“Because it’s very difficult, what sounds normal,” Jess Burrey tells AJP Podcast host Carlene McMaugh. “You have to then start hearing what does not sound normal.”

Burrey is a central Queensland pharmacist who has just become a prescribing pharmacist and joined as the central Queensland representative for the Queensland Pharmacy Guild.

In this podcast, she tells McMaugh what the training was like, including a practical placement at a local GP where she got “out of her comfort zone”.

“I structured my practical component where I did a combination of doing or I guess stepping into the consult room more often in the pharmacy and just kind of working with my general patients and doing a little bit more and then having discussions with my supervisors and then also going in and working half a day a week at the general practice,” she said.

“Initially I just sat in, watched them deliver consultation, kind of get a feel for how to really connect with patients and then fast forward, kind through a few steps and by the end I was going through the wait list where I live, we have a six week wait to see a GP.

“So I was going through the wait list trying to pick out patients that looked like they fell hopefully within my scope and I would ring those patients, see them at the general practice, and then my supervisor would come in at the end, review all of my work and then decide, yes, I’ve made the right decision about what I would like to treat and prescribe, and then they would just finalise off the consultant and write the prescription when I was not able to do so.”

Highlights include:

(01:15) – Burrey details the Queensland prescribing course

(04:12) – Practical placements

(06:15) – How Burrey is using her new skills

(07:25) – An opportunity to intervene

(09:55) – Five hours in ED – or an hour and a half wait in a pharmacy?

(11:38) – Staffing: “As a rural pharmacist, I am working with reality”

(15:07) – “Even while I was doing the training where I was practising on my patients, they were wanting to pay me”

(17:27) – “I think it’s really cool to have a stethoscope and to be able to use it”

(19:00) – What’s next for pharmacists?

(20:20) – Pharmacy services: Business as usual

(22:41) – The “slow burn” as pharmacists’ interest gains ground and begins to explode

(24:40) – What do patients think?

(25:42) – Advice for the hesitant

You can access the full transcript of this podcast here. While we endeavour to ensure all important words and phrases are correct, please note there may be some minor inaccuracies in the transcription.

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