Case studies : Community pharmacist: Kath

Kath graduated from the University of Nottingham with an MPharm degree. She then completed her pre-registration (pre-reg) year, spending six months in industry and six months in community pharmacies.

My degree course covered the fundamentals of chemistry, pharmaceutics, microbiology and pharmacology. This provided an excellent foundation on which to build, and then to explore some of the wider professional and sociological issues of pharmacy. The teaching incorporated problem-based learning, and I was able to develop my scientific and clinical skills, my ability to work independently and to carry out research, and a range of other transferable skills.

Pre-reg training has to be supervised by an approved pharmacist and tutor, and you have to demonstrate a range of competences essential for pharmacy practice. There are also Royal Pharmaceutical Society  exams to take in order to become professionally registered.

For the first six months of my pre-reg year, I undertook a placement with a global pharmaceutical company. I was responsible for a project which involved investigating the use of novel excipients to prepare nanosuspensions of compounds in development. This gave me a valuable insight into how new drugs are developed, as well as the opportunity to work within a multidisciplinary team in a large research organisation.

I spent the second half of my pre-reg training in community pharmacies, working in stores of different sizes in a range of locations to gain varied experience. As well as gaining practical experience and pharmaceutical knowledge, I was able to start to develop the skills that are necessary for me to practise as a pharmacist now that I am the manager of one of the company’s branches, having been offered the role upon successful completion of my placement.

These skills include the ability to prioritise your workload, as there are times when the pharmacy is hectic and you’re working flat out, and other times when it’s much quieter but you still have to motivate yourself to complete paperwork and get other tasks done. You need to have a patient-centred approach, whilst adhering to legal requirements, guidelines, standard operating procedures (SOPs) and high professional and ethical standards. Customer service skills and the ability to build and maintain relationships are essential, as you need to gain the confidence and trust of the people in your community. Finally, your knowledge of dispensing and drugs needs to be constantly up to date, and you need strong IT skills.

I’m sure that many people think that pharmacists just dispense drugs to fill the prescriptions brought in by patients. However, my role is very varied. As well as dispensing prescriptions, undertaking medicine use reviews and giving advice to customers, I also spend time liaising with GPs, nurses, health visitors and other healthcare professionals. I am responsible for managing and safely storing stocks of medicines, meeting targets and conducting audits, maintaining computerised records, and also for managing and training staff. Other services we offer include pregnancy testing, diabetes screening, blood pressure and cholesterol monitoring, weight management and smoking cessation programmes, the dispensing of emergency hormonal contraception, safe needle and syringe exchange and supervised methadone programmes. The role of the pharmacist is constantly evolving.
 
As a degree in pharmacy and the subsequent professional training equips you to become a competent and professional pharmaceutical scientist, many other roles are available besides the more obvious community or hospital pharmacist careers. There are opportunities for pharmacy graduates within healthcare, academia and industry, so my advice to students or graduates considering working in this field is to gain as much work experience as possible before deciding on the area you’d like to start your career in.