Purple Pen Podcast

Dan and Jane are joined by Clarissa Rentsch to discuss updates on Inflammatory Bowel Disease with Clarissa Rentsch.

Clarissa is the Senior Pharmacist - Gastroenterology at Alfred Health, and discusses new therapy for IBD, the developing role for TDM in the management of this disease and her innovative clinic based role at The Alfred.

We discuss:

• Commencing therapy with and monitoring purine analogues
• Infliximab - its expanding role in therapy, and the emerging field of TDM for biologicals
• Clarissa's innovative role in the clinics, including dose adjustment and monitoring.

Jane and Dan spoke to Dr Manuel Serrano Santos, Lecturer of Pharmacy at QUT and member of the editorial committee for the third edition of Don't Rush to Crush.

We spoke to Manuel about:

• his role as a specialist dysphagia pharmacist
• what goes wrong when medicines are modified inappropriately
• common reasons for making mistakes when modifying medicines

This is a reboot of our first ever episode: Antibiotic Allergies with Dr Jason Trubiano

For our special 50th Episode we first discuss some things we've learned from making the podcast. Then Jane caught up with Dr Jason Trubiano, an Infectious Diseases Physician from Austin Health. Jason appeared on our first episode, and in Episode 50 we get an update on the world of antibiotic allergies and bust some more myths.

We're also re-releasing Episode One as a special 50th Episode treat.

Jane caught up with two members of the writing group for the recently updated Therapeutic Guidelines: Cardiovascular. Confusingly, they are also called Jane and Dan! Jane O'Connor is an Editor at Therapeutic Guidelines and Dr Daniel Scherer is a Cardiologist and PhD Candidate at the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute.

Dan discusses PREPx with three experts: A/Prof Edwina Wright from The Alfred, Monash Uni and The Burnet Institute, Alison Duncan, Lead Pharmacist for HIV at The Alfred and Luxi Lal, Pharmacist and Scientist from the Burnet Institute.

We were so fortunate to have Edwina - who ran the pivotal Australian trials and was so kind in sharing her knowledge with us.

We learn about:

• How the key Australian studies were set up and run
• Novel dosing modalities
• Information for pharmacists and key counselling points for dispensing PREP
• Side effects and monitoring with PREP
• How PREP is changing the paradigm of HIV prevention

Jane and Dan talk Specialty Practice with Courtney Munro and Suzanne Newman from SHPA and Susie Welch from St Vincent's Hospital in Sydney.

• Development of standards of practice
• How involvement in specialty practice can form part of your CPD plan
• What can be gained from involvement in a Specialty Practice Stream
• Hot topics in Emergency Medicine

Jane and Dan spoke to Bronwyn Clark, CEO of the Australian Pharmacy Council and Catriona Bradley, Executive Director of the Irish Institute of Pharmacy. Bronwyn is the Host Committee Convenor and Catriona is a keynote speaker at the upcoming Life Long Learning in Pharmacy Conference.

We discuss different models for assessing pharmacist competence, how to measure and develop competency in soft skills and what patients want pharmacists to be doing.

Dan is joined by eminent physician, pharmacologist and former pharmacist Prof Dave Juurlink from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto.

We talk about:

• Why Tramadol is a bad choice of analgesia
• Why Codeine upscheduling is a good idea for Canada and Australia
• How scheduling impacts medication choice
• How a 100-word "paper" in NEJM contributed to the opioid epidemic

In the lead up to International Women's Day 2018, Jane sat down with three Pharmacy Leaders: Sue Kirsa (Director of Pharmacy, Monash Health), Nicole Dirnbauer (Assistant Deputy Director of Pharmacy, Monash Children's Hospital) and Marisa Hodgkinson (SHPA Victorian Branch Committee Chair).

We talk about:

• Challenges and things that have helped build a career
• Whether a mentor is necessary for success
• Whether we still need to be talking about women in healthcare leadership

At the Society of Hospital Pharmacists of Australia (SHPA)'s International Women's Day Breakfast Debate, members can make up their own minds as thought leaders from Australian clinical pharmacy debate: Priority or luxury? Flexible hours in clinical pharmacy practice.