two areas so course you can ask
26:24
me any questions but that's what I spend most of my time doing I definitely agree with you especially in regards to when
26:31
you're talking about going to New Zealand on that field trip I've went to New Zealand prior to co and yeah I was
26:40
really excited to go and see uh these pharmacies that were in supermarkets and I will be honest I was very much against
26:47
it but I don't know if that was just because I didn't know any different or maybe other people giving their opinions
26:54
and I was absorbing the people around me but when I went over there and actually saw it yeah and started chatting to the
27:00
pharmacists that were working there and and hearing how they're changing that patient or consumer's life with that
27:06
incidental Healthcare I was like oh wow this is a huge opportunity um and you
27:12
mentioned something about waiting waiting for people to come to you and
27:17
this is the I guess the biggest I don't even know how to say it but it just blows my mind that Pharmacy we just set
27:25
up a shop um and just wait like in any other business that you do
27:32
not do that like it's business 101 and so we um and I think we've were very lucky that we had scripts so they had to
27:39
come to the pharmacy because of their script and I think now there's so many
27:45
different ways that people can get their scripts or access their medications they're not always coming into that
27:51
pharmacy now and I think we need to acknowledge that and and meet the consumer where they are and something
27:58
that I love to to question people on is there's always that debate about are they are they a patient are they a
28:04
customer are they a client are they a consumer and and at the end of the day no matter what we call them they act and
28:11
behave like a consumer and I think taking that lens of how a consumer
28:17
behaves is something that can be really powerful in Pharmacy and I think it's something that yeah that maybe the
28:22
groups like were worth and and W Farmers they bring that lens they really understand how it consumer behaves and
28:30
by applying that lens with Pharmacy can be really powerful because we've got a
28:36
yes where we've got a aging population but the millennial Market is actually a
28:42
larger proportion of people than the Aging population so preventative healthare that's your target audience
28:48
there right and I think that's a huge opportunity for pharmacy to really tap
28:54
into that yeah demographic and provide those solutions for them and I love what
29:00
you mentioned about the the food tracker I have actually used that in myw app and
29:06
it was quite mindblowing because I like to think that I'm someone that eats quite healthily and then yeah one will
29:14
order I did one week with my husband we just like we have two logins and we just like pop in whatever we need and then
29:21
submit the order once a week which is very helpful because we're very time poor and I thought oh what's this new
29:26
thing I clicked on it I'm like oh wow oh that's really bad and I was actually
29:31
quite embarrassed and so I did actually change it and I think yeah there's simple things that you like maybe when
29:39
someone first hears about oh there's this app about a food tracker oh like is that really going to change Behavior but
29:46
then seeing how it had an impact on myself and I think yeah creating that lens of getting people to think a little
29:52
bit differently about their choices in life and highlighting it in a visual that people can resonate with is really
29:59
important yeah and and it's about also empowering people so I often say with
30:05
the food tracker it's about providing information first iteration of our product anyone who else who has product
30:11
or Tech will know that your product's never finished it's always iterating and our first version was very
30:16
one-dimensional here's what you ate your husband and yourself purchase sorry not what you ate what you purchase
30:22
information's power that's great but then what do I do about that so the builds we we add on B B on user
30:28
experience and research and Trends is to try and solve the consumer problem of trying to give them more information to
30:33
make healthy change so second part was well now you know information what can you do about it here's some swaps that
30:40
you can make and here's why you're making those swaps the third part then is the gamification so if you then
30:45
reward people they're even more likely to to change their behavior so that's what we're doing if you buy the
30:51
vegetables fresh frozen canned whatever they are you get bonus points and we do see change so if we track we've got
30:58
quite a unique opportunity to track we've got 350,000 OD people using the tracker so we can deidentified of course
31:05
track that data over time and would' love to do some research one day on it once we have enough of a cohort but we
31:11
do see that there's like an 88% increase in people actually making the healthy swap when we have a campaign on or an
31:18
increase in I can't remember the exact stat right now but increasing purchases of fruit and veg serves so you can make
31:25
a change in that respect so I'm glad that you've used it the idea is just to show you what you can Crow out so I'm
31:30
sorry it made you feel bad because it's not intended to do that but it's intended to show you that you can actually Crow out your diet with more of
31:36
the healthy stuff and then less of the not so healthy stuff which obviously forms discretionary foods are part of eatings part of life want some chocolate
31:43
you can have it but how can you fill the rest of your day with really nutritious foods to make that the majority I I love
31:50
um your comment about Pharmacy and the people coming to you and opening the door like you know I remember being in
31:57
pharmacy years ago and you just put the A-frame out which I think people still have one of the A-frames on the street
32:02
open up and yes everyone's going to come to me but I think there's such an opportunity there like as pharmacist
32:09
there's so many things that you can do for people so I often go into some pharmacies and think wow this Pharmacy
32:16
is taking their opportunities you know they're doing everything they can they've got CPAP they've got Professional Services they've got I
32:23
won't mention phes but there's one local to me that I walk in I blows my mind every time how amazing the service is in
32:28
there and I will drive a little bit further from my house to get to that store because I know that the service is amazing and then I'll go to other
32:35
smaller stores and think what are you what are you standing for like and I think that a bit of a lens of standing
32:41
for something in your store and actually offering people something different will bring more people through and then integrating with those Digital Services
32:47
so having that digital front door servicing people who want to get a script to leave it so there's so much
32:53
that Pharmacy can do and I think we'll evolve over time but I think moving from that older mindset to the newer mindset
32:59
probably needs to happen a bit faster because otherwise we're going to be overtaken by the likes of Amazon and Ai
33:06
and digital health and going to lose that super unique opportunity we've got
33:11
you don't have to change the world with these things and if you are a pharmacist
33:17
in a smaller Independent Pharmacy there are things that you can do to to target
33:22
the people in your local area so even using digital campaigns like doing a
33:29
targeted Facebook ad campaign with a link to a book now can be so much more
33:35
powerful um and it's much more cost- effective as well as a business owner to invest in these things rather than
33:41
spending a lot of money on expensive print A-frames as you say at the front
33:47
like they do work and you sometimes you do need to do both but thinking a little bit differently about okay how can I
33:52
target the people that I can actually have an impact on and thinking about it a little bit
33:58
differently now we're getting towards the end of our conversation and I feel
34:03
like I may need to have a followup conversation with you and and delve into some other areas um a little bit more if
34:10
you would be happy to join us again but I'd like to give you the opportunity now
34:15
to yeah maybe give us some parting words or if there's anything that you really
34:21
wanted to to mention and yeah give those insights to our listeners happy to give
34:26
you the opportunity to to do that now yeah of course thank you and thanks again for having me I'm happy to come
34:32
back if you if you've got the time as well I think for me it's just you know I was actually at a a dinner party
34:38
recently the last month with a group of Pharmacists intimate dinner party probably five or six of us and we're all
34:45
kind of reflecting on the profession where it's going what we like about it what we don't and I made the kind of
34:51
sort of rash comment oh I'm not sure if I'd study Pharmacy again and one of my colleagues just was like I can't believe
34:57
you said that like far I love Pharmacy and I I tell everyone to do it and I
35:02
think my first thought about not studying it again which was a quick thought and that's now gone away was
35:08
more that I can see the frustration in the industry I can see the interns when
35:14
I did the intern program struggling to find placements being put out the back doing you know doet boxes I've seen the
35:21
frustrated Young pharmacy students at the counter of stores you know not really probably understanding the
35:27
potential of their profession so when I think about that comment if I could take it back and go back to that dinner party
35:32
I'd probably change and say definitely consider Pharmacy as a profession because there is so much that you can do
35:39
you're highly valued member of the community the skill sh got a second to none in my opinion and you can go across
35:44
so many different things which is so unique right that we could talk about I get asked to read articles about joint
35:51
health through to magnesium supplements we can do the full gamut my probably my
35:56
call to action everyone would be make sure you really properly fill every corner of that and use every corner of
36:03
your skill set and don't undervalue yourself you're not just the locom you're not just the pharmacist you're the pharmacist there you're making an
36:09
incredible difference for every person that you serve every day so how can you just even Elevate yourself a little bit
36:15
think about how you introduce yourself what you do about your profession and then what else can you offer your customers or your clients or patients in
36:23
whatever setting that you are to help them and then if you're in Industry what can you be doing to advocate for pharmacists and talking about why
36:30
pharmacists are really good to employ across all different sectors mean in my MBA I did a week of work experience at
36:36
one of the big four banks in the corporate Affairs Division and after that I left thinking pharmacists would
36:42
kill it in this place like they've got corporate Banking and they've got customers like hospitals or big health
36:48
organizations having a health professional like a pharmacist here which just add a string to their bow so
36:53
and when I meet people in those sitting they think oh wow I should consider pharmacist so what we all do as well to
36:59
promote our profession at the same time and not just think about it in an insul way um I still think and I hats off to
37:06
the pharmacists that turn up every day in Community Pharmacy it's a hell of a hard job but I also reflect and think I
37:13
don't get that anymore that satisfaction that I go home at night knowing I've helped those individuals so to me
37:18
there's all areas of Pharmacy that you can thrive in but in every aspect you know you can go to bed at night knowing
37:24
that you're actually helping people with their health which is a huge contri rtion to the world I think that is the
37:30
best way to finish a podcast that's amazing but I totally agree I think
37:36
we're so lucky as pharmacists that our careers can be so varied and if I think
37:43
back to when I was a pharmacy student and I was really excited to be a
37:49
pharmacist because I'd worked in Pharmacy prior too and so changed degrees and then I did become a little
37:56
bit jaded in my intern and and I thought oh my gosh this is not what I signed up for but then yeah I um surrounded myself
38:04
and went to different conferences and events and realized that oh well hang on
38:10
I'm passionate about this particular thing and then even within those smaller farmes that I was working in you can
38:17
make a little bit of a difference and a lot of the time the owners might be excited that oh hey you've got this idea
38:23
let's just try it and there's no way I thought that I'd be where I am as as a pharmacist so
38:31
yeah I probably agree with you and if someone had asked me what I've done Pharmacy again I'd probably would have
38:36
maybe have said no which is a bit scary but now yeah absolutely I would say yes definitely do it because it opens so
38:43
many doors and yeah and I think that is really exciting and if we can like you
38:48
said go to bed feeling good that we've helped someone I think that's that's why
38:54
we got in Pharmacy in the first place yeah I used to think I was a I used to say I'm a pharmacist and nutritionist
39:01
but now when I really think about it I'm a pharmacist at heart and I've added the other things to it that's always what
39:06
I'll go back to and I'm I'm really proud to be to be a pharmacist as well so that's okay well thank you so much for
39:12
joining us on the show Sarah if you would like to connect with Sarah uh we
39:17
will have her details on LinkedIn and also in our show notes she's very busy
39:24
person but I'm sure she'd be happy to connect with you so thank you so much for listening and we hope to see you
39:30
next time you've been listening to Your Pharmacy Career podcast brought to you
39:35
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39:42
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