The AJP Podcast

With Victorian premier Jacinta Allen and health minister Mary-Anne Thomas “very, very keen to support us in exactly the same way as Queensland and the other states,” the former Pharmacy Guild national president has explained the state branch’s current priorities, as well as offering advice for thriving as pharmacy evolves.

Tambassis, now the Guild’s Victorian state president, defined full scope, and how things are changing, particularly in Victoria.

He told AJP podcast host Carlene McMaugh that at a recent regional Guild meeting, he presented on full scope, and was pleased at the response.

“People my age were actually getting excited,” he said. “The young people were getting excited, it didn’t matter.

“I was a little bit reluctant and nervous that sometimes 60 year olds or older guys and ladies that are still practising at our age, my age group might be a little bit nervous or too lazy or …don’t want to do the extra training.”

But that was far from the case.

“[O]ldies like me have put their hand up and said, you know what? This is something that I’d like to get involved because it just keeps me fresh.”

Not only is Guild membership keen to get going on scope of practice, but the universities are excited to start upskilling pharmacists as well, he said.

“Any pharmacist that’s listening to this podcast should really be advocating as best he or she can within any decision maker,” he advised, after noting that he had first met former health minister Greg Hunt when the then backbencher had visited his pharmacy’s reopening.

“He just got a really, really good taste of pharmacy that he wouldn’t have had otherwise…

“They come across at any time… You never know when you’re working in a pharmacy or a hospital, wherever your place of practice is.

“You can really never know who that patient or that customer may be. So when you get the opportunity to explain to them, explain to the consumer or the member of the public that pharmacists are very, very, very highly trained healthcare professionals and we’ve got quite a bit of capacity to do more.

“You never know who you’re talking to.”

02:42 – How Tambassis started out

03:36 – “This strange organisation called the Pharmacy Guild reached out to me”

06:42 – “You never, never know when the next person’s going to walk in your pharmacy. They might end up being the prime minister in 10 years or the health minister.”

08:04 – The importance of full scope – and the process of having it approved in Victoria

10:51 – Scope as a member priority

13:09 – How can pharmacists prepare their pharmacies for increased scope in Victoria?

15:47 – What does the federal election mean for the Guild, and for pharmacists?

17:30 – The upcoming beginning of the reduced general PBS copayment

19:15 – “The future should be good”

20:22 – Pharmacy’s current challenges

22:24 – End of financial year advice

24:20 – The uptake of existing opportunities, such as the UTI service and oral contraceptives

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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Go here for the full list of active AJP podcasts. These can also be accessed via Apple Podcasts and Spotify 

“LGBTQIA patients often face fear of judgement, misgendering or having to show up in discomfort when they have to educate their own healthcare provider just to receive that appropriate care,” says Deni Salmon, the founder of Queer Pharmacists of Australia.

“In pharmacy, this can show up in when people are trying to access gender affirming hormones or if we take a look at the other parts of the queer community… it includes the cisgender community, but the HIV status being over-sensationalised when you’re going to get to antiretrovirals and stuff like that,” says Salmon, a transgender woman and community pharmacist.

“Or even just assumptions about sexual health in general, not being able to navigate from a cis heteronormative kind of aspect,” she tells AJP Podcast host Carlene McMaugh.

“The result usually leads to delayed care, poorer health outcomes, and deep mistrust in the system.”

And LGBTQIA+ pharmacists face challenges of their own, she warns.

“Ultimately that can look like misgendering being passed over for leadership opportunities and I don’t think that’s secluded to L-G-B-T-Q-I-A pharmacists or transgender pharmacists

“It can be for women and people of colour and then dealing with those microaggressions from both colleagues and patients in the workplace…

“And when we do speak up, there’s often a fear of being labelled difficult or too political, and that’s something I’ve encountered so many times and I know I’m going to still encounter it in the future,” she says.

“I’m quite passionate and strong to deal with it, but I wish it would just stop because there’s other people who I don’t want that to happen to and I don’t think they can be as determined I guess, or they don’t even need to be determined.

“Those sorts of interactions can really just beat down at your ego and you shouldn’t have to deal with that at work.

“It can be isolating, but that’s also why peer support and visibility matters so much.”

More highlights include:

(00:49) – What does championing diversity and health equity mean for you?

(01:57) – “I think an ideal outcome would be a pharmacy landscape where every patient feels safe, seen and affirmed.”

(03:16) – How can pharmacists be more welcoming and inclusive for all?

(04:14) – Barriers to care for LGBTQIA+ patients

(05:30) – Challenges for LGBTQIA+ pharmacists

(07:49) – Salmon’s own experiences in pharmacy

(11:00) – Why using ‘Sir’ or ‘Ma’am’ never felt right in pharmacy

(12:48) – Bias and stigma in health care

(14:06) – “Start by using gender neutral language.”

(15:40) – Why Salmon founded Queer Pharmacists of Australia

(16:53) – Engaging in activism

(19:23) – Why the recent Fair Work decision on pay for feminised workforces was “very long overdue”

(21:29) – Women in pharmacy and the “double bind”

(25:11) – Why cultural competence and inclusivity matter in pharmacy

(26:04) – Self care and remaining resilient

(28:21) – Doing things better in the future

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.

ACCESS PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Go here for the full list of active AJP podcasts. These can also be accessed via Apple Podcasts and Spotify 

AJP Podcast host Carlene McMaugh has spoken with Pharmaceutical Society of Australia national president Dr Fei Sim to find out what pharmacy, pharmacists and not least patients need from the next government.

Sim takes us through the series of recent reviews into scope of practice, and why it matters so much, particularly given the chronic workforce shortages across the health sector.

“I really believe that if nothing changes the health system is really not going to cope,” Sim warns.

“We do have an issue in Australia in terms of ageing population and we know that ageing population will come with increased healthcare needs and we know that if nothing changes, nothing changes.”

She cited the Deloitte report which showed that by 2050, Australia is going to need four times as many full-time equivalent health professionals as it does currently – “and we know that’s not possible”.

“And that’s why there needs to be a reform to really look at how we can enable all healthcare professionals to practise to our full and top of scope,” she says.

Sim tells McMaugh that the top priority for PSA this election is “to ask the government for their commitment to support professional practise education and training of pharmacists because these are all needed to support pharmacists to practise to full scope.

“It’s so important that this has to be the immediate policy priority because all of the measures that were previously committed by the government, which are designed to enhance professional practice, education and training of pharmacists, they need to be fully funded.

“Because if pharmacists are not supported in terms of not just remuneration, but if pharmacists are not supported in terms of upskilling, in terms of the availability of training and education in terms of the availability of a strong and robust professional governance framework underpinning the practise and especially the fast evolving practise, then pharmacists are not supported to do the job well.”

Sim goes through the eight “very, very clear election asks” put forward in its recent pre-election platform.

Highlights include:

(01.54): “Everybody cares about health.”

(03:08): How have the recent pharmacy reviews influenced PSA’s agenda?

(06:40): “If nothing changes the health system is really not going to cope.”

(11:11): PSA’s number-one priority: supporting pharmacists

(14:40): Support to improve patients’ access to PBS medicines

(17:50): Don’t forget about medicines-related harm

(20:33): Credentialled pharmacists and why the HMR cap must be removed – and remuneration must be adequate

(23:06): The Aged Care Onsite Pharmacist program

(25:03): Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health

(26:52): How has government responded to these priorities?

(29:44): The member advocacy push

(33:22): “This needs to be an ongoing conversation.”

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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Go here for the full list of active AJP podcasts. These can also be accessed via Apple Podcasts and Spotify 

AJP Podcast host Carlene McMaugh spoke to Jenny Kirschner, founder of Pharmacy Addressing Loneliness and Social Isolation, to talk about her own experiences with loneliness, the factors which influence it, and what pharmacists can do to help – and to examine their own barriers to helping patients.

“I experienced a lot of loneliness in my twenties and thirties, and it really was a very painful experience,” Kirschner says.

“And like many people who experienced loneliness, there’s a lot of shame and a lot of stigma. So I hid it very well.

“I even remember working at the hospital that I was working at as a clinical pharmacist, and to the outside I was really outgoing and so people wouldn’t have known.

“But at home in my private life, I was living alone. I felt very lonely. So I really felt for a long time that people should talk about this more because as I learned more about loneliness, I learned that it didn’t mean something was wrong with me, it was just really human.”

But even when they have experience of their own, pharmacists are sometimes reluctant to engage with their patients about the issue, Kirschner says.

“Pharmacists see patients struggling with loneliness all of the time. And I think often we know that, but we don’t necessarily do anything about it.

“We are not comfortable. We feel like it’s outside of our scope. We feel like it might open Pandora’s box and be too much, and we wouldn’t know what to do with it.

“So I thought, well, actually there’s a lot that we can do that doesn’t take much time, doesn’t cost much, but could be deeply transformational for our patients, shifting them away from, or again, helping them through their loneliness experience.”

Kirschner opens up about not only her own experience, but her research into loneliness and the world-first training for pharmacists she has developed – and discusses the importance of observing and engaging with patients, as well as offering some practical ideas which can help them address their feelings.

She also looks at who may be most at risk and why; social prescribing; and the shift in social attitudes which may make it easier for some people to admit to this very everyday and human, yet stigmatised, set of feelings.

00:48 – What sparked your interest in this area?

03:09 – Is loneliness increasing in the population? What is behind this, and who is most affected?

“The statistics are unbelievable actually,” Kirschner says.

06:22 – “Technology per se doesn’t necessarily cause loneliness. It’s how it’s being used.”

08:57 – Has Covid had an impact – and what about politics?

10.37 – “Loneliness has maladaptive cognition affects meaning that people start to feel like even though you need connection as the remedy, you start to withdraw more socially because you feel judged because you feel like people don’t get you, you are not worthy. And so it’s kind of counterintuitive.”

12:02 – Do introverts and extraverts have different needs?

15:16 – The role of stigma and shame

17:03 – “When I mentioned the word loneliness… I whispered the word. It wasn’t on purpose. I just couldn’t say, I couldn’t relate myself to that experience of loneliness because it’s very painful.”

18:33 – The role of social skills

24:15 – What does social prescribing entail?

26:36 – Practical skills for pharmacists

28: 32 – Social health, and a case study

33.57 – Beyond the training

39:02 – “It’s not about medicines and it’s not about revenue or business. It’s actually about being better humans.”

41:00 – Loneliness among pharmacists, and providing support

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.

ACCESS PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Go here for the full list of active AJP podcasts. These can also be accessed via Apple Podcasts and Spotify 

“I love sharing my skills and vast experience with others to help them become better,” Griffin told the AJP Podcast host Carlene McMaugh.

However, at a former organisation, she dealt with rampant bullying and toxicity from a manager – and decided to speak out about it. 

“I didn’t want to not do anything about it and potentially miss that opportunity to stop others from experiencing what I had experienced in that workplace,” she said. 

“I’m sure I’m not alone in this experience, where the people higher up then tried to blame me as the victim, tried to sweep it under the carpet, tried to threaten me, and also tried to silence me.”

Griffin shares her key lessons with McMaugh, including how she regained confidence after the incident. 

Other highlights include: 

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.

ACCESS PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Go here for the full list of active AJP podcasts. These can also be accessed via Apple Podcasts and Spotify 

Pharmacists can contact the Pharmacists Support Service on 1300 244 910 for peer support  related to the demands of being a pharmacist in Australia.

Lifeline is available on 13 11 14.

Members can call PDL on 1300 854 838 for support from a Professional Officer.

“Pharmacy funding has been a challenge for many, many years in the UK,” he The AJP Podcast host Carlene McMaugh. 

“Every year the government has either reduced the reimbursement for medicines or reduced the reimbursement of services that we do, such as dispensing, prescription and other remove services altogether, which means that actually operating at a profit today has become more of a miracle, more the exception than it is the rule,” he says. 

After failed negotiations with government, Picard says “pharmacy to this day enjoys the same level of remuneration as in 2016”, despite inflation. 

“The cost of medicines has gone up enormously, the cost of electricity and rent had continued to go up to the point that today community pharmacies in England are probably underfunded by to the tune of about 40%.”

Other highlights include: 

11:08 – How the public and politicians are responding to the lack of pharmacies. 

12:25 – Consumers having to travel further to access pharmacy services. 

15:40 – The different types of cost pressures on community pharmacists in the UK. 

21:04 – Mass pharmacy closures, including big chains. 

24:00 – Why pharmacy is still one of the best professions, despite its funding challenges. 

35:50 – What’s happening to all the pharmacy students. 

50:30 – Which other markets the UK could look to for funding examples. 

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.

ACCESS PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Go here for the full list of active AJP podcasts. These can also be accessed via Apple Podcasts and Spotify 

“Not so much now, but early in my career, often I found that female pharmacists were considered secondary to say male pharmacists for ownership,” Barwick tells the AJP Podcast’s Carlene McMaugh

“When I first started my career, I was very much looking at getting into pharmacy ownership and my partner at the time, and now husband is a pharmacist,” Barwick says.

“I found he was being approached far more often for ownership roles than I was, and I was like, I’ve actually been working longer. I have more experience in pharmacy than he does.

“And so that was quite disappointing and I hope, and I feel like things have moved on since then.”

Barwick talks about how she would like to see more women in leadership roles in the profession – and the barriers and boosters that affect how women progress in pharmacy, whether in leadership, ownership or carving out their own roles.

She and McMaugh chat about the juggle, the mental load… and the different expectations of mothers compared to fathers in the workplace (as well as what kids pick up).

More highlights include:

05.21: What different perspectives do female pharmacists bring to the profession?

06.41: What advice do you have for younger women in pharmacy (and is “balance” the right word?)

08.08: Are workplaces doing enough to support women, particularly mothers, in pharmacy?

10.24: “Organisations and businesses need to be really aware of some of those restrictions on women’s time. We often have that mental load we’ve got to be aware of.”

11.42: “I think sometimes there is this idea of looking to male pharmacists before females, particularly for leadership or more senior positions… it should be merit-based.”

13.02: The importance of female mentors – like Manya Angley

14.37: “I think we should be actively looking to have more females in leadership roles, particularly in some of our representative organisations. I think it’s just essential and particularly women of colour and of different cultural backgrounds because I think it provides such a rich insight into what we can achieve in pharmacy.”

16.56: “Oh, no, no, I want to speak to the male pharmacist:” an opportunity to challenge biases

21:00: What steps could help the profession better achieve equality and equity?

22.37: What keeps you motivated as a female pharmacist in your profession?

24.50: “I hope eventually we never need something like International Women’s Day.”

27.35: Who inspires you?

29:01: “If there was one change that you think would really impact women in pharmacy, what would that one change be and what would you like to see?”

30:53: What children infer about careers from what they see around them

32.07: “My husband goes, ‘you’re a super feminist’. And I’m like, ‘yeah, damn. Straight’.”

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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Go here for the full list of active AJP podcasts. These can also be accessed via Apple Podcasts and Spotify 

AJP Podcast presenter Carlene McMaugh is joined by a panel of female leaders in the pharmacy profession to discuss International Women’s Day.

Community pharmacy owner and NSW Guild vice-president Catherine Bronger, Pharmaceutical Society of Australia national president Associate Professor Fei Sim, community pharmacist Elise Apolloni and specialist women’s and children’s hospital pharmacist and Advanced Pharmacy Australia vice-president Kate O’Hara explore the barriers they continue to face (40:11) and how they’ve accelerated their careers.

The esteemed panel of women also discussed how the profession and workplaces have adapted to meet the needs of female pharmacists.

“People don’t mind if you have a baby cry in a phone call or your kids running on a zoom or you have to go to deal with a caring responsibility – The world has changed,” O’Hara said. (27:28)

Other topics discussed include:

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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Go here for the full list of active AJP podcasts. These can also be accessed via Apple Podcasts and Spotify 

The AJP Podcast’s Carlene McMaugh spoke to consultant pharmacist of the year Brooke Shelly, who is well-known in the profession for her “portfolio career” about the challenges women still face, even in a profession with the perceived flexibility of pharmacy.

Shelly, a rural pharmacist in Mildura, Victoria, is the mother of three young children, and “wears many hats,” with GP pharmacist, consultant pharmacist doing home medicines reviews and residential medicines management reviews and pharmacy governance among them.

“We often purport pharmacy to be quite a female friendly career path, and I think that really is mostly to do with the fact that 70% of our registered pharmacists work in community pharmacy and lots of community pharmacies are open seven days a week and nights,” she tells McMaugh.

Pharmacy is “tricky,” she says, because “if the pharmacist is not there, the business closes, and that might not be such a big challenge metropolitan-ly, but it is hugely problematic rurally.

“There are a lot of single pharmacist pharmacies, rurally, and it’s probably one of the major reasons why I haven’t remained in community pharmacy because when I moved home to Mildura, some of the pharmacies and one of the pharmacies I was working in was a single pharmacist pharmacy, and just that pressure to always be there and to have to put the business first.”

She talks about the concept of juggling balls: “some of them will bounce if you drop them, but some of them are glass and they’ll smash, and it’s really hard if your child is unwell and you’re the only pharmacist in the pharmacy, which one is the glass ball?

“Realistically, especially in rural areas, you are closing a pharmacy, you are closing a health service for hundreds of people potentially to go and pick up your child.

“Who is the centre of your universe? Which one is the glass ball?

“So I think, no, we are not doing enough. I don’t know what the solution is, particularly in pharmacy in rural areas, but for me, the solution has been to go into a different era of pharmacy and practise in a different way.”

More highlights include:

01.26: The positives and negatives of being a woman on one’s career in pharmacy: “You absolutely start on a lower footing”.

03.36: How are women perceived when they exhibit the same behaviour as men?

05.29: Shelly shares about some of her mentors and the women she looks up to – from Debbie Rigby to Fei Sim to Sheryl Sandberg.

11.04: What barriers does being a woman impose?

12.13: “I don’t necessarily think the goal should be 50/50. It should probably just be reflective of representing who your members are, and that should be across the board in leadership.”

13.28: The work-life balance, and why flexibility is expected of women

16.29: The unique perspectives women bring to patient care

19.24: Advice for young female pharmacists: “I think that life rarely hands you perfection.”

20.46: Are workplaces doing enough to support women?

22.24: “I’m disgusted by some of the commentary that you see online about mothers not being able to pull up a stool when they’re dispensing in a community pharmacy when they’re pregnant.”

23.36: How can we encourage women to take on leadership roles?

25.38: What policy shifts would you like to see supporting women?

28.24: What keeps you motivated?

30.08: What are your hopes for the future?

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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Go here for the full list of active AJP podcasts. These can also be accessed via Apple Podcasts and Spotify 

Professor Andrew McLachlan, Head of School and Dean of Pharmacy in the Sydney Pharmacy School, tells AJP Podcast host Carlene McMaugh about the excitement in the sector following the announcement of the Doctor of Pharmacy qualification.

Several pharmacy programs around the country are “ready to go” when it comes to the PharmD qualification – and those who graduate from these for a Master of Pharmacy extended will be able to use the title Doctor of Pharmacy.

And “I think generally though other universities are looking at how they can develop programs to meet this qualification title,” he says.

“The Pharmacy Guild had a really critical role in leading a lot of the negotiation with government. The original work though was done a number of years ago from a proposal led by the Council of Pharmacy Schools of Australia, New Zealand, where we really put together the case around why our profession here in Australia would be, and also the community would be well served by pharmacists having the title Doctor of Pharmacy.

“Part of the argument of course has been the development of the extended scope and many different areas of practice that pharmacists are now actively involved in that transition from generalist to specialist in some areas of our profession, the many different areas where pharmacists show leadership within the healthcare system and also important recognition that we need to align our qualification and recognition in pharmacy with international trends…

“[W]hile our quantum and standard of education is world-class and has been mapped through the International Pharmacy Federation, FIP as being equivalent, I think the qualification title recognition is playing a bit of catch up here in Australia.

“And of course looking at other professions… from medicine to dentistry and physiotherapy, optometry, podiatry, it makes sense that pharmacists should also stand shoulder to shoulder in the healthcare team with the opportunity to recognise its graduates with a qualification doctor of pharmacy.”

Highlights include:

01:49: What will pharmacists need to do to achieve this title?

04:28: How did we get here?

06:32: What do the universities think?

07:33: What study options do pharmacists have?

08:34: Will recognition of prior learning be granted?

10:27: What was going on in the background while the qualification was being considered – and what’s the situation internationally?

12:48: How will this now affect the majority of graduates?

14.47: How might the PharmD affect the jobs market?

16: 54: How have pharmacy students responded to the news?

18:45: With scope of practice being extended, have there been misunderstandings about the PharmD?

20:41: How might pharmacy courses look in five or 10 years?

24:29: The profession in demand

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.

ACCESS PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Go here for the full list of active AJP podcasts. These can also be accessed via Apple Podcasts and Spotify