The most enjoyable part of my role as a Pharmacist

I love this time of the year. My birthday is in September, we have loads of birthdays in our family also. A new addition to this month is World Pharmacist Day which is on the 25th of September every year. A Pharmacist's career can go in literally any direction now as opposed to when I qualified 25 years ago. I thought that there was only three different career routes when I started - Community, Hospital and Industry. In the last few years I have met colleagues who are journalists, work in social media, are involved in making films and are doing genetics research amongst other roles. There are so many little niches in the profession that there is literally something for everyone who qualifies and it is quite straightforward to make a sideways move once qualified, there is plenty of time once your MPSI is sorted to plan your next move.

I am twenty five years qualified this year and while I do enjoy my job at various times throughout my career I have felt stuck in a rut so to speak. I have often wondered whether I should pivot in my own career but usually a new opportunity comes around to help me to get through rut and going again. In the last six years I have had 2nd year, 4th year and 5th year pharmacy students from TCD, RCSI and UCC. Initially working with students was very challenging for me, as I needed to get used to them, their learning styles and the skills they arrive with. Every student is different and at the start I found this hard to fathom because as soon as I got used to and understood a student their placement was over. Fortunately I was able to get some training Affiliation for Pharmacy Practice Experiential Learning (APPEL), which has helped me to see the placements from the students point-of-view. APPEL have been excellent in supporting preceptor pharmacists. I know that if there is ever an issue they are only a phone-call away.

I was talking to some colleagues last spring and was surprised that they did not see the value and benefits of having a student. I feel working with Pharmacy students is 'keeping me young' so to speak as I seem to learn more from them than they do from me. I read a very interesting idea few days ago in Seth Godin's blog entitled 'I've been doing it wrong all along'. The theme of the blog is the great benefits and challenges of learning and it ends with the statement 'If you need to be proven right, learning is a challenge. If you're eager to be proven wrong, learning is delightful.' This sums up my entire approach to training pharmacy students. Any task I give them always comes back 10 times better than I could do it myself and they always come up with new approaches and ways I never would have thought of.

Today is World Pharmacists Day and I encourage all my pharmacy colleagues, if they can to get involved in training pharmacy students. It is easy to not like a lot of the aspects of the job but this one I can wholeheartedly recommend as it has expanded my horizons no end. If you need to add a new string to your bow, training a pharmacy student may just be it!