Australia’s pharmacists have a frontline role in triaging patients who are struggling, but more training is needed across the profession, the AJP Podcast has heard. 

Pharmacist and Associate Professor at the University of Sydney School of Pharmacy, Claire O’Reilly, has been a researching the evolving role of pharmacists in the mental health space for some time. She has become an advocate for further education and training. 

“I think we do need to really work at improving the communication skills to make people feel comfortable,” she told Carlene McMaugh. 

“If someone does say that they’re not okay, then what? That’s the critical next step.”

Other highlights include: 

• 4.01: A distressing incident that highlighted the need for further education. 
• 5.58: The importance of mental health training. 
• 10.03: Signs or cues someone may be struggling. 
• 15.00: Creating a safe, non-judgmental space. 
• 19.19: Medications management. 
• 21.32: Essential steps pharmacists can take. 
• 23.02: Referral services. 
• 26.00: How pharmacists can manage their own mental health and burnout. 

Pharmacists can contact the Pharmacists’ Support Service (PSS) 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.

For urgent assistance or in an emergency please do not hesitate to contact emergency services on 000.

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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Sebastian Harper, national president at the National Australian Pharmacy Students’ Association (NAPSA), chats with AJP Podcast host Carlene McMaugh about scope of practice, the importance of making pharmacy friends and placement poverty.

Harper says that universities are already ahead of the game when it comes to expansion of pharmacy practice.

“I think things like legislation and practise aren’t necessarily keeping up with the universities,” he says.

“The unis are pretty much almost there with having graduates ready to get out there and adapt to the new scope of practice for pharmacists, but it’s the legislation, it’s the scope of practice programs.”

While some states are ahead of others, “some are falling a bit behind,” he warns.

“And it’s actually, I think, students that are really ready to undertake these services. Obviously, we do need that extra training, but compared to the pharmacists who graduated 20 years ago, not as much extra training and not as much extra knowledge and skill with what we’re learning.

“It’s really about the profession actually continuing to push the government, continuing to push each other to make sure that practise actually is adapting to what students are ready to do from graduation and from when they finish internship.”

Highlights include:

00:56 – Discussing placement poverty with decision-makers

02:45 – Talking to patients in full scope consultations

05:42 – Skill gaps between study and practice

07:21 – Stories from NAPSA Congress

09:14 – The surprise changes of 2025

11:00 – NAPSA goals

14:23 – “Students don’t necessarily realise the power that they have in their profession.”

17:28 – Core competencies needed for future success

21:29 – NAPSA’s long-term vision

25:32 – The most-needed skill in 2026

26:55 – A deeper look at placement poverty

29:21 – Key questions when interviewing for an internship

32:31 – Staying centred during internship

34:48 – “Get involved in NAPSA.”

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AJP podcast host Carlene McMaugh sits down for a chat with Pharmaceutical Society of Australia national president Mark Naunton, who says that he has “great confidence” in how the agreement’s negotiations are taking place.

“There’s a number of things that we’ll be advocating strongly for, and our credentialed pharmacist need to know that they are at the forefront of our minds.

“When we are doing these negotiations, our credentialed pharmacists have a great impact in trying to improve patient safety, which is, as medicine safety is as national health priority area, all pharmacists have a responsibility to do this, but under the first PPA, our credentialed pharmacist, those pharmacists doing HMRs, RMMRs, they do need special attention.

“There’s been years where they’ve had no increase in their pay. They’re limited by the amount of work they can do, and we know that they do great work, but not all patients are getting benefit from these because there’s caps, for example, on the amount of HMRs that they can do.

“So we’ll be strongly advocating for things like removal of caps, indexation of payments, back pay for programs that have not had increases in pay over the last five or six years.’

Highlights include:

01:36 – The sector’s biggest recent achievement

03:36 – How is PSA supporting upskilling as scope expands?

08:36 – Unifying the profession

11:12 – The impact of work on focus areas like palliative care, mental health first aid and vaping reform

14:18 – The Code of Ethics review

17:13 – Advocating for the funding of professional services

21:43 – Key goals for career pathways

24:02 – Naunton’s plans for his first term

28: 23 – PSA’s 2025 achievements

31:02 – What does 2026 hold in store for pharmacists and the PSA?

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AJP Podcast host Carlene McMaugh sits down with Michael Bakker, chief pharmacy information officer for SA Pharmacy, about the barriers to digital transformation for pharmacists, overcoming resistance to change, and what the future might look like.

The pair discuss common misconceptions about AI – including that it could replace key health workers such as pharmacists.

“We’re not talking about robo pharmacists, right?” says Bakker. “There’s tasks and processes that will be impacted by the advent of AI, but they could also happen with non-AI things.

“If we took one task and process just to kind of put it under the microscope, a hospital pharmacy service spends probably about a third of their clinical workforce time on performing medication histories.

“And so you could go, ‘well, there’s many different ways that digitally, we could do that a lot better now if we just had better linked data or atomic data around medicines where it’s easy to go, oh, this person’s on perindopril five milligrams once a day, and it’s easy to convert that over to your hospital system.

“And you can see the dispensing record for the patient, and if we had all of the dispensing records and prescribing records going up to My Health Record, it’s pretty easy to conceptualise a way where you go, ‘well, I can see that they’re on that regularly. I’m just going to convert that to their hospital medicine and just continue that there’.

“That could be done without any AI.

“The technology is not the barrier there. It’s the investment and the prioritisation of that development work that needs to be there and having the high quality data sitting in my health record to be able to reutilise it.

“They might sound like big things, but they’re quite small. It’s not like we’re waiting for some technology to come along that doesn’t exist yet.

“The AI ones that I think scare people is around the decision making and to be able to decide what to do, and the door’s starting to open there as to what that future state might look like to my network.”

Bakker told McMaugh he had recently posted to LinkedIn about the United States having opened the policy door to having AI agents being able to prescribe for patients.

“It’s just a very interesting concept that it’s not an automated thing that they can do this, they need to undergo all of their approvals through the FDA.”

While he is not aware of this happening in practice, Bakker says it poses the question: what would this look like?

“Is that going to be an AI agent is taking an action on behalf of say a prescriber when they’re talking to their patient. So they’re saying, ‘I’m going to give you amoxicillin 500mg four times a day’ and then it’s just going to generate the prescription.

“And so that’s kind of minimally invasive and risky. You have to prove quality and things like that so that it’s not going to mistake the drug name or anything; or is it going to be far more dystopian where it’s going to diagnose and take action to prescribe a recommended therapy for a patient, which is a little bit more scary?

“So not everything is a one or a zero or a yes and a no.

“There’s lots of gradients in between in there, and so I think people get very alarmed and rightfully so as to what the really crazy dystopian future might look like and what’s my role going to be in that if these things come about.

“But there’s a lot of work in between where we can just see the chipping away at tasks and processes through better technology, that are things that take an enormous amount of time, as good as the pharmacy workforce is at doing these types of things thoroughly…

“If we were reviewing information that was presented to us that was kind of curated so that we don’t have to go and do a preliminary history for a patient, then go into the patient room and validate it with them, then come out, reconcile it with what they’re actually on and then get it changed, we can walk straight in going, ‘well, I can see what you’re normally taking, but can you help me understand how you’re actually using these on a day to day?’

“You could be saving an hour a day for a clinical pharmacist that can be redirected into other tasks.”

Highlights include:

00:56 – “Digital maturity can mean lots of things.”

02:24 – Getting started

03:27 – Barriers to digital transformation

06:44 – Insights from developing the Australian practice standard for pharmacy informatics

10:03 – How is AI currently being used to manage medicine safety, especially in rural or remote areas?

13:43 – No robo pharmacists

19:22 – How can pharmacists who are not tech experts start to build their digital literacy and become effective champions for changing their workplaces?

22:23 – Retaining the human touch

25:44 – Encouraging buy-in, including from pharmacists who have concerns

28:20 – “Soft skills are crucial.”

29:51 – Using AI to build a strong business case for new initiatives

32:56 – The most exciting emerging AI and digital trends

34:53 – As pharmacy workflows become more digitalised, what new types of dispensing and prescribing errors are we seeing and how can we mitigate them?

37:51 – “Get great at pharmacy first at all areas of pharmacy.”

39:27 – How could pharmacy look in 10 to 15 years?

41:46 – Learning from other sectors

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Paul Sinclair, the first Australian president of the International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP) sat down with AJP Podcast host Carlene McMaugh to talk about the pharmacy workforce, challenges like antimicrobial resistance and how best to use AI in health care.

There are many positives boosting the sector right now, Sinclair said, including how the pandemic improved pharmacy’s visibility and moves towards full scope of practice.

When McMaugh asked Sinclair whether he saw elements of the Australian model – such as expanded scope under the Community Pharmacy Agreement – being eyed by other countries, he replied, “Absolutely”.

“As recently as two months ago, the Irish government signed a pharmacy agreement with the Irish Pharmacy Union on behalf of Irish pharmacy to give certainty of remuneration for dispensing and provision of professional services,” Sinclair said.

“That very much is in line with the community pharmacy agreements that we have had so successfully implemented here in Australia.

“In fact, the PBS, as it operates in Australia, is regarded as the best model for a public private partnership to provide pharmaceutical benefits to the population.

“We see across the globe, services such as medication reviews, medication management services, webster packing, pharmacist delivered vaccination, and minor ailment schemes being delivered and funded through community pharmacy.

“This is now happening through all of the major developed pharmacy marketplaces, and we are seeing also in FIP’s role, the advocacy of an increased role for pharmacists in emerging pharmacy markets as well in low to middle income countries.”

Sinclair said that Australia is “very fortunate” to have a public-private partnership with the government, instead of a fully managed healthcare system as seen in the USA.

There, he said, “the payer, normally an insurance company, is focused only on cost rather than health outcomes”.

“So the model we have is acknowledged as being world-class, and we are seeing across particularly developed marketplaces where the payer tends to be the government rather than insurance company, models like the community pharmacy agreement being advocated for and being implemented.”

Highlights include:

01:03 – “At the moment, the depressing issue is certainly workforce shortages.”

03:43 – The positive outcomes of Covid

05:15 – AMR: a major issue

07:33 – The beauty of the Australian pharmacy practice model

09:20 – FIP’s Global Observatory data

11:26 – “AI is the two letters on everyone’s lips at the moment.”

13:31 – “FIP’s work is centred on creating positive practise environments, safe staffing, fair scheduling, career development, recognition, including mental health support, anti-harassment policies, and psychologically safe spaces.”

15:36 – Integrating pharmacy into diverse global settings

17:08 – Barriers to scope: “It is definitely legislative.”

18:43 – Equity in medicines access and digital health

23:36 – Financial recognition for professional services

25:10 – “The total reliance on the supply model will not sustain our industry going forward.”

31:03 – Advice for young pharmacists

33:11 – FIP’s development goals

34:37 – Hopes for FIP achievement in 2026

37:42 – A legacy for FIP

39:23 – A look back at a “huge” 2025

42:15 – War, conflict and pharmacy – as well as scope and recognition

44:15 – A thank you to pharmacists

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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The AJP Podcast’s Carlene McMaugh sits down with award-winning consultant pharmacist Angus Thompson, who tells her about how he builds rapport with his patients and helps them get the most out of their consultation.

“We are not there to interfere and make changes for changes’ sake,” he explains.

“We’re there to help them get the best outcome. I will invariably ask the patient what do they want to get out of the consultation and what’s important to them because I try to keep everything about the patient and align with their priorities and preferences.

“Some patients may say, ‘I want to take less medicines’, some people may say, ‘I don’t know what I’m doing. I feel confused’.

“So you try and tailor what you do, what you say to reassure them.”

And health literacy is a “huge challenge” for many patients, he says – and tells a tale of one man who had Type 2 diabetes.

“He’d misunderstood instructions from everybody else he’d ever seen,” Thompson says.

“He saw pretty much everybody that a person with diabetes will see: an educator, obviously GP, community pharmacy, dietitian…

“He said something about his insulin. I said, ‘just talk me through how you use your insulin’.

“And he was using one pen for one injection. He was on 10 units of glargine, giving himself 10 units and then throwing away the remaining 290 units.

“And this was simply because somebody had said to him, use a new needle for each injection.

“To him, a new needle was a new pen. So he was visiting his pharmacy every 25 days and costing Medicare over $4,000 a year more than was necessary.

“It is just the way people understand what we say. It’s really important that we check back that they have understood it in the way we want them to.”

Highlights include:

02:22 – Building rapport with patients

05:55 – “Different strategies for different patients.”

07:26 – The impact of HMRs – and the man with Type 2 diabetes

09:05 – A patient Thompson had just helped reassure about her medicines

11:13 – Involving the patient in their own decision-making

14:38 – Misconceptions about HMRs

15:42 – “Very rarely are people taking what we think they’re taking.”

17:29 – When patients are reluctant to change

21:49 – HMRs and vulnerable patients

25:14 – Keeping up-to-date

32:07 – Why the cap needs to go

34:32 – New technologies

38:28 – “Transitions of care are such a flashpoint for medication misadventure.”

40:31 – The HMR workforce

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Speaking to host Carlene McMaugh of the AJP Podcast, Wong shared his journey to co-founding MedWest Medical Dispensary in Western Australia, and his his practice and perspective has evolved. 

“Back when I was working in community pharmacy, I was starting to see more and more patients coming in with prescriptions for medicinal cannabis,” he said. “You think ‘Oh, I haven’t really learned much of this at uni’.

“The feedback that I’ve received over time was really eye-opening,” he continued. “People were dealing with chronic pain, sleep issues and anxiety… many of them actually find real relief.”

Other highlights include: 

• 4.39: Keegan’s holistic approach. 
• 7.07: The supply challenges in Western Australia. 
• 9.20: Common misconceptions about medicinal cannabis. 
• 16.49: Regulatory concerns and how pharmacists are managing them. 

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“I think everybody’s got a slightly different passion, so it’s trying to work out what drives the pharmacies,” Cooleman Court Pharmacy’s Bev Mistry-Cable told the AJP Podcast’s Carlene McMaugh. 

The winners of the Professional Services Innovation Award say they have developed a host of programs for different pharmacies to help their local communities. 

Medrek added: “Everyone that comes through the pharmacy, we check with them where they’re up to.”

Other highlights include: 

• 4.03: Cooleman Court Pharmacy’s skincare trial. 
• 5.05: Travel health and UTI consultations. 
• 7.53: The promotion of new services. 
• 11.41: Other considerations in implementing new services into the pharmacy. 
• 13.17: How to measure the value of pharmacies in the healthcare ecosystem. 

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Speaking during Advanced Pharmacy Australia’s Medicines Management 2025 conference in Melbourne, the three spoke about how residencies can help pharmacists keep getting feedback through their early careers, medicines reconciliation and points of transition, as well as the greater role pharmacists and pharmacy technicians can play in the healthcare system.

Simpson explained that “transitions of care is not a problem we have solved in Australia by any measure”.

“We did some great work obviously this year partnering with the condition on the practise standards around transitions of care, but we’re also looking at how we expand those collaborative prescribing models at the point of discharge,” he said.

“We know discharge summaries and discharge medication lists have a high rate of inaccuracy and there’s hospitals that are already implementing collaborative prescribing models at that point and seeing dramatic reductions, so patients out the door hours quicker with the right medicines.

“Our challenge there is that until we have PBS prescribing rights for pharmacists, all the pharmacists can do is write a prescription and ask the doctor to sign it, and that means that you’re still effectively wasting a lot of time because it’s not a value add activity at that step.

“If they’ve already agreed the treatment plan, then adding a signature to a page doesn’t add value, but it just takes time.”

O’Hara, who has been closely involved in the collaborative prescribing trial in NSW, said that it had been “really exciting this year to see advocacy really pay off”.

NSW and WA “are getting collaborative prescribing over the line” in terms of legislation change, she said.

“So getting that, working with all of the states to get that through has been a really massive achievement. And in New South Wales, those legislation changes are now fixed in the legislation and they’ve acknowledged that partnered pharmacists prescribing or charting is really key to getting people through the emergency rooms faster and getting those medicines right quicker.

“So that’s been a really significant piece of advocacy work that has really paid off for both the profession and for our patients in that space.

“So we continue to really advocate for and encourage for pharmacists prescribing to be done in that collaborative way as part of getting pharmacists embedded in multidisciplinary teams to focus on the medicines and give everybody else the time to do what they do best.”

Highlights include

01:20 – How have the new practise recognition pathways evolved through 2025?

04:20 – The value of the independent pathway

05:38 – Advancements in empowering pharmacy technicians and assistants

08:09 – The launch of AdPha’s clinical standards

09:33 – How can these changes be scaled nationally to free up pharmacists for higher level clinical duties?

11:42 – The difference between a residency and an internship

16:50 – “Our transitions of care are some of the highest risk points in any patient’s journey.”

20:46 – The NSW collaborative prescribing trial

21:52 – “1.3 billion of wasted expenditure in hospitals”

22:58 – Gaps and loopholes in transitions of care

25:09 – The impact of MedsAware Deprescribing Week

27:23 – How is the integration of electronic prescribing and electronic medical records fundamentally changing the clinical workflow of hospital pharmacists and what digital competencies are now essential for new graduates?

28:38 – “I expect to see digital competencies start to be built into our university degrees.”

32:00 – How is AdPha working with regulatory bodies and health services formally recognised the credential specialist, clinical pharmacists, and to ensure the remuneration and role expansion?

35:05 – “We’ve seen employers as well now asking for ANZCAP recognition as part of applications for jobs.”

36:24 – The gap in seven-day clinical pharmacy services

39:25 – Recruitment, retention and burnout

43:25 – Why are there more vacancies?

44:25 – “One nice trend I’m seeing these days is that there is much more of a portability in the profession.”

46:33 – Hopes and goals for 2026

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Among the topics covered in this podcast are:

• The impact of the regulations on the product’s that pharmacies can supply (03:11 minutes)
• What is the new process for patients to get a compliant product? Has their been an increase in prescriptions for higher concentration vapes? (07:12)
• What can we advise patients on the different nicotine concentrations and to find the right dose for their needs? (11:09)
• Are the new regulations curbing the black market? Or are they driving more people to search for illicit products? (14:54)
• What are the key things that patients need to know about the new regulations and how to access compliant products? (17:48)
• The next steps in vaping regulation (21:00)
• Where can you learn more about the changes? (24:59)

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Susan Nguyen, a Sydney pharmacy co-owner and founder of ADHD Support Pharmacist, has told AJP Podcast host Carlene McMaugh that she hopes pharmacists will try to gain a better understanding of Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and consider how it affects patients’ lives in multiple ways – including its comorbidities, and what pharmacists can do to help.

She likens it to diabetes in the way that people make negative judgements about a patient’s behaviour – but also contrasts it with regard to the lack of a holistic approach.

“When you look at someone who has diabetes, they experience the judgement, ‘oh, they’ve got diabetes. Oh, they must have been having too much sugar or too many soft drinks. Or their parents probably gave them lollies every day’,” she says.

But even with this wider social stigma, pharmacists do not generally hold negative opinions about people with diabetes, she says, and do consider the wider picture.

“You’re thinking of foot care, wound care, vaccinations, diabetes med checks… diabetes has a lot of, I guess, comorbidities and other conditions and lifestyle factors played as well.

“When you look at ADHD, it’s a lot, just much the same. You’re looking at a lot of comorbidities, you’re looking at lifestyle, you’re looking at complications, you’re looking at as well, the stigma…

“When you care for someone with ADHD and you delve into it more, you start to see there’s anxiety, there’s depression, there’s also [that] unmanaged ADHD means they may be eating, there could be obesity there, drug use work, relationship problems, a whole gamut.

“So it’s where pharmacists need to be.”

Nguyen also looks into misconceptions such as overdiagnosis, that ADHD is a condition mainly affecting boys, and that ADHD medicines may impact quality of life.

And significantly, she speaks about how people with ADHD are judged negatively for their own symptoms.

“The lack of concentration, the disorganisation, the time blindness, not being able to manage your scripts, not getting your scripts.

“It goes out of date, you freak out, the patient rings up and they say, ‘look, I haven’t got any of my medications left’.

“When we hear that it could be easily seen as they’re being lazy, they’ve been so they’ve let themselves down to let us down.

“It’s such a hassle. It’s inconvenient, but it’s the presenting symptom, and they’re stigmatised for their presenting symptoms.

“We’re actually, as healthcare professionals, as pharmacists, as even as society, we’re almost punishing people with ADHD for what they have, whereas someone with diabetes, they might have more UTIs, they might have infections that just don’t heal, that sort of stuff.

“But there’s a lot of support. And that’s because we look at the symptoms, we understand the pathophysiological side, but because of that lack of, I guess, understanding of ADHD, it’s become more of about a character flaw or character trait.

“And so that really makes it hard for, I guess, healthcare professionals to show that care and support.

“And I feel that this is where we need to really, as pharmacists making that stance on that and then supporting our patients in a much better way.”

Highlights include:

01:21 – Why does ADHD need more attention in pharmacy?

04:18 – The comparison with diabetes

07:14 – ADHD in women and inattentive symptoms

08:11 – The role of social media

12:26 – Will medication “fix it up”?

14:04 – How can we widen our views?

16:32 – “With stimulant prescribing, it is hard.”

18:10 – The consequences of unmanaged ADHD

20:44 – How do we share information?

21:49 – “Pharmacists may think, oh, they’re going to get tolerant when they take  Ritalin for so long.”

23:10 – “If you’ve seen a patient who comes in with their prescription for Vyvanse, we can’t assume that, hey, everything’s under control.”

26:27 – The carer’s perspective

28:37 – Pharmacists with ADHD

32:39 – “We need more pharmacists to really be in that space to advocate for patients.”

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National Australian Pharmacist Students Association national president Sebastian Harper has opened up to AJP Podcast host Carlene McMaugh about the financial pressures on pharmacy students – and how NAPSA aims to take a greater role in advocacy for the profession.

“There really needs to be a revolution in how we approach placements, and this doesn’t just go for pharmacy, but this is, as far as I understand, pretty much all health disciplines,” Harper says.

He highlights the increasing cost of living throughout the 2020s… “which I think everyone, not just in Australia but around the world is very conscious of”.

“But students, young people, but also mature age students, many who might have a mortgage, they might have kids at home that they have to feed. The cost of living crisis is really hitting hard and that’s why we’re trying to, in our capacity as a student organisation, mitigate that as much as possible.”

Students are literally having to decide whether they can afford to buy food or pay rent at their usual home, and actually finish their placements, Harper says.

He also talks about the “hidden costs” of prac placements – from uniforms to transport and hospital parking – as well as offering some advice for preceptors.

But there have been positive developments as well, he says – not only have some disciplines been granted prac payments, there are options such as government housing for students.

“I had a fantastic experience on placement where I was in Mount Isa and I was housed with about six other students from other health disciplines,” he enthuses.

“We had a couple speechies, we had a medicine student, dental student physio, science, so there were a lot of different disciplines there, and it was great to just for our mental wellbeing, but also the idea of us being better interprofessional collaborators in the future that after each shift we got to almost debrief about our days and interesting cases we saw.

“I learned more about what speechies do there purely by just talking to them.”

He also tells McMaugh about the establishment of the Health Students Alliance, a new organisation bringing together just over 40 health student associations across the country.

Highlights include:

00:56 – Priorities for NAPSA

02:38 – The cost of living, and lack of prac payments

03:38 – The impact of placement poverty

05:57 – Advocating for a highly feminised workforce

08:00 – Hidden costs

10:47 – “I’ve just anecdotally heard from my members on calls or at events and things like that, but they’re literally going hungry throughout the entire day.”

11:47 – How financial pressures impact health

14:41 – Youth allowance and advocacy

19:40 – Some solutions

23:38 – How can pharmacists support their students?

26:04 – The potential for impact on the future workforce

30:24 – How to find your niche

33:17 – Some of NAPSA’s key initiatives – including splitting the rural and Indigenous chair positions

37:10 – “The future of pharmacy is incredibly exciting.”

39:52 – “The biggest thing that registered pharmacists can do is just enable the excitement of the next generation.”

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Murdock tells the AJP Podcast’s Carlene McMaugh about the many times she has reinvented herself – from arriving in Australia from war-torn Iraq “with nothing, just hope” to the time she walked away from a job that refused to offer her, a single mother, the flexibility she needed to parent her son.

“I think people often think of pharmacists as people that dispense and dispense scripts and check scripts, but once they get to know me, they realise our impact goes far beyond the pharmacy doors,” she says.

“We’re often the first point of contact for someone who’s scared in crisis, overwhelmed or in pain, and we’re quite often educating or triaging. We listen a lot and we are often in people’s lives for a very long time, so we have conversations we support, we offer support, and we build trust and that’s where the real impact happens, not just inside the pharmacy but out in their community every single day.”

For Murdock, this means “hands-on” health delivery in Pascoe Vale, where she works, going to local clubs to do free blood pressure checks, getting involved with Rotary, overhauling her pharmacy to put in consulting rooms and talking at schools and local football cubs.

But it also means really being there when it matters to patients.

“I’ll never forget this lady who came into the pharmacy one late afternoon. I remember it clearly because she wasn’t a regular patient and she looked completely overwhelmed.

“She had a toddler on one hip and a script and her hand and her eyes looked quite puffy that she’d been crying and on paper at the time it looked like just a repeat for an antidepressant that you could have dispensed, but something just didn’t feel right and instead of just processing her prescription, I asked her gently at the time, ‘how are you? Are you okay?’

“And she broke down, she hadn’t slept, she hadn’t eaten properly and she’d just left the home because of an abusive partner.

“And she said to me, I didn’t know where else to go. So I came here and in that moment the pharmacy became more than a pharmacy.

“I brought her into the consult room, gave her space to breathe, linked her to support services, and I contacted her GP to coordinate the next steps.

“But more than that, I made her feel safe, seen, not rushed and not judged. And I remember her saying that I was the very first person who didn’t look away and that interaction has stayed with me forever.

“I believe behind every prescription is someone surviving something and sometimes the difference we make isn’t in the medicine, but in the way we choose to show up.”

Highlights include:

01:13 – “Sliding doors” – why Murdock left one pharmacy job, finding her way to one which was “amazing”

02.23 – What people don’t realise about pharmacists

04:03 – “We’ve built a culture I’m very proud of where every voice is heard.”

04:46 – Helping a desperate customer

05:51 – Advice on handling difficult situations

08:07 – “I’ve had to reinvent myself quite a few times and it started early.”

10:54 – What keeps you going?

11.29 – “Balanced? What’s that word?”

12:49 – Transforming health care in Pascoe Vale

15:32 – Beyond the pharmacy walls

16:57 – If you could change one thing in the pharmacy profession, what would it be?

17:38 – Advice for pharmacists starting out

18:49 – “Balance doesn’t mean perfect proportions every single day.”

19:04 – AI and pharmacy

20:29 – How Murdock’s pharmacy evolves to meet the community’s needs

20: 51 – How does the future look?

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“There is still a lot of people who are scared of AI,” says Andrew Bartlett, academic at the University of Sydney’s School of Pharmacy, and PhD candidate.

“Students are afraid to use it. They think they’’re going to get caught cheating.”

But “The way that university, particularly the University of Sydney works now, is that we have assessments to help learning and we have assessments of learning and AI is allowed in those assessments where it’s helping learning.

“I think there’s a misconception [that] whatever you put in is private and I don’t think it is. And so I think there’s some serious concerns that people need to take into consideration about what they put into AI.”

Bartlett has been having his students help him develop AI agents – “it’s a bit of a class project”.

“I have a pharmacy management tutor and we use it in the class, so I’ll give them a topic, say we’re talking about the pharmacy employment landscape in different areas of Australia.

“I might give each little table group a prompt and they put it into the agent and then collectively they’ve got to come up with a three minute presentation that they’ve got to teach back the class.

“So they quite like doing that. It means that there’s almost like an extra one of me accessible when they need it.

“When it comes to exam preparation as well, it’s got all my teaching resources in there, they can ask it questions, I can train it to behave a bit like I would in the way that it asks questions.

“So I’m accessible 24 hours, but I still get to sleep.”

Highlights include:

01:12 – Bartlett’s background in pharmacy, and how he became interested in AI

02:18 – “I was seeing them use AI in classrooms and I was seeing that they were using it really badly.”

03:24 – AI misconceptions

04:37 – How students respond to the AI agents

06:48 – AI for patient counselling scenarios

08:50 – The key benefits of simulated patient interactions

09:39 – How to minimise mistakes

11:16 – “AI can be quite good at stepping someone through a reflective process.”

13:02 – Bridging the gap between theoretical knowledge and real-world pharmacy skills

14:29 – How could AI change a pharmacist’s day-to-day role?

15:56 – “It’s interesting looking at the biases that come through.”

19:24 – What skills do pharmacists need in an AI-driven future?

21:35 – Getting up to speed

22:36 – The next frontier

25:17 – Embracing AI in business

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“It starts with knowing your values, what you are looking for, that you’re willing to leave the comfort of where you are and start something new,” says Carlene McMaugh. 

In the latest episode of the AJP Podcast, McMaugh details the ways pharmacists can think about their career in 2025. 

There are opportunities to use new technology for searches and to brush up on marketing, she said. 

“You could type in your skills or your experiences and to ChatGPT and ask for suggestions about roles or you can even put your CV in and ask what options there are out there.”

Other highlights include: 

• 04:46: Carlene shares her own career journey. 
• 12:30: Thinking about your brand. 
• 17:16: Using AI to enhance your resume. 
• 19:04: The importance of networking. 

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Carlene McMaugh

The AJP Podcast talks to the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia’s inaugural Aged Care Pharmacist of the Year – Neil Petrie, who has been working primarily in aged care, undertaking medication reviews for the past 25 years.

He has also owned his own community pharmacy in the past and semi-retired into aged care onsite pharmacy under the ACOP program.

With a father and uncle who were pharmacists, he says he remembers being about six or seven years old, “and going to the pharmacy after hours with my dad to make up an APC mixture, if I remember rightly, which was aspirin, phenacetin, and caffeine in it”.

“And I vividly remember my father saying, hold that needle and don’t drop it. And what did I do? I dropped it onto the footpath, didn’t I?

“So pharmacy’s been in my blood for a long time and I did have my own pharmacy for about 13 years, but I realised I wanted to do something a little bit different and when I had my pharmacy, I started servicing some hostels at that point in time and I really enjoyed that work.”

Petrie was one of Australia’s first pharmacists accredited to conduct medication reviews in 1998 – and ever since, his motto has been change.

He says ACOP will only increase in time, and “highlights our impact on direct resident care, medication safety, the quality use of medicines, and really system-wide improvements to medication procedures. So it really showcases us as pharmacists as a valued integral part of the care team.”

This is also highlighted, he says, by the sheer need for pharmacists’ services; discussing the most common medication-related problems in aged care facilities, given the amount of polypharmacy – and more importantly, inappropriate polypharmacy – underway.

Highlights include:

01:13 – Neil’s introduction to pharmacy

03:42 – Aged care: a changing environment

05:11 – RMMRs and lack of rural and remote support: a disillusioning moment

06:14 – The responsibility of promoting ACOP

07:39 – Over 30-plus years in the field, what has changed the most?

09:29 – “How one person within the organisation can change an organisation overnight”

10:40 – The most common medication-related problems in ACFs

11:46 – Beginning an antibiotic stewardship program

13:11 – Taking the workload off the nurses

15:09 – “We have to get to a point where society says wherever medication is involved in therapy, there’s a pharmacist involved.”

17:11 – Thoughts on deprescribing

18:36 – The role of interdisciplinary team-based care

20: 54 – “How do you approach educating both residents and their families about their medications?”

22:07 – Practical strategies

23: 58 – “Polypharmacy is challenging.”

25: 06 – Neil’s vision for the future

29:26 – How can technology help?

32:18 – What advice would you give young pharmacists?

42:07 – A passion for antimicrobial use

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Meridian Lawyers’ Chandrika Darroch joins PDL Podcast host, Amy Minion, and pharmacist, Georgina Woods, to discuss how to apologise when incidents occur. 

This episode of the Be Risk Ready PDL Podcast looks at how to apologise for an incident, and what to do and not do.  

The topics covered include: 

• “It’s important to normalise adverse events” (2 minutes 36). 
• Make sure the patient feels heard (3:54). 
• “Apologies are a very important component of incident and complaint management, and the regulators generally have quite a poor view of practitioners who are neither apologetic or reflective” (7:24). 
• Open disclosure (9:17). 
• “It’s important to keep in mind that no one is infallible” 10:08. 
• Apology laws and how to actually say sorry (15:49). 
• “Matters escalate when there’s been a failure to acknowledge that something’s gone wrong” (18:48). 
• “You can and you should express sympathy, regret or concern” (20:18). 
• Resources available for pharmacists (21:31). 

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The Capital Chemist Charnwood is in the news again: 11 years after being named Guild Pharmacy of the Year, it has again taken home two of the final awards in the competition, being recognised for excellence in Community Engagement and Excellence in Harm Minimisation at APP25.

Co-owner Samantha Kourtis told AJP Podcast host Carlene McMaugh that government decisions, made without input from pharmacy, were a strong influence on her implementing a fee-for-service model.

“From the early days, I’ve been a huge advocate for charging [for] things,” Kourtis says.

“And 13 years ago I walked into this pharmacy. Everything was free, free blood pressure, free home delivery, free Webster packs, free consult with the baby nurse, free everything.

“And early on I was like, well, this has to stop.”

It simply wasn’t a viable business model, she realised – perhaps counter-intuitive given that Charnwood is one of Canberra’s lowest socioeconomic demographics, but as it turned out, customers are happy to pay what pharmacist expertise is worth.

She pointed out that she bought into the business in March 2010 – and that in October that year, the federal government announced accelerated price disclosure.

“I was in a real position where my business loan could have crashed and burned. The bank could have come in and taken it away because overnight the value of our businesses went down…

“And we’ve seen this happen several times over the last 10 years with what the government’s done.

“So it was my commitment to valuing the work that a registered healthcare professional did and my commitment to stopping the of services in pharmacy and then the financial pressure on me as a brand new young business owner that had to go, okay, well, I don’t want to pay my pharmacist award wage. I want to pay them well, because they do a really great job.

“So if someone wants to sit down with a pharmacist for a blood pressure check, they’ll pay for it. And that has gained momentum from then. And we were charging $15, 13 years ago, for a wound consult fee.”

Highlights include:

01:40 – Becoming an award-winning pharmacy through the ups and downs

05:01 – What did winning the awards mean for staff and the community?

06:59 – Talking about harm minimisation in schools

08:07 – What it takes to being an award-winning pharmacy in this space

11:11 – Engaging with the community

13:22 – The viable business model

16:11 – Why $10 for a consult is “such a joke that is so disrespectful to our profession”.

17:01 – “Nobody complains really about the price.”

18:29 – What does being unsurprised in pharmacy mean to you?

21:10 – “I could not believe that the leaders in our country thought that [disparaging pharmacists over 60-day dispensing] was a good idea.”

22: 31 – “Actually, it doesn’t matter what I think. Doesn’t matter how I practise, doesn’t matter how much I care, things are going to happen. And that was quite freeing.”

24:11 – On being part of the scope trials

28:38 – What are the core values of your pharmacy?

31:35 – A challenge for pharmacists: be unsurprised

34:36 – A “vulnerable time” for pharmacy

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Pharmacist Amanda Quek is currently working on her PhD, focused on developing clinical practise guidelines for deprescribing common medications used by older people.

She told AJP Podcast host Carlene McMaugh that it’s vital to take a “pragmatic personalised approach when it comes to prescribing and deprescribing”.

“This just means that understanding what matters to the person, the values and preferences and priorities for treatment, other expects that are important is to consider the person acceptability to deprescribing the support system life expectancy and ability to safely manage changes in treatment,” Quek says.

“And I think the shared decision making and clear communication between the patient and the healthcare providers is especially important.

“People need to feel supported and reassured, especially when stopping a medication they’ve been on for a long time.”

Quek notes that health professionals often note a lack of clear structure to support desprescribing.

“An effective literature review published last year found that around 70% of all clinical practice guidelines for treatment don’t include any guidance about deprescribing,” she tells McMaugh.

“And most of them focus heavily on when to start a medication but rarely offer advice on when or how to safely reduce and stop them.

“And there’s a huge missed opportunity.”

01:04 – What is deprescribing and why does it matter?

02:53 – “Deprescribing isn’t just about managing a medication list, it’s about looking at the whole person.”

05:43 – Gaps and challenges to address

08:37 – What do these guidelines add to the existing evidence that supports deprescribing?

09:56 – The team that put the guidelines together – including patients and carers

12:53 – “One of the most valuable things we learned from them was just how critical clear communication is in healthcare.’

14:06 – What does this feedback mean for pharmacists and for patients?

16:02 – How to share feedback

17:01 – “The main thing is just to remember for both patients and pharmacists is that deprescribing is a team effort.”

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During NAIDOC Week, fourth-year pharmacy student and proud Wiradjuri woman Jesyca Pearson has told AJP Podcast host Carlene McMaugh shared a store of information for pharmacists.

A key issue is acknowledging the difference in cultures, says Pearson, giving a slew of tips which can help pharmacists understand not only their Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander patients better, but patients from other cultures and with other needs as well.

“As a pharmacist we might write, for example, on our Webster packs, we have morning lunch, dinner, bedtime,” she says as an example.

“I think it’s important to steer clear of that, especially among mob patients, and instead of having those specific times have an actual time.

“So for example, 8:00 AM, 12:00 PM, 7:00 PM, 8:00 PM… Just so we can establish an actual time and avoid those medication issues at home because some mob might call their tea time morning tea, or dinnertime could mean lunchtime, and then we’re getting our doses at the wrong time of the day or we’re missing doses.”

Pearson also goes into the concept of cultural safety – particularly important for pharmacy as accessible health professionals.

“There’s just been a lot of distrust in the past and we’d hate for this to be ongoing, especially as pharmacist scope is expanding and we’re having such a bigger impact on our community’s health,” she says. “I think it’s very important to have the whole team trained…

“I’m a Wiradjuri woman, so I know my culture quite well, but I also know lots of other mobs have different culture and different traditional law as we call it.

“So I think as a pharmacist and as a pharmacy team as a whole, it’s important to know what land you’re practising on, know your people, know their history, and know their culture, which you do through talk.

“We always talk. You’ll find if you open up in conversation with an Indigenous patient, if you are kind, caring, open and willing to understand, most of them will be very, very appreciative to share their culture and tell you about it.

“Especially me being an Indigenous person. If I was to go and work in another state, for example, and I’m not familiar with the customs on that land, I would engage in conversation with the elders, with local people and just ask the questions, be upfront, be inquisitive.”

And there’s a lot to be learned from the international experience as well, Pearson says, such as Canadian First Nations programs which even allow OTC medicines and vitamins to be provided free of charge.

1.3—Where Jesyca’s passion for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health comes from

03:45—Why NAIDOC Week matters – especially for young mob

05:00—“To First Nations people, health and wellbeing isn’t just about being healthy or being sick.”

06:21—“We got all of our medicine from the land…. And when colonisation happened, we didn’t have that.”

07:51—The key conditions First Nations people are most likely to live with

10:02—On cultural differences

11.17—What does cultural safety mean in the context of pharmacy?

12:44—Taking steps towards cultural safety

15:27—“Practising with culturally safe care in the front of your mind is essential to developing those healthy relationships and having the best outcomes for our patients.”

18:23—Close the Gap and Aboriginal Health Services

20:45—“We can sometimes forget about programs that can be beneficial to our patients.”

22:41—Program limitations, and why pharmacists should be able to sign patients up to CTG… plus what’s happening in Canada

26:55—Integrating pharmacists within Aboriginal community controlled health services

29:14—“Expanding scope is pretty essential because we’re changing.”

31:06—Encouraging more Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to work in pharmacy

33:43—Inspiring pharmacists and students

38:03—How can the pharmacy profession better support and empower Indigenous leadership within the sector?

41:00—Successful initiatives in the community

42:55—”Listen to your community, engage in those meaningful conversations and get to know your patients.” Pearson talks sorry business, men’s business and women’s business

46:10—Pearson’s vision for the future

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“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

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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.”

Highlights include:

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

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“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

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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.”

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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.

Highlights include:

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

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“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: 

• 4.10 – How Emily balances the many different hats she wears. 
• 16.03 – The experience of seeing others silenced when they addressed bullying. 
• 20.02 – Advice to others if HR isn’t responding in the expected or appropriate way. 
• 23.36 – The warning signs or red flags of a toxic environment. 
• 28.01 – How speaking out has led to more opportunities for Emily.
• 36.00 – Tips for pharmacists who may be doubting their workplace. 

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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. 

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“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’.”

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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:

• Juggling family responsibilities with work (9:30)
• How being a female leader in the profession has impacted the approach to patient care (14:49)
• Managing the work/life balance (18:46)
• The importance of female mentors (33:45)
• The challenges women encounter as female pharmacists (40:11)
• Policy changes to support more women in the profession (48:43)
• Female pharmacists’ roles in supporting other women’s health (52: 24)

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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?

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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

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Director of pharmacy at the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne Professor Michael Dooley, who is chair of the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia’s new Hospital Pharmacy Practice Community of Specialty Interest, spoke to AJP Podcast host Carlene McMaugh about supporting hospital and other pharmacists through their growing challenges, the importance of understanding each other, and why the PSA leadership group was formed.

It’s vital that pharmacists understand each other – and in turn, for different practitioners to widen their understanding, he says.

“I think one of the most important things is having and understanding what everyone else does, what everyone else’s role is,” says Dooley.

“I think we learn more, we often assume a lot about others and we don’t always understand their challenges or even their expertise as pharmacists, we often think that others don’t understand what we know and what we do.

“And I think that’s probably right. We might not know exactly what a GP does, or we might not know the challenges associated with nurses who work in different settings. We have assumptions.

“I think the first thing is understanding what we do, but also understanding what others do.

“What are their expertise, what are their challenges? And by understanding that we can then be able to collaborate where we can share our expertise and we can fill gaps.”

Dooley says that all practitioners, whether an individual pharmacist or a nurse, suffer from “the same degrees of isolation”.

“So I think understanding within pharmacy and what pharmacists do in different settings is probably the first place.

“People often working in hospitals don’t necessarily understand the challenges associated with someone doing reviews by themselves.

“As an isolated pharmacist, a community pharmacist may not necessarily fully understand the challenges associated with working in a hospital.

“So I think breaking down some of those barriers where people can share their experiences, understand their expertise of others, and understand that commonality of the challenges is a really good place to start.

“And I think then I’ve noticed when working with medical staff, working with nursing staff, I probably learn learning more about what they do.”

Highlights include:

02.38: What are the key challenges facing the hospital sector, such as transitions of care?

07.17: Why Dooley took on the role as chair of the PSA leadership group – and more about the experts on its panel

13.00: What does the PSA leadership group hope to achieve?

15.27: Why it important to represent all areas of pharmacy practice?

18.07: Pharmacists working across all sectors – and the importance of collaboration

21:00: What is needed to support pharmacists in diverse roles?

23.33: Why should pharmacists join the CSI?

25.58: Hopes for the CSI’s next 12 months

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AJP podcast host Carlene McMaugh speaks to co-founder and director of Locumate Kavita Nadan about how the locum role has changed since the app was launched in 2022.

Nadan, who is also the managing partner in her own pharmacy in Victoria, says that “The quickest shift we filled on our platform an urgent shift where a locum had cancelled—I think an hour before their shift—was like 30 seconds, because the people are ready to work and willing to get jobs.”

This means that “bizarre” rates of $110 an hour have dropped since, and “pharmacies are a lot more willing to offer feedback as well for locums, and locums accepting that as well”.

“[W]hat we’re seeing is locums are becoming a lot more, I guess, vigilant about their role and their impact of their work in the industry as well,” Nadan says.

“Before typically the mindset of locum pharmacists would be, ‘I go in, I do my job and I leave now,’ that’s changed a lot more where they try and actually go in and become a little bit part of that ecosystem of the pharmacy and get to know the people.

“And we are starting to see really, really good behaviours come out as a result of that.”

00.54: How the grueling experience of managing a pharmacy during the Covid crisis in 2022 sparked the idea of the Locumate app: “Oh my gosh, seriously getting locums into my pharmacies is such a archaic manual process. Surely there’s a better way to do this.”

06.17: A new function for the app launches

07.53: How has the locum market changed since 2022?

10.22: Do pharmacies need to pay for travel?

12.14: How can a locum stand out in the current market?

14.44: What should new graduates and overseas pharmacists expect when they begin locuming?

18.17: The importance of communication – and what services locums provide: “I feel like there has to be this greater ability for pharmacists to just be aware of what they’re actually accepting.”

21.15: What can employers expect?

23.32: How have new innovations such as medicinal cannabis and vaping changed the locuming environment?

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AJP Podcast presenter Carlene McMaugh discusses the expansion of pharmacists’ scope of practice with the University of Newcastle’s Dr Sarah Dineen-Griffin, who is leading the NSW pharmacy trials. 

Since the start of the NSW trials pharmacies across the state – and the ACT – have provided more than 20,000, with the treatment of uncomplicated urinary tract infections (UTIs) becoming part of pharmacists’ permanent practice in the two jurisdictions, Dineen-Griffin noted (0 minutes 56). 

She said that more than 18,000 consultations were conducted by pharmacists as part of the UTI trial, with 2000 occasions of service recorded for the resupply of oral contraceptives, and a further 1000 as part of the dermatology trial.  

“The number of consultations was really influenced by the scope of the authority regarding both age and other eligibility criteria,” she said (1:57). 

“With regards to the dermatology trial, we are now focused on pharmacists managing select conditions… and this trial is really aiming to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of pharmacist-led management of these conditions overall.” 

Other topics discussed include: 

• Sub-studies looking at the accessibility and impact of pharmacy-led services for Indigenous patients; antimicrobial resistance and stewardship, and services in rural and remote areas (3:07). 
• Recommendations from the NSW trials are influencing the scope of work that is happening in other jurisdictions (4:07). 
• Global trends in pharmacists’ scope of practice (5:13). 
• The introduction of autonomous prescribing for pharmacists in the UK (6:20). 
• Australia must not only build on its evidence-based, but also ensure a timely implementation of proven practices while staying aligned with global developments in healthcare innovation (9:00). 
• Expanding the scope of practice is an inevitable evolution of the profession, but ensuring its viability really depends on several important factors (10:52).  Infrastructural and educational requirements (12:02).  Implementation process critical for success of services and supporting the pharmacy workforce (14:08).  Successful implementation of pharmacy services really hinges on business considerations (19:02).  Efforts are underway to expand the range of conditions pharmacists can treat as part of expanded scope of practice (21:30).  Australia is making significant progress in evolving pharmacists’ scope, but ensuring new services are sustainable will be critical (25:02). 

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Speaking with Carlene McMaugh the host of the AJP Podcast, Chris Brooker reflects on the biggest stories of the last 12 months and discusses the potential key issues facing the pharmacy sector in 2025. 

Tensions between the community pharmacy sector and the federal government were at a high at the start of 2024, following the introduction of 60-day dispensing in September 2023 (1 min 04). 

Despite the hostile relationship between the Pharmacy Guild of Australia and the government, Brooker noted that there were several successes for the profession, with the Pharmacy Guild of Australia securing a “very good” deal in the Eighth Community Pharmacy Agreement (2:14), while the profession’s scope of practice continued to expand. 

The implementation of the National Immunisation Program Vaccination in Pharmacy (NIPVIP) program in January was another ‘win’ for the sector and the community, despite dire warnings from medical groups (3:09). 

Other topics discussed include: 

• The influence of the advocacy group, CAPS (Community and Pharmacy Support Group), continued to grow, with candidates from the organisation unseating long-term Guild councilors in NSW, including then-branch president David Heffernan (5:50). 
• Chemist Warehouse’s proposed merger with Sigma Healthcare has been an ongoing issue, which has “huge ramifications” for community pharmacy (7:04). 
• Expansion of scope of practice will make pharmacist remuneration and working conditions a major issue for the sector going forward (8:06). 
• In the hospital pharmacy sector there’s an increasing shift towards specialisation (9:06). 
• Pharmacy’s advanced practice pioneers show innovation within the profession (9:59). 
• The growth of the AJP Select – Hospital and Credentialed Pharmacists newsletter (11:36).  
• The Society of Hospital Pharmacists of Australia (SHPA) transitioned to Advanced Pharmacy Australia (AdPha), reflecting the growth of a new area of practice (21:57) 
• The Pharmaceutical Society of Australia’s new Strategic Agreement on Professional Pharmacist Practice, and the Pharmaceutical Wholesalers Agreement will make a difference in 2025 (16:23). 
• Data from the ongoing scope of practice trials are set to come through, with preliminary reports looking “really positive” (19:01). 
• Young pharmacists are increasingly looking for flexibility to practice across settings (23:15) 
• Pharmacy faces an era of disruption (26:35). 

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Speaking with AJP Podcast host Carlene McMaugh, Simpson says that “Whilst it’s a hot topic now, it isn’t new” – “it’s one of those things that actually, you can trace it back a long way past. You can walk backwards in those footsteps.”

And South Australia is leading the way, he says.

“So if you attend South Australian hospital emergency departments, your pharmacist might be writing the medication chart and the doctor’s signatory is not necessary on that because the pharmacist has actually been credentialed to chart those medicines.

“There’s a lot of huge amount of value and changes happen in the autonomous prescribing space too.

“I think it’s really worth looking at what that partnered prescribing process delivers because that’s not a limited formulary. That’s everything from lithium to warfarin to beta blockers to whatever that patient needs…

“Scope of practice and top of scope have [been] some of the real buzzwords of the year, but whether it’s community hospital or whatever sitting, we’re all looking to get the most out of our practitioners and I think with that decade long experience of those collaborative models from hospital-based settings, those are now rippling out to the entire healthcare sector.”

More highlights include:

00.52: “It’s been a big year, hasn’t it?” Simpson talks about the mainstreaming of once cutting-edge concepts in pharmacy – plus the other big stories of 2024

06.24: Why collaborative prescribing delivers “so much bang for buck”

08.10: What were pharmacists’ biggest concerns in 2024?

12.17: What were 2024’s biggest challenges?

16.16: What’s ahead for 2025?

19.15: Simpson and AdPha’s proudest moments in 2024

26.24: Was 2024 what you expected?

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Speaking with AJP Podcast presenter Carlene McMaugh, Sim described 2024 as a year of two halves. 

The Pharmaceutical Society of Australia (PSA) president noted that while there were a number of key successes for the pharmacy profession over the last 12 months, the first half of the year was an uncertain time for pharmacists (1 min 48).

However, she said the signing of the Eighth Community Pharmacy Agreement (8CPA) and the PSA’s Strategic Agreement on Professional Pharmacist Practice, gave the profession cause of optimism in recent months. 

Topics discussed include: 

• The expansion of pharmacists’ scope of practice (2:53)
• The introduction of the Aged Care On-site Pharmacist Program (ACOP) (6:45)
• Lack of harmonisation over vaping reforms (11:25)
• Emerging areas of pharmacy practice (13:32)
• Medicine shortages continue (16:04)
• Pharmacists want to know that there is enough and adequate and appropriate remuneration for the work they do (17:19)
• Expectations for 2025 (23:46)
• 2025 will be another year of change for the profession (26:12)
• Pharmacists need to embrace the change, but also need to look after themselves (27:22)
• Pharmacy cannot afford any form of division or duplication going forward (30:54)

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Advanced Pharmacy Australia (AdPha’s) national president, Tom Simpson, and vice president, Kate O’Hara, chat with AJP Podcast host Carlene McMaugh about a challenging year – from the current fluid shortages to changes to scope.

They begin with the change of identity for AdPha, which O’Hara says will hopefully useful to highlight the work that its members actually do… both in and out of hospitals.

People in governance roles in the organisation get a lot of requests for advocacy, she tells McMaugh – “And when we try and raise our voices or get in the room, people are like, ‘oh, well you just do hospital’.

“And it’s sometimes hard to complete the work that our members are asking us to do because of the different locations and the different roles that they practice in.

“And it’s hoped by having a name that’s a little bit wider that it’ll be easier for people to say, okay, this isn’t just about hospitals, and we can do that work that members are asking us to do,” she explains.

Meanwhile Simpson talks about the many other changes which took place over the year.

“[M]edication shortages and currently the fluid shortages are very much top of mind for the kinds of challenges that we’re all dealing with,” he says. “I think I looked at the TGA website and there was something like 500 shortages just the other day…

“It has been a year of opportunity, I think, as well. We’ve got state and federal governments very focused on the value that pharmacists can deliver to the health system in a way like we’ve never had before, and a willingness to remove some of those barriers to top of scope practice.

“So I think for us, it’s been a year of really driving that conversation forward and advocating for the kinds of practices that we know we can deliver in a range of care settings that make the best use of our expertise.”

Podcast highlights:

00.58: Why was the Society of Hospital Pharmacists of Australia’s identity changed to Advanced Pharmacy Australia?

04.11: ‘A spectrum of responses’ – how members reacted

06.46: What are AdPha’s goals – and do they differ from SHPA’s?

10.30: What pharmacists don’t know about AdPha

13.39: What does the future look like?

14.37: The challenges and successes of 2024 – ‘It’s been an interesting year’

21.41: A look at 2025

23.22: Kate O’Hara reports on the FIP conference in Cape Town

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In this episode of the AJP podcast, Carlene McMaugh talks to Adam Livori about his experiences in differing areas of pharmacy, and how he has gone about ‘pivoting’ between different roles.

Among the topics covered are:

• Redefining your role or roles (when holding three in one organisation) (6:20)
• Balancing a variety of roles and keeping in control when pivoting in your career (9:50)
• The importance of having skills not directly related to the job at hand (13:00)
•  Running a telehealth clinic (14:44)
• Overseeing a variety of services (16:42)
• What’s changed over the last eight years (18:33)
• Advice on handling transition and change (20:50)

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AJP Podcast host Carlene McMaugh speaks with Dr Jenny Gowan, an industry stalwart and long-time AJP contributor who was honoured with the Member of the Order of Australia earlier this year.

“Try and keep yourself focused, and it’s really good to be multi-skilled and multidisciplinary,” Gowan advises, before discussing the Aged Care Onsite Pharmacist role and what those who are about to test its waters need to know.

“I think it’s really important that people who are venturing into this field know a little bit about what is currently going on and where the transition is going,” Gowan says.

“So where the opportunities are and where the barriers are.” She outlines how the program works with contracting, saying that “multiple pharmacies, pharmacists can have the contracts, but generally that doesn’t work very well”.

Noting that after a GP receives a pharmacist’s report and develops a plan, “which takes them a very little time in comparison to the time it takes us and guess what? They get paid more than us, but that’s a bone of contention,” Gowan explains that turnover in aged care can be fast.

“We don’t have time to do as many as we’d like because we find the turnover in the nursing homes is fast. There’s a lot of people that move on because it’s their final resting place, and we’ve really got about a 25% change at least every year if not more.”

And the problem isn’t lack of interest, or lack of training. Gowan explains what the main limitation is with ACOP, and how she manages it.

Also:

09.32: How does one get involved in aged care pharmacy?

12.52: The process of training

14.06: Why consider a role in aged care?

16.05: The future of the aged care role

26.23: How does this align with scope of practice?

29.05: Gowan’s advice for pharmacists on aged care

32:02: Aged care and pay

37:17: Understanding patients

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In this podcast, Kylie Neville, PDL professional officer, is joined by two highly experienced industry leaders in pharmaceutical compounding: Patricia Ullmann and Marina Holt.

They delve into topics relating to risk awareness and risk management in compounding of medicines. The aim is to highlight areas where practitioners can improve safety and reduce unwanted outcomes through greater focus on good compounding practices.

Among the topics covered:

• The work environment and training requirements for simple and complex compounding (01:34)
• What are the responsibilities of compounding pharmacists to provide counseling to a patient? (05:35)
• How important is proprietor oversight when it comes to the operation of a compounding pharmacy? (07:40)
• Are there any responsibilities of the proprietors that can be delegated to staff? (10:40)
• What are some of the key principles around safety and risk awareness when staff are handling compounding medicines that contain cytotoxic or hazardous materials? (13:00)
• Can exposure of any sort of to compounding chemicals occur outside of the lab? (18:40)
• Examples of procedures for keeping on top of daily, weekly, quarterly, or even annual operational requirements? (22:00)
• How can pharmacists avoid the silo effect? And what are the benefits of sharing information with other pharmacists colleagues? (25:40)
• What are some of the ways that pharmacists can demonstrate ongoing competence in complex compounding? (29:43)
• Highlighting areas of risk: a case study of compounded clonidine (31:50)
• The essential role of traceability in lab procedures and protocols (36:48)

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AJP Podcast presenter Carlene McMaugh discusses the Complete Care Pharmacy model with pharmacy owner, Kristina Fox. 

The Rosny Park pharmacy reopened under the Complete Care Pharmacy brand in September 2023 with a unique design (1 min 13) that Fox says is already delivering for patients and the business.  

Topics discussed include: 

• “We want pharmacists to be known as the givers of health advice” (4:51) 
• Tailor software that helps with pharmacotherapy (7:13) 
• Pharmacists work on the floor to triage patients (8:13) 
• Making use of digital baskets (8:59) 
• Taking health conversations off the store floor with pods and consultation rooms (12:18) 
• Charging for minor ailment consultations (13:08) 
• The Complete Care model is delivering, with patient numbers rising and gross profits up (17:58) 
• Changing staff roles within the pharmacy (22:08) 
• Pharmacists need to be visible to deliver full scope of practice services (25:44)  

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Professor, pharmacist and current acting director of the Monash Addiction Research Centre Suzanne Nielsen says it’s important to get key information to patients who need it… and tailored to them.

Nielsen talks us through the development of the Opioid Safety Toolkit, which was designed specifically for patients prescribed opioids for pain, and the importance of raising awareness of opioid side-effects and reliance.

“Very few” people who might meet the criteria for opioid use disorder had ever asked for help, or even spoken to a health care provider about their concerns, she says.

“For whatever reason, those good conversations were just not happening,” Nielsen says. “And a lot of that we understand was around things like either stigma or patient fear or just a lack of awareness.”

03.38 – How can pharmacists support these patients?

5.05 – How can patients easily navigate through the toolkit?

06.40 – How have patient attitudes towards naloxone changed since deaths with novel synthetic opioids?

09.13 – What sort of questions might people as about naloxone?

12.13 – How can pharmacists encourage at-risk patients or their families to get naloxone?

14.55 – How can pharmacists be resourced?

18.13 – How to have these conversations with patients

21.29 – What about people taking opioids long-term?

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AJP Podcast presenter Carlene McMaugh discusses the Eight Community Pharmacy Agreement (8CPA) and the Strategic Agreement on Pharmacist Professional Practice, with the former Pharmacy Guild of Australia vice president, Paul Sinclair. 

Having led the Guild’s negotiating team for the 6CPA, Sinclair lauded the 8CPA negotiating team for their efforts in securing the new deal with the government (1 min 28). 

Other topics discussed include: 

• “There was a real opportunity for government to disrupt our industry further in the professional side of it” (2:15) 
• 8CPA provides a platform for further broadening pharmacists’ scope of practice (2:43) 
• The 8CPA funding model provides great certainty to the industry (3:31) 
• Overseas models are funded by insurance companies that tend to take a harder line on the value of the pharmacist (4:12) 
• Consumer choice ensured by the 8CPA allows patients to engage with their local pharmacy and build relationships (5:45) 
• The 8CPA is a model other countries can learn from (7:46) 
• The Pharmaceutical Society of Australia’s (PSA’s) Strategic Agreement on Pharmacist Professional Practice is “a very good thing… the fact that the PSA now has its own agreement, it takes a lot of tension out of the way that agreements were previously negotiated” (10:38) 
• “We’ve got a great platform now” for the expansion of scope of practice (14:14) 
• “We have to advocate strongly for further progression of scope of practice” (18:06) 
• German policymakers are considering “a very disturbing policy… which would allow pharmacies to operate without a pharmacist on the premises” (25:28). 
• Other countries are pushing for pharmacy technicians to play a bigger role to free up pharmacists to deliver professional services (27:50).  

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AJP Podcast presenter Carlene McMaugh discusses the Eighth Community Pharmacy Agreement (8CPA), 60-day dispensing and the government’s recent vaping reforms with the Pharmacy Guild of Australia’s chief negotiator Anthony Tassone. 

Topics covered include: 

• The timeframe for the development of the 8CPA (1 min 08) 
• Push for the restoration of equity in the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) (5:00) 
• A funded pathway towards full scope of practice (6:04) 
• Data was a key tool in setting the Guild’s agenda and ensuring the negotiating team “didn’t turn up with a knife to a gunfight” (7:26) 
• Taking lessons from the past (10:02) 
• Concerns around the potential impacts of 60-day dispensing place huge pressure on pharmacy owners’ mental health (12:36) 
• The 8CPA has restored confidence and enthusiasm in the community pharmacy sector (13:56) 
• Uptake of 60-day dispensing is below the Department of Health and Aged Care’s original forecasts (16:30) 
• Funding secured through the agreement includes a 0% downside buffer for the first time (17:45) 
• Take the opportunities to provide new services under state and territory scope of practice programs (20:36) 
• Guild to seek more funded services and greater expansion of scope of practice in 9CPA (23:44) 
• Government’s vaping reforms “policy on the run” (25:38) 
• “Calling them therapeutic vapes, it’s really astonishing… it’s quite unprecedented what the government’s done here – I don’t expect it will succeed” (27:50). 

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Pharmacists, pharmacy assistants, and pharmacy students who are struggling with mental health and professional issues can access peer-to-peer support through the Pharmacists’ Support Service (PSS) on 1300 244 910 between 8am and 11pm AEDT.  

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AJP Podcast presenter Carlene McMaugh talks with Amandeep Doll the head of professional belonging and engagement at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society about the challenges pharmacists face when it comes to starting a family while maintaining a career.

Topics covered include: 

• Pharmacy needs policies to protect women and men who are starting families, so they are not discriminated against (1 min 13)
• A survey conducted by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society found that pregnancy and maternity status was recognised as one of the top three barriers to working in pharmacy (2:19)
• The lack of flexible working options in pharmacy settings makes working in pharmacy difficult for pregnant women and new parents (4:50)
• “Once you’re pregnant people kind of write you off… their attitudes towards pregnancy are ‘if you want to start a family, then therefore you must not care about your career'” (6:17)
• Pharmacies need to support women from when they start wanting to have children all the way through to returning to work and reintegrating into teams (7:11)
• Providing greater flexibility will help attract more diverse candidates to senior roles (8:50)
• Work policies need to be family-friendly, “sometimes dads get forgotten about” (10:50)
• Pharmacists need to challenge negative views on parenting (11:46)
• Employee pharmacists need to empower themselves by knowing their rights and engaging with their employer (17:54)
• Pharmacists need to be realistic about their return to work and not over-commit, while also being reasonable in their “asks” (19:48)
• Redundancies during and after pregnancy (22:27) 

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In this issue of the AJP podcast, Curtis Ruhnau, president of the Pharmacists Support Service (PSS) and community pharmacy owner, talks to podcast host Carlene McMaugh about a host of topics, including:

• The importance of maintaining connection and dialogue with staff and colleagues (00:43)
• Changes brought on by 60-day dispensing (05:39)
• The impact of the 8CPA on pharmacist confidence and security, and how this is reflected in calls to the PSS (08:43)  
• Does he have confidence post-8CPA (11:02)
• What important developments does he see resulting from the 8CPA (12:57)
• Nurturing younger pharmacists (17:42)
• Working with your community (20:12)

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Carlene McMaugh

AJP Podcast presenter Carlene McMaugh talks with Paul Hedley the principal partner of Hedley Partners about the 8CPA and its impact on the pharmacy market. 

Topics covered include: 

• Pharmacy’s “incredible ability to pivot” in response to challenges and changes (2 minutes 30) 
• 8CPA provides a direction of pharmacies to adopt a service focused business model (3:29) 
• Pharmacy owners need to control the controllables knowing there’s a “certain inevitability about 60-day dispensing” and resulting revenue loss (5:10) 
• The 8CPA will not only protect pharmacies’ revenue, but also enhance the value of businesses (9:08) 
• The agreement is a recognition of the importance of of pharmacists logistically to the government and a form of reward for the profession’s efforts during the Covid-19 pandemic (13:40) 
• Following the uncertainty caused by 60-day dispensing buyers are starting to actively look at pharmacies following the signing of the 8CPA (14:56) 
• Turf war between GPs and pharmacists may be dissipating due to GP workforce crisis, and the community will be the winner (19:13) 
• Conditions right for a high degree of activity in the pharmacy sales market (22:00) 
• Big players’ appetite for acquisitions is likely to increase (23:24) 
• Characteristics of successful (and not so successful) pharmacy owners (27:37) 
• Tips for pharmacists looking to buy their first store (32:12) 

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AJP Podcast presenter Carlene McMaugh talks with Victorian community pharmacist, Gordon Ngan, about pharmacy ownership. 

The topics covered include:

• Ngan’s journey to ownership ( 2 min 44)
• The “steep learning curve” new owners face (3:36)
• The owner is the most important when it comes to building goodwill for the business (5:08)
• Financing a pharmacy purchase (6:20)
• Price reductions on prescription medicines have cut margins in community pharmacy compared to 20-plus years ago (7:40)
• Unexpected hurdles (8:14)
• Aspiring owners need to be willing to make sacrifices to build a successful business (9:11)
• Dealing with the impacts of 60-day dispensing (10:22)
• Location, pharmacy size and manpower are key considerations when it comes to implementing innovations (15:00)
• Having one pharmacist on duty will hinder growth opportunities (16:53)
• Owners should be open-minded when it comes to giving employee pharmacists opportunities to lead (20:22)
• The three elements to finding the right pharmacy – location, financial support and manpower (21:43)
• The qualities of a good business partner (22:34)
• Knowing when to sell (26:49)

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Consultant pharmacist of the year Brooke Shelly talks with AJP Podcast Carlene McMaugh about her “portfolio career” – what it’s like wearing many hats, from working in a GP surgery, to performing HMRs and RMMRs, and moving into the research arena.

She says that the new agreements offer a lot of hope for innovation in rural health, with the new PSA strategic agreement becoming a new home for professional pharmacist services.

“For so long it has been a challenge to have remuneration structures within a Community Pharmacy Agreement that directly affect pharmacists that don’t work within or have a connection to community, it has actually never made sense.

“It’s also really impacted with conversation with government,” she says.

The new agreements will also help pharmacists have their voices heard by other health professionals, she says – and it’s “beyond exciting”.

The pair also talk about what it’s like living in a small town, building rapport with patients – “I see them at the footy and I see them at the supermarket” – as well as other health colleagues, and how taking on many roles can result in a varied and professionally satisfying career.

“Soft skills are really essential in being able to be adaptable, in terms of how to have tricky conversations, how to maintain rapport with another health professional whilst disagreeing, how to build relationships quickly all, that sort of thing will allow you to be able to step into different roles with relative ease,” she says, offering advice for pharmacists keen to take on a portfolio career.

This means putting yourself into situations and conversations which may not come naturally, she says.

“It’s also about saying yes to any opportunity that comes your way, or better yet, creating those opportunities yourself.”

“It is a really exciting time to be a pharmacist and if you have capacity to contribute to the change and the transformation that needs to happen in our profession, then put your hand up and be part of it.”

4.32 – What is a portfolio pharmacist – how did these opportunities come about and how do you balance them all?

8.54 – On winning the Consultant of the Year Award and “standing on the shoulders of giants”

10.40 – Advice on a portfolio career

15.30 – Inequities in rural health and how the new pharmacy agreements could make a change

22.45 – What would you like to see from the strategic agreements?

24.53 – How do pharmacists get on board with the new areas of practice?

28.35 – On pharmacist prescribing – and is there really a turf war between professions?

31.02 – Better utilisation of telehealth for credentialled pharmacists

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AJP Podcast presenter Carlene McMaugh talks with pharmacy business consultant and AJP columnist, Bruce Annabel, about the 8CPA, the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia’s Strategic Agreement on Pharmacist Professional Practice, and the opportunities it will provide the sector. 

Among the topics covered are:

• 8CPA “a very good outcome for the industry” (3 min 09)
• $2.111 billion Additional Community Supply Support Payment (ACSS) provides “recognition of the need to provide financial compensation for the impact of 60-day dispensing (4:25)
• Pharmacy is not losing any services under 8CPA (6:00)
• There is $1.4 billion of services that will be funded outside of the 8CPA and PSA agreement (7:01)
• Uptake of 60-day dispensing has been modest to date, but if it reaches close to 60% the ACSS may not be enough to cover losses (11:26)
• The government has agreed to pay ACSS fees for double dispensed scripts dispensed since 1 April 2024 (12:24)
• Increased funding for professional services under the 8CPA “flags room for growth” (17:00)
• 8CPA provides a platform for a shift to a new model of community pharmacy (22:13)
• Pharmacy has a unique opportunity for pharmacists to come out of their supply role to become health professionals operating in the broader health system (28:30)
• Pharmacy can “take up slack” in primary care (29:55)
• No need for negativity around 8CPA (30:38).

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AJP Podcast presenter Carlene McMaugh talks with pharmacist and Capital Chemist CEO Andrew Topp about how he – and the pharmacists working and owning across the Capital group – feel about the Eighth Community Pharmacy Agreement and more.

As Topp mentions, the 8CPA encompasses only a third of the certainty the wider profession needs.

“There’s still a little bit to do with the PSA’s component that we’re yet to see, and the wholesalers’ component,” he says. “We’re still learning.”

“By and large I’m positive,” Topp tells McMaugh, saying the 8CPA “acknowledges that there was wrong done to pharmacies – that it was going to pull money out of dispensing” and notes the series of offsets and/or replacements in the income formula.

Topp looks at 8CPA potential winners and losers, what he guessed correctly about it – and his  predictions for monies not yet allocated and the CSO agreement.

“My crystal ball’s been quite defunct over the last couple of years!” Topp admits.

The pair also discuss why pharmacy isn’t we out of the woods yet when it comes to recovery from 60-day dispensing – as well as how scope of practice will change how pharmacists work, and how owners manage resources.

Highlights:

0.44 – What are your views on 8CPA and how it looks?

2.20 – Winners and losers under the 8CPA

3.59 – Did the 8CPA meet industry expectations?

6.27 – Thoughts on the new Strategic Agreement with the PSA

7.44 – Feedback from other pharmacists about the Agreements

10.30 – Moving towards a more ideal pharmacy world

12.34 – Investing in resources to provide scope of practice

13.50 – Are the Agreements and Budget aligned?

15.25 – Are adjustments for 60-day dispensing made by pharmacies likely to stay?

17.02 – Thoughts on the CSO Agreement

18.54 – Did the shortages predicted with 60-day dispensing eventuate?

20.32 – The remote pharmacy maintenance and transition allowances

22.35 – Changes to opioid replacement therapy funding and NIPVIP

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In this special episode of the AJP podcast, Dr Fei Sim, national president of the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia (PSA) speaks to Carlene McMaugh about a radical change for pharmacy – the first strategic agreement between the federal government and PSA to oversee pharmacy professional practice programs and structures.

Signed concurrently to, and in association with, the Eighth Community Pharmacy Agreement (8CPA), this new strategic agreement will see PSA oversee the operation of programs such as Home Medicine Reviews (HMR), Residential Medication Management Reviews (RMMR), Quality Use of Medicines (QUM) and workforce programs that were covered by previous CPA iterations.

PSA will also assume a role in other non-CPA programs such as the National Immunisation Program Vaccinations in Pharmacy (NIPVIP) and the pending Aged Care On-site Pharmacist (ACOP) program.

Among the topics covered are:

(2 mins 45): The reassurance offered by the new 8CPA, what this includes, and what it means for community pharmacy

(8:40): The new PSA/government strategic agreement – what this means for pharmacy professional practice   

(12:20): The components of the strategic agreement and how it will underpin professional standards and guidelines

(17:00): 7CPA programs and other programs to be included under the strategic agreement framework

(19:40): Providing reassurance to credentialied pharmacists

(24:30): The chance for professional equity, reducing intra-profession competition and securing additional funding for expanded practice

(26:40): Looking at the next steps, working through the plan. Also an upcoming PSA member exclusive webinar  

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Carlene McMaugh

“I love the hustle and bustle of it,” DeMaria says, telling host Carlene McMaugh about his work in pharmacy ownership, in bookkeeping – and after a major life event, in maintaining work-life balance.

He says that only a pharmacist can truly understand what it takes to run a pharmacy, given the number of directions they’re pulled in at any time – but points out that there is very little business acumen taught during pharmacy studies.

After years away from pharmacy ownership – following a heart attack which forced him to reevaluate some priorities – DeMaria is now on the hunt for a new store, saying he feels “very positive, I’m liking what I’m seeing” in the pharmacy landscape.

He also highlights the importance of returning the dispensary as the central focus of the pharmacy – and hopes the 8cpa will return confidence not just to buyers and sellers, but also lenders following the introduction of 60 day dispensing.

1.07 – What does pharmacy ownership look like for you at this stage?

2.23 – Thoughts on 8CPA and the pharmacy market

3.41 – What did bookkeeping expertise teach him, and tips for pharmacists listening

6.03 – How has 60-day dispensing affected the numbers of pharmacy

8.06 – How a significant health event has changed his perspectives

10.46 – The move into accounting

12.24 – A new role

13.39 – On being a pharmacy entrepreneur

16.05 – How could work-life balance ideally be kept?

19.25 – How to embrace yourself as a brand

21.38 – Differentiating yourself from the competition

24.23 – How to combat discounters

25.29 – Advice on adapting to a constantly evolving landscape – and doing it well

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In this episode of the AJP podcast, Dr Judith Singleton, from the School of Clinical Sciences, QUT, talks to host, Carlene McMaugh, about improving sustainability in the health care system and reducing the carbon footprint of health care.

Among the topics covered are:

• The huge footprint of pharmaceuticals on our environment, accounting for around 17-19% of health care’s total carbon footprint, with Australia ranking poorly in major international studies (01:10).
• What are the major reasons for the footprint being so large? How is the overall system failing? And what can we do to improve distribution systems and reduce waste? (04:30)
• What can pharmacies do to improve their own footprint? (07:30)
• Educating patients and pharmacy staff on use of RUM (10:30)
• What pharmacists are doing wrong (13:00)
• Climate change and its impact on pharmacists and on patients (16:30)  
• Suggestions for changes that can impact the environment, including questioning manufacturers about disposal of blister strips and looking at your own footprint (20:20)
• Key messages and recommendations (27:30)

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

In the latest edition of the AJP podcast, our host, Carlene McMaugh, speaks to Neville about the risks pharmacists face when dealing with medicinal cannabis.

The topics covered include:

• Risk areas for pharmacists dispensing medicinal cannabis products (1 min 40)
• The need to remind patients of THC driving laws (7:35)
• Storage requirements for medicinal cannabis products vary based on scheduling (8:51)
• Types of incidents related to medicinal cannabis being reported to PDL (10:17)
• Managing patient expectations around dispensing (12:36)
• Use of real-time prescription monitoring to reduce risks (16:10)
• Accessing support for counselling patients (18:48)
• Engage with patients about their use of medicinal cannabis and check how their treatment is progressing (20:15)
• Source information from trusted evidence-based resources (22:20)
• Pharmacists need to be aware that the medicinal cannabis space is rapidly evolving and education about products is “not set and forget” (27;56)
• Drug to drug interactions (31:20)
• Contraindications associated with medicinal cannabis (31:56)

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

In the latest edition of the AJP podcast, our host, Carlene McMaugh, speaks to Abraham, about the opportunities that exist for pharmacists to educate and support Indigenous patients to self-manage conditions, including diabetes.

The topics covered include:

• Improving medication management (2 min 00)
• Optimising the role of pharmacists in diabetes management (2:45)
• Legislation is limiting pharmacists’ scope of practice  (3:29)
• Pharmacists can help educate Indigenous communities that diabetes is preventable (6:40)
• Access to medication remains a problem for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people (8:56)
• Pharmacists need to deliver culturally safe care (9:20)
• Inconsistencies in rules around Closing the Gap (CtG) prescriptions (15:45)
• Abraham’s 8CPA wishlist (17:45)
• Pharmacists are limited by not having access to the MBS (23:50)
• Indigenous health providers would hire pharmacists if funding was available (26:13)

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

Blake Hedley, who works at Hedley Partners with his father Paul – and between the two, they have around 60 years’ worth of advisory experience to pharmacists – talks about the challenges facing pharmacists, particularly young pharmacists, and tips on pharmacy ownership.

Challenges include a lack of supply thanks to caps on licences – “it’s like there’s only 6,500 houses in the whole of Australia!” – and how banks will only lend on valuation, when there may be other factors attracting pharmacists to own a particular store.

“It makes it very hard for younger people,” Hedley says. “It’s definitely a lot easier for the older pharmacists.”

Early career pharmacists are also affected by “downward pressure on their wages” with a fairly large HECS debt, particularly given its indexing; and “limitations in and around ownership opportunities” for those who want to go down that path.

We find out what makes a successful pharmacy owner – and how despite a nervousness about 60-day dispensing, the sector is likely to bounce back.

“Pharmacists used to put millions of dollars putting photo dispensing in their shops,” Hedley says. “Digital cameras came in and all that went away.”

Pharmacy services including vaccination and supply of vapes could help fill income gaps created by 60-day dispensing, Hedley says – just as other offers filled the gaps left by analogue photography.

“There’s always something around the corner for pharmacy.”

1.33 – Challenges for the reality of working in the industry for those who have newly qualified

3.59 – What’s been motivating pharmacists to buy pharmacies lately?

8.07 – Has bank lending criteria changed, with 60-day dispensing and other elements of change?

14.51 – As pharmacists can exclusively own pharmacies, what does that mean for tax and borrowing power?

16.27 – All about buying groups

18.33 – How many pharmacy transactions can happen in a year (and how did Covid change this)?

23.30 – The impacts of 60-day dispensing, and positive changes in its wake

27.04 – Which pharmacy owners fail, and which succeed?

31.54 – All about trading pharmacies

37.33 – Where to start when looking to buy a pharmacy

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

Echuca pharmacist in charge Shonae Zeman, who’s doing locum work after a year outside pharmacy, talks with the AJP Podcast’s host Carlene McMaugh about the key role of rural and regional pharmacies, and the risk of closure.

Zeman explains how rural pharmacy is adapting to manage the challenge of 60-day dispensing, with discussions of “Things like fee for service…price increases across the shop lines, reducing hours of opening of the pharmacy, reducing staff and also trying to monitor and minimise stock levels,” she says. “I think everyone’s a bit scared to pull the trigger and start increasing their prices.”

It’ll likely ramp up over the next “few waves” of medicines added to the list for 60-day dispensing, she says – and as negotiations for the 8CPA continue.

She’s concerned that pharmacists “don’t really know the narrative” and are left in “limbo” as they don’t know what’s happening – and it could be anything.

“If we do rely on all this government funding, and we get to the point where that is only really what’s keeping us afloat then if it’s pulled at any time, then how are businesses going to cope with that?

“Especially in rural pharmacy – the pharmacist is the main hub of the community, it’s people’s social outing for the day.

“The main concern for me is that pharmacies are going to struggle to stay open and be able to offer those services that we’ve been able to do so far.”

She said the biggest problem for rural communities is retaining staff – so she’s hopeful for incentives such as funding in the 8CPA to attract interns and other pharmacists.

There’s also the issue that “stock shortages are massive” and the time sink this represents – and the doctor shortage – “overwhelming” in Zeman’s words – is forcing pressure back onto pharmacists.

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

In the latest edition of the AJP podcast, our host, Carlene McMaugh, speaks to Page about the expansion of pharmacists’ scope of practice in Victoria and around the country.

The topics covered include:

• PSA’s new travel health training module (1 min 53)
• Preparing pharmacies to ensure they have consultation rooms and relevant facilities for the provision of new services as part of trials (5.15)
• Community awareness of new pharmacy services (6.00)
• Integrating new services into community pharmacy (13.42)
• What happens after the pilot (16.43)
• Workflow models need to evolve to enable pharmacists to provide more clinical services (18.50)
• The need for harmonisation of pharmacists’ scope of practice (24.42)

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

CAPS representatives will attend the Dunkley (Victoria) by-election this weekend (2 March) to lobby against a Labor vote in protest against 60-day dispensing – and Victorian pharmacists are “very keen to assist,” says CAPS spokesperson Peppe Raso.

Raso explains why the group’s focus is now away from rallies – despite the “really good response” from the events in Sydney and Canberra in 2023 – and towards an “education opportunity for those who are undecided in that electorate”.

Raso and fellow CAPS spokesperson Christine Kelly tell AJP Podcast host Carlene McMaugh that this voter influencing campaign is here to stay.

“The Labor government is adamant on making us a third world country at the moment, and that’s not what we’re wanting,” said Kelly.

“This Dunkley by-election is really the first time any health care profession has come together united to show what we can do.

“And this is how we are going to apply the pressure – because this government doesn’t want to listen to us, they don’t want to consult with us, they don’t care if we’re kicking or screaming, but they will care if they lose their set.

“And unfortunately the only way that we’re going to be able to do this is to actually show up with the truth…and make their voters realise that voting for Labor means that health care in Australian will be ruined, broken, torn apart.

“Not only are we going to be at Dunkley, we’re going to be at the Cook (NSW) by-election to show and tell people not to vote for Labor either, and we’re going to be at every by-election, or election – it doesn’t matter whether it’s state or federal.

“We’re going to be there until we get an 8CPA that ensures that community pharmacy stays viable and ensures that we can stay open.”

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

As the countdown nears for the graduation of the UKs first cohort of students to come out as independent pharmacy prescribers, a leader of the profession joins our podcast to talk about the ‘paradigm shift’ this represents to scope of practice.

Minesh Parbat is currently Chief Pharmacist of an integrated care system in the English midwest. He is also a independent prescribing pharmacist.

He talks to our podcast host, Carlene McMaugh, about the latest developments in UK pharmacy (at 4:30), including the development of independent prescribing and related legislative changes that allowed pharmacists to undergo further training to take on broader scope of practice roles.

Parbat also talks about the related growth of pharmacists working in broader healthcare teams and in additional locations of practice.

Other items under discussion include the growth of digital health and telehealth, and how we build competencies and confidence of the pharmacy workforce in these areas. 

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

In the latest edition of the AJP podcast, our host, Carlene McMaugh, speaks to FIP president Paul Sinclair about the 

The topics covered include:

• What are some of the important new issues and developments FIP sees as impacting pharmacy practice (3 min 15)
• Challenges to Australian community pharmacy, such as double dispensing (6:15)
• FIPs key objectives for 2024 (9:00)
• His thoughts on become the first-ever Australian to head FIP, and his career with FIP (12:45)
• Some of the changes he sees happening in pharmacy (18:30)
• How pharmacists can become involved with FIP (25:00) 

AJP editor Chris Brooker recently spoke to Paul Sinclair. Go here to see the article 

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

Brooker talks to Carlene McMaugh about the top stories from last year, including “the unicorn of 2023” – double dispensing – and the way it came as a shock to the profession.

“Most people were incredibly concerned about the impact of 60-day dispensing,” he says, saying that as a result, feedback to the AJP included “a lot more concern than we get most years. Probably even getting to the stage of fear. Fear over the future, fear over job security, fear over financial security and I think, fear over the future of pharmacy in general”.

Also coming to the fore last year were issues of funding, particularly that affecting the livelihood of consultant pharmacists working in aged care.

Brooker says our top two stories both covered specific medicines, and chats about his predictions for 2024, including the importance of the 8CPA and potential consequences of the Chemist Warehouse-Sigma merger.

And he also has some sentiments to share for members of the profession – and an invitation to tell us your stories.

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

“I really think that when we look back in history, 2023 is a year that I would describe as a ‘monumental year’,” says Dr Fei Sim, national president of the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia.

“There have been a lot of conversations about funding, about 60-day dispensing, about anxiety levels for pharmacists – but why I say it’s monumental is because it’s actually more complex than that.

“If we look back, 2023 was really a year where we saw, and we are about to continue to see, fundamental change in the role, in the scope of pharmacists, and the expectations of pharmacists.”

She lists the issues that arose in 2023, from new professional practice standards to changes to opioid dependence therapy, to change for pharmacists working on-site in residential aged care.

“It was probably the only time in the history of pharmacy where we saw significant policy and health system changes, or policy proposals, that affect every single component of our profession.”

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

In the latest AJP podcast, Steve Morris, CEO of the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia talks to our host, Carlene McMaugh, about quality use of medicines: what it means, why its misunderstood, and what role pharmacists can, and should, play.

Among the topics discussed are:

• The current state of Quality use of medicines in Australia, and the lack of a national overview of the state of play (2:16)
• The low level of health literacy in the community, and steps pharmacists can take to help improve, or overcome this (4:20)
•  Changes to the quality use of medicines landscape, including the revised National Medicines Policy (5:30)  
• The crucial role of pharmacists (6:55)
• The impact of the recent pharmacists in aged care policy announcements (9:15)
• New QUM initiatives where PSA will play a role (11:15)
• Predictions for pharmacy in 2024, and where he sees pharmacies QUM role going in the future (13:15) 

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

Senior professional officer at PDL Gary West says that pharmacists have shown significant interest over 2023 in deferring and declining supply, which he says is partly related to the 60-day dispensing issue.

“We’re experiencing a number of calls from employee pharmacists particularly who are finding it very challenging to decide what their obligations and responsibilities were in regards to assessing a 60 day prescription for its validity,” he says.

There’s also been high interest in incident reporting and professional boundaries. “I think sometimes pharmacists don’t think about that process of documenting incidents or other interactions that could go pear-shaped,” he says.

West encouraged pharmacists to brush up on their obligations in regards to professional boundaries.

“Particularly this time of year, even though it’s important all year round we are seeing an increase, a little bit, in regards to professional boundary complaints, where allegations are being made against pharmacists breaching those expectations – and it’s not just sexual harassment, though that is certainly one of the topics, but things like bullying, discrimination, other activities that are considered to be a breach of boundaries.”

Pharmacists also had to ask questions about the changes to opioid replacement therapy – where the implementation was “a nightmare,” West said, despite the importance of the changes – as well as a range of hiccups with e-prescribing.

PDL is currently helping its members with clarification on Covid vaccines – particularly regarding conflicting advice and the latest jab to hit community pharmacies – and 2023 has also seen growth in inquiries about dispensing medicinal cannabis.

“It’s area where there’s lots of activity,” says West. “The volumes are increasingly significantly, there’s a lot of challenges associated with things like online prescribers, telehealth prescribers, vertical integration between prescribers, suppliers and dispensers, in some cases, and there’s obviously a lot of regulation around it.”

He also has some advice for pharmacists in 2024 and into the future…and how pharmacists can be prepared for the changes, risks and opportunities they are likely to face.

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

Earlier this year, SHPA launched the new Australian and New Zealand College of Advanced Pharmacy (ANZCAP), a body designed to offer recognition to the myriad of specialist areas of practice within pharmacy. 

Tom Simpson, SHPA national president, talks to our podcast host Carlene McMaugh about the motives behind the college, which he says has already attracted over 500 applications, and where he sees the initiative taking the profession.

Among the topics discussed are: 

• Which pathways does the college recognise, and how do pharmacists identify which pathways they should be applying for recognition in? (5:30)
• Some of the common questions about the registration process, and about ANZCAP (9:00)
• What’s next for SHPA, and for ANZCAP? (12:10)
• Can all pharmacists apply for recognition? (14:30)   

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

SHPA national president Tom Simpson joins our podcast to discuss what he describes as “one of the loudest, most interesting years in pharmacy for a long time”.

Covering some of the key developments – the launch of ANZCAP, the growth of collaborative prescribing, residency changes, and changes to, and further discussions around, advancing the scope of practice – 2023 has been a very interesting time to be in pharmacy, Simpson says. 

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

In this podcast, Carlene McMaugh speaks to Topp about the impacts the government’s 60-day dispensing policy is having on community pharmacies, and what the profession needs from the Eighth Community Pharmacy Agreement (8CPA). 

Among the topics covered are the high rate of “inaccurate, incomplete or incorrect” 60-day prescriptions pharmacists are being presented (2 minutes: 12), and the need for dispensing to be appropriately funded through the 8CPA (15:27).  

(3:33) Pharmacies are seeing “an enormous amount of waste” created 60-day scripts being issued to patients commencing a new treatment.  

(4:00) Government advertising 60-day dispensing as two-for-one, has resulted in pharmacy staff being confronted by angry patients whose medications are not eligible.  

(7:45) Pharmacists considering shedding staff need to consult widely before making redundancies. 

(9:01) Introducing or increasing fees for services should not be a big step for pharmacy owners, because “doing stuff for free in the hope that you’re going to get more prescriptions is not really a great business model for pharmacy”. 

(14:05) Time is running out for thinking about how pharmacists can deal with the impacts of 60-day dispensing because they are starting to hit stores now. 

(14:52) 8CPA is unlikely to deliver a massive increase in PBS funding for community pharmacies, but adequately remunerating pharmacies for dispensing will be critical to supporting other services. 

(17:47) The new national opioid dependence treatment program needs an injection of cash to support pharmacies to deliver the service to vulnerable patients.  

(19:15) Same job, same pay – $19 for administering National Immunisation Program vaccines fails to remunerate pharmacists for assessing patients’ suitability for jabs. 

(21:41) Medicine shortages are not being helped by the introduction of 60-day dispensing.  

(23:34) Details of the 8CPA need to be largely in place by Christmas, if it is to be ready by the 1 March 2024 deadline.  

(24:10) The 8CPA is unlikely to be a panacea for all that ails community pharmacies, and proprietors need to make tough decisions to protect the viability of their businesses.  

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

In this podcast, Carlene McMaugh speaks to Ogundipe about early career pharmacists’ (ECPs) views on the issues impacting the profession and its future. 

Among the topics covered are the need for ECPs’s “perspectives, ideas and opinions” to be taken into consideration when it comes to discussions about the expansion of the profession’s scope of practice (11 min: 51) and the need for the sector to remain “viable and sustainable” (3:12). 

(3:38) Making sure that the value and services pharmacists provide to consumers is being met with meaningful reinvestment and remuneration. 

(4:36) ECPs share the concerns of more experienced peers around the impacts of the government’s 60-day dispensing policy. 

(6:14) Appetite for ownership remains strong among young pharmacists.  

(8:39) Despite the ongoing uncertainty in the community pharmacy sector “there are a lot of exciting things to look forward to” for ECPs, as the profession moves towards working to it full scope of practice.  

(12:44) Peer-to-peer support and mentoring is a key for supporting newly registered pharmacists. 

(14:45) Technology is providing ECPs with opportunities to supplement and augment the way pharmacists deliver health services.  

(17:34) ECPs are interested in how they can upskill and develop into new areas of practice and more clinical roles.   

(18:42) Out of discussions for the Eighth Community Pharmacy Agreement, “there needs to be a sense of certainty that the work that is done in a community pharmacy or in primary care is going to be supported through remuneration”. 

(22:32) ECPs need to engage in the profession and participate in discussions to ensure that their voices are heard.  

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

In this podcast, Carlene McMaugh speaks to Christine Kelly and Emil Demyane from the Community and Pharmacy Support Group (CAPS) about the organisation’s ongoing campaign against the federal government’s 60-day dispensing policy.

Among the issues covered are the lack of understanding of what medications are available under the policy (9 min: 35) and growing tensions between patients, GPs and pharmacists (11:15). 

(0:57) CAPS Canberra rally. 

(3:36) Unfavourable coverage of CAPS supporters at Parliament House “put the issue on the top of the news”.

(5:40) Transition to 60-day dispensing has been difficult for pharmacists.

(6:22) Government messaging is causing confusion and uncertainty for patients and health workers.

(12:15) Medication wastage is on the rise with patients who are not stable on their medication receiving 60-day scripts only to have treatment changed.

(19.12) CAPS’s Eighth Community Pharmacy Agreement goals. 

(21.15) Profession is united and ready to “reactivate” to ensure the viability of community pharmacy

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

Yvette Anderson, clinical accredited pharmacist in Bendigo, talks to the AJP Podcast’s Carlene McMaugh about her lived and professional experience with neurodivergence, non-traditional pharmacist roles and imposter syndrome.

The hospital pharmacist , who has also worked in the community, aged care and consultancy sectors, is the creator of The Spectrum Pharmacist and was the winner of the PSA’s 2022 Shark Tank contest for her work on her “passion project,” The Spectrum Pharmacist’s Neurodiverse Squad, as well as Victorian Pharmacist of the Year that year.

“I have three sons, my eldest and youngest are both on the spectrum,” she tells McMaugh, explaining how she has found there was a lot of information – not always factual – out there for patients and their loved ones about neurodivergence.

“I was getting more and more questions about medications and what other evidence-based practices to use,” she said, perhaps because she and her family were open about her children’s diagnoses.

And she has some advice for pharmacists who are keen to find their own niche and branch out beyond traditional roles.

“I don’t think at the moment in a traditional sense pharmacists are utilising all the skills that we have, whether you’re in community or aged care or hospital, we’ve got so much more to give as part of that really important member of that health care team,” she says, saying this became obvious when talking to neurodiverse squad members who had asked where pharmacists sat in multidisciplinary teams.

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

In this edition of the AJP podcast, our host, Carlene McMaugh, speaks to Angus Thompson, a Tasmanian accredited pharmacist and academic.

Key topics are the debate over the funding of Home Medicine Reviews (HMRs) and how this will fit into the Eighth Community Pharmacy Agreement.   

Topics covered include:

• GPs preference to refer to individual accredited pharmacists rather than via a pharmacy
• Why the initial cap of 20 reviews per accredited pharmacist per month was bad for patients
• The importance of the two paid follow-up reviews per patients, and how to approach these (05:00 minutes)
• The impact of the introduction, and cessation, of telehealth HMRs (8:45)
• What is the best possible outcome from an accredited pharmacy point of view from the 8CPA? Is there a lack of a dedicated voice representing this area at the negotiations? (10:50)  
• Why providing in-home clinical medication reviews is the ultimate definition of pharmacists practising to full scope (13:20)
• The barrier of travel costs, and the need for ensured viability (14:00)
• The petition for continued HMR funding (16:20)
• Why are there caps on HMRs, and why this needs to be challenged (21:00)
• Why do consultant pharmacists always have to prove they offer ‘value for money’ when no other speciality does? (24:00)
• Views on accredited pharmacists in other settings (aged care, GP practice etc) (27:45)  

Angus Thompson is a consulting clinical pharmacist, a lecturer in Therapeutics and Pharmacy Practice at the University of Tasmania and a pharmacist clinical editor for Primary Health Tasmania

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

Sarah Lord and Sione Crawford of Harm Reduction Victoria discuss the change to ODT funding, which Lord describes as “really monumental”.

But “one of the issues was that no one really knew that this was happening,” she says. “I personally felt we had not all that much notice, and I think pharmacists in particular have reported to me that there was very little if any consultation, they didn’t feel that they were consulted around these reforms, what they were going to look like, how they were going to work.”

Some pharmacies had not realised that they were not able to increase the price of doses beyond $7.30 for 28 days’ dosing for people with health care cards, while prescribers had to get used to a new way to get scripts, she tells McMaugh – while people not eligible for Medicare cards are still facing “phenomenal” increases in fees.

However only around 12 pharmacies around the state said they would close their program, and only about seven did so, saying generally pharmacy has responded well.

She does warn that the changes could be “going to hit pharmacies quite hard on their bottom line” as they came in alongside 60-day dispensing.

Crawford said he had received feedback from his pharmacy that was really positive, despite “disbelief” at the implementation and planning process.

And he also has suggestions for pharmacists to help make the process more manageable.

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

In the latest AJP podcast, PSA national president, Dr Fei Sim, talks to Carlene McMaugh about how she perceives the immediate future direction for community pharmacy. 

With the community pharmacy sector having spent four months in the “60 day dispensing policy vortex”, Dr Sim talks about why we now should “take a step back” to consider the ramifications of the policy, and what it means for the future direction of pharmacy.

She says there is already an “inevitable” shift in the focus of community pharmacy from dispensing toward cognitive professional services, and this needs to be supported by “meaningful reimbursement” to ensure its viability.

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

In this podcast, Carlene McMaugh speaks to the NSW government’s clinical pharmacy trials chief investigator, Dr Sarah Dineen-Griffin about what expanding pharmacists’ scope of practice will entail. 

Among the topics covered are: (2 min:30) common changes pharmacists across the country can expect to see in scope of practice trials. 

(1:15) International trends around new roles for pharmacists.

(12:45) The need to address the fragmentation of healthcare through improved communication between pharmacists and other healthcare practitioners. 

(17:20) Funding for pharmacist prescribing through state and territory pilots, and the importance of boosting remuneration through the Eighth Community Pharmacy Agreement.

(19:15) As a clinical trial the expansion of pharmacists’ scope of practice in NSW will generate an evidence base to support the profession in taking on new roles. 

(28.10) Maximising pharmacists’ impact on minor ailments.

In this podcast, our host, Carlene McMaugh, speaks to award-winning consultant pharmacist Deborah Hawthorne, about the beginning of the embedded aged care pharmacy role.

Saying she’s “excited about the role”, Hawthorne says there will be “lots of confusion and lots of need for support” during the transition period while the role is in its infancy. 

She does welcome the enthusiasm she sees in the profession to undertake aged care pharmacy roles, but says there will be a need for lots of support and education for what she sees as a “wave of fresh faces” joining the accredited pharmacy community.

Among the topics covered are: 

• The implications of the most recent government announcements about how these roles will be funded
• The need for training and mentorship arrangements, and support systems to ensure the success of the role
• Will there be enough trained pharmacists willing to undertake the role? 
• The need for flexibility around whether these placements are arranged through a single provider or through a community pharmacy
• Will all community pharmacies have capacity to allow a staff member to be engaged in an aged care facility for one day per week? Will this possibly inhibit take up from pharmacies?   
• The lack of consultation with pharmacy by government and bureaucracy  

Go here to listen to Deborah’s thoughts on expanding and strengthening the GP pharmacist role. We also recently profiled Deborah, and this will appear in the October print edition of AJP, and subsequently in our digital offerings.  

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

Sydney community pharmacists Christine Kelly and Emil Demyane speak with AJP Podcast host Carlene McMaugh about how the Community and Pharmacists Support Group plans to fight the controversial policy – and why.

“We’re just a bunch of independent pharmacists” who are “really passionate about the future for all of our young pharmacists as well,” says Kelly.

“Our goal is to apply pressure onto the government to actually listen to our profession, to take a pause on the 60-day policy…and to consult with us as well,” says Kelly.

“There’s a lot riding on this and the way it’s rolled out,” says Demyane, saying that it needs to be rolled out so that “no Australian is worse off,” including pharmacists.

He said that third-year pharmacy students are already asking, “Are we going to have an internship? How am I going to get an internship if there are no spots in a community pharmacy?”

And what will happen if the policy begins as expected in just a day or two?

“We’re going to protest in every single state,” says Kelly. “Until they listen to us!”

Pharmacists put in an enormous amount of effort to help the community during the Covid pandemic, she says.

“We’re not going to stop the fight.

“Because it’s not fair. And we are the voters. Our customers are voters as well. And they owe it to us to listen to us. And that involves consulting as well.”

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 talks with rural Victorian pharmacist and wearer of “many hats” Debbie Hawthorne, who works in a GP clinic as well as in research, with her local PHN, in telehealth, clinical consulting and several other roles.

Hawthorne was also named PSA Consultant Pharmacist of the Year in May, and has gained reknown for her tireless work reaching out to the profession via social media.

In this episode, she talks to AJP podcast host Carlene McMaugh about her work as a GP pharmacist – beginning just before the pandemic struck – and the learning curve she climbed, beginning with her work in opioid stewardship.

“We have a lot of things against us, as pharmacists in GP clinics,” Hawthorne says, explaining why she has focused on making her job sustainable and generating income.

“We can’t claim on the MBS; I can help collect data and help others claim on the MBS.”

Pharmacists are the best people to recognise who needs a home medication review, Hawthorne says, saying that she has the privilege of seeing a “wonderful cycle of care,” identifying patients who could use a review, talking to GPs about it, doing a review in their home, and then performing follow-up.

It’s a great way to develop relationships, she says – something she loved in community pharmacy, and now enjoys as a GP pharmacist, as well as how this meant she was able to help one patient whose pain wasn’t being controlled.

She also talks about the steps pharmacists can take if they’re keen to investigate a role in GP pharmacy – a question she says she’s asked on a weekly basis.

“The more GP pharmacists there are, the stronger the role will be and the more accepted it will be as part of normal practice.”

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

Victorian branch manager for the Pharmaceutical Society, and its subject expert on harm reduction and opioid dependence therapy, Jarrod McMaugh speaks to AJP Podcast host Carlene McMaugh about in ODT aimed at reducing cost barriers for patients.

Jarrod takes us through the changes to opioid dependence therapy which came in on July 1, with methadone liquid, Suboxone films, Subutex tablets and the LAIB buprenorphine now Section 100 community access medications, and subsidised under the PBS.

He explains changes to the existing staged supply funding arrangements through the Pharmacy Programs Administrator.

“As a cost barrier, it’s significantly better for clients now,” he says.

But it means changes for pharmacy, and Jarrod explains how these will work, using examples.

“The timeline of when pharmacists, the pharmaceutical industry, wholesalers, software vendors and doctors… when they became aware that these changes were on their way was much less time than the government themselves were aware of it.

“They started implementing the changes significantly longer in time before we all found out.

“It’s one thing to say we need to remove this as a cost barrier, because that clearly is the most important outcome that has come from this…but we also have to be recognising the fact that pharmacies, and doctors, have to make this program work and that means we have to make sure that the new way of doing things will actually work.”

Jarrod outlines the discussions PSA had with the Commonwealth to ensure it would work – including what happens when a pharmacy pays for a quantity to be provided, but then dispensing it becomes no longer appropriate – and other challenges for pharmacies such as now being paid in arrears.

He also notes that as with Medicare, when there’s Government funding “you are looking at in real terms a reduction in the value of that payment over time”.

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 speak to Fei Sim about some of the more recent developments in the pharmacy policy agenda.

Among the topics covered are: 

• The latest developments in the 60-day dispensing saga
• Reaction to the Office of Impact Assessment report (2 min 30)
• Initial thoughts on the introduction of the Opioid Dependence Therapy (ODT) program (6:20) 
• Release of the first tranche of 60 day dispensing medicines (13:45)
• The opportunity presented by a mooted scope of practice review (18:40)
• Medicines safety (22:30)
• Areas for ‘meaningful reinvestment’ (25:30)
• Advice to prepare for the changes (31:00)

Click here to listen to Carlene’s earlier chat with Dr Sim, published in early May

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

In this podcast, Carlene McMaugh speaks to regular AJP contributor Angelo Pricolo about his varied career , including his pioneering and leading role in addiction medicine, as well as his time with the Pharmacy Guild and his current work in youth mental health.

Among the topics covered are: (1 min:30) Angelo’s views on the increasing inequality in access to, and quality of, addiction medicine services. 

(3:40) Understanding addiction, and how to treat it. Understanding that it is a ‘chronic relapsing disease’, it is not a moral failure, it is a medical condition.

(7:30) The role of naloxone and other opioid treatments 

(9:50) Why the ‘War on Drugs’ is a failure and a concept we need to move away from if we are to understand and better treat addiction

(11:00) What the Purdue Pharma case reveals about the US system, and why it caused so much harm in treating addiction 

(14:30) The importance of naloxone supply through community pharmacy

(16:30) Angelo’s work with a GP clinic administering long-acting injectable buprenorphine 

(20:50) His thoughts on the methadone program and where it should go next

(25:30) Angelo’s work with the Pharmacy Guild, and his views on the push for pharmacist prescribing

(28:50) His current role working in youth mental health support

To see more on the topics of harm minimisation and addiction medicine from Angelo Pricolo, go here and here

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

Morwell, Victoria pharmacy owner Sam Armstrong talks to AJP Podcast host Carlene McMaugh about how changes to opioid dependence therapy went into action on 1 July – starting with how the software his two pharmacies use had a “database error” and wasn’t operational.

“To their credit, they fixed it quickly,” Armstrong says, but the episode highlights just how “rushed” the implementation of ODT changes have been.

“We’re still coming up, finding scenarios where we just haven’t been told how to work, or how to process or proceed,” he says, saying that overall, “the rollout’s been pretty poor”.

He says that “we still don’t know everything” about issues such as how to claim payment, and outlines some experiences other pharmacists have told him about – and how challenging they have been for both pharmacists and patients.

Armstrong also places the ODT changes in the context of wider sector challenges like 60-day dispensing – and the lack of confidence pharmacists now have in the federal Department of Health and Ageing.

“A lot of us are feeling very hurt in the way that we were there during Covid, stayed open, worked through…and then to have this done to us,” he says.

The rushed implementation of the ODT program, with potential harms for patients as some pharmacies stop a program which he calls very rewarding, is just another nail in pharmacy’s coffin, Armstrong tells McMaugh.

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Guild Victorian branch president Anthony Tassone speaks to AJP Podcast host Carlene McMaugh about the latest developments in 60-day dispensing – including the announcement of the first tranche of medicines to be affected by the policy.

“It’s extraordinary that the Federal Government would register the first 92 medicines in the tranche that commences from September the first without actually notifying the wholesalers first,” Tassone says.

Tassone discusses the recent Ergas report on the impact of 60-day dispensing on the community pharmacy sector – and the wider community – which he describes as a “real wakeup call” for the Government if the policy proceeds as announced, without further consultation and review.

He takes a look at the purported reinvestment into community pharmacy, calling it a “furphy” and taking a particular focus on opioid dependence therapy, which he says will have potentially “horrific” consequences for patients.

And what about an early 8CPA? Tassone says a new funding agreement is needed – including whether an 8CPA could be brought forward to coincide with the beginning of 60-day dispensing.

“There’s still the opportunity for the Labor Government to abide by their previous undertakings to the Guild and the community pharmacy profession,” he tells McMaugh, noting previous Labor commitments to working with the Guild on reducing the price of medicines to patients without impacting the viability of the sector.

“They still have the opportunity to do that, but it has to come with a new funding agreement.”

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

Taren Gill, who owns a pharmacy in Victoria’s western region – in the state’s lowest socioeconomic shire – talks to AJP Podcast host Carlene McMaugh about the host of new changes about to impact the pharmacy sector and its patients…and her frustration with the Government’s lack of engagement on the changes.

It’s this lack of consultation with pharmacy about so many of the impending changes which frustrate her, she says, saying that 60-day dispensing is a “logistical, rostering, recruitment and operational nightmare” – probably for all pharmacists, but particularly those practising in regional and rural areas.

“I think it’s actually a catastrophe to give, particularly in my town, people with low health literacy, 60 days’ worth of medicine,” Gill tells McMaugh.

“In a time when we’re not trusted to give out paracetamol,” or “almost harassing questioning of S3 Panadol Osteo,” pharmacists can now give out two months’ worth of a medicine which could have fatal results if taken inappropriately.”

And she critiques the money that is supposedly being reinvested into the sector – saying that as it stands, despite her pharmacy’s ranking on the Modified Monash Model scale, it will not be eligible for the increase in the rural maintenance allowance.

But alongside the other things that have not been communicated to pharmacies is the fact that this could change as 60-day dispensing reduces her script volumes.

As for opioid dependence therapy, “It’s so poorly thought out by the Government.”

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

He’s confident that in the long term, 60-day dispensing will not be catastrophic, but potentially result in a “positive outcome” for the community pharmacy network and patients.

But Bonner said that with only two and a half months to go until the first tranche of medicines become subject to double dispensing, now is the time for aged care facilities and pharmacists to ascertain who may benefit from it – which, when it comes to nursing home residents, will be a small minority – and whether 60-day dispensing is right for them.

Teething problems will include how facilities, particularly in rural and regional areas, will manage fallout from the community sector – particularly given changes to the residential onsite pharmacist initiative.

“The onsite pharmacist funding redirection of that $350m to the community pharmacy network did come as a very disappointing announcement for the care providers – they were looking forward to having that funding, to be able to have the autonomy over the services they receive and the pharmacists they engage,” Bonner said.

“They’re now very concerned, and getting communication from their supply pharmacies around the impact that the 60-day dispensing will have on their service.”

With 70% of aged care providers operating at a loss, they won’t have the capacity to absorb the extra financial load if they are charged more for services such as dose administration aid packing, Bonner warned.

And he says that for the community sector, “The best approach to get the Government and the stakeholders to listen at this point is focus more on the impact to the consumer and the patients, how this is going to affect them.”

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Speaking to Carlene McMaugh for the AJP Podcast, Topp said that the senior staff who run the Health Department, “Quite frankly…do not understand this at all”.

“It’s pretty gobsmacking, isn’t it, that this can be dreamed up as a concept – obviously, a long time ago, without us being aware of it – and then landed in pharmacy’s lap with literally a few weeks to work out how they’re going to handle the impacts,” Topp tells McMaugh in this discussion on double dispensing.

This goes “right down to the granular level,” he said, questioning how patients will access methadone, how extra services will be managed with fewer staff, how aged care changes will take place and how pharmacies can build infrastructure without a sufficient income stream.

Topp calls the impact analysis used to support the measure “embarrassing” and “was written to retrofit the policies”.

“We know there will be pharmacies that do not survive this.”

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From a potential reduction in employment opportunities, to having to manage the expectations (and misunderstandings) of the general public, pharmacists on the front line will have a lot to deal with, Dunkley tells AJP Podcast host Carlene McMaugh.

“We’re already seeing some impacts on frontline staff when members of the public have actually…incited others to complain to pharmacies and make a fuss, and tell them to take down the signage, and stop running the petitions, and things like that,” she said.

“We’re already seeing pharmacists and pharmacy staff who are going to work and receiving unpleasant behaviour and abuse from members of the public, because of the introduction of 60-day dispensing and the campaigns around that.”

Dunkley said she is “very concerned” for pharmacists’ wellbeing as a result of the move – and points out that a “wide range” of pharmacists had been in touch with the PSS, sparking a sudden rise in calls.

She discusses the problems patients may face as a result of double dispensing, including confusion as scripts run out over different times – and has advice for pharmacists who want to protect themselves and their staff.

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

Speaking with Carlene McMaugh, Tassone warned that community pharmacies were already planning to cut a range of services, to offset the forecast losses stemming from the controversial Budget measure.  

“There are pharmacies reviewing whether they can continue to service residential aged care facilities, based on what 60-day dispensing will represent from 1 September,” he said.  

“If there’s pharmacies potentially walking away from these contracts, or not sure whether they can continue them, or needing to review pricing – we have a perverse policy outcome where our older, most vulnerable, patients are actually worse off, in that they have less access to services from their local pharmacy. 

“They may need to pay more for their home deliveries, or Webster packing, or dose administration aid services, whilst not actually receiving a financial benefit in out-of-pocket expenses if they are still reaching the safety net.” 

Tassone said that the Guild had been in negotiations with the Department of Health and Aged Care for much of April about the government’s plan, but a scheduled meeting on 24 April had been cancelled, with the Minister for Health announcing the policy two days later.  

“The Guild remains committed to working with the government, that if they are insistent on taking forward 60-day dispensing as a measure for patients, that we sit down at the table and find a way forward that won’t leave patients worse off, and won’t leave pharmacies worse off,” he said.  

“But we need to sit down to discuss that further together, because at this stage, as announced, this measure will have dramatic negative impacts for patients and pharmacies.”  

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

What will be the day-to-day impacts of the government’s 60 day dispensing announcement? In this AJP Podcast, Carlene McMaugh talks to Victorian independent pharmacy owner Natalie Kopas about her thoughts around the decision and its impacts.

How will 60 day dispensing add to the pressures they are already experiencing at the coalface? What will be the impact on financial security, workloads, the services they can offer to patients? How will it impact medicine shortages?

Natalie Kopas

Go here for the full list of active AJP podcasts, including a recent series covering the 60-day dispensing issue. These can also be accessed via Apple Podcasts and Spotify

Carlene McMaugh, Podcast host

West says that while PDL does not take the representative stance of organisations like the Guild or PSA, it “obviously” has concerns about double dispensing, outlining two potential problems in detail.

He says there has been “huge demand and sometimes threats and aggression” from patients seeking elusive medicines such as Ozempic, and says 60-day dispensing could worsen shortages, meaning that some customers will be unhappy if a shortage affects their medicine’s availability.

When patients are unhappy with a pharmacy which has been unable to supply a drug, they may resort to making complaints with the regulator, with all the impacts this has on the pharmacist and their colleagues.

PDL is also worries about errors when larger quantities are being supplied – Australian pharmacists don’t make a lot of errors overall, but West says we’re all human and that when it happens, double dispensing could make matters worse.

“When there’s a larger quantity of an incorrect medicine being supplied, or some sort of other  error being made, perhaps with directions or labelling, there is obviously a greater risk of an adverse consequence for a patient.”

And how can pharmacy prepare for deal with the implementation of 60-day dispensing? West shares some useful advice.

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

In this podcast, advanced practice pharmacist Manya Angley discussed the federal government’s recent revelation that it plans to reverse previous funding proposals for the ‘Onsite Pharmacists in Aged Care Facilities’ program.

In what she says is a ‘sweetener’ to the community pharmacy sector, reeling after the announcing of 60-day dispensing, she says the government now plans to fund these pharmacists through the community sector.

“This does not meet the concerns flagged in the aged care royal commission and is not a role that aligns with what has proven to be effective in improving medication-related outcomes in resident safety in aged care,” she says.

“It’s devastating really.”

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

Carlene McMaugh

Sim tells McMaugh that when it comes to double dispensing “there was a lack of consultation with the profession” – specifically, the PSA, which was not consulted despite regular meetings with the Minister’s office. S

he outlines how the PSA has attempted to get more detail, but been met with little engagement from the Health Department.

Sim also outlines challenges for patients as well as pharmacists.

“First of all, it’s the issue around availability of medicines, because we all know that in Australia at the moment – this is a matter of fact – you only have to work one day in a pharmacy to know that medicine shortages is a real issue…

“There is also a concern here around medicines safety.”

Wastage will be a big concern, she says, citing as an example PBS dispensing data which says 6% of patients who initiate the use of SGLT2 to manage Type 2 diabetes don’t come back for a repeat of the medication, and of the rest, 40% did not collect their medicines within a 45-day period during the first year of treatment.

“What this is saying is that there will be costs to the health system resulting from medicine wastage.”

And Sim also tells us just why double dispensing is a key issue for women.

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

In this episode of the AJP podcast, Carlene McMaugh speaks with John Evans, general manager, pharmacy services, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania for ICON Group Pharmacy, part of ICON cancer care. He’s also the Victorian branch chair of the Society of Hospital Pharmacists of Australia.

In this podcast, John discusses burnout, the future of pharmacy technicians and how they can contribute to healthcare – as well as how hospital pharmacists have been promoting pharmacy services to political decision-makers.

John notes that a lot of people are stepping away from leadership positions in pharmacy, saying it’s harder now thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic – but that this needs to be addressed.

He also discusses the pharmacist shortage, and what factors are contributing to it, including the pandemic and its influence on pharmacists needing time for themselves.

He also has a lot of advice for pharmacists who are considering to move into the hospital sector… whether full-time, part-time or as a hybrid career with community pharmacy, with lots of options for different roles.

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

In this episode of the AJP podcast, Carlene McMaugh talks to Simon Bell, director of the Centre for Medicine Use and Safety at Monash University, Vic.

Among the topics Simon, a pharmacist and researcher, talks about are:

• The increased funding, interest and opportunities available for pharmacists wanting to work in aged care settings
• Optimising medication use and safety in older Australians
• Opportunities for PhD students after they’ve completed their studies
• the development of guidelines for the use of psychotropic medications in older people and on guiding principles for medication management in residential aged care 
• his own career in research
•  

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

Carlene McMaugh

In this episode of the AJP Podcast, Professor Suzanne Nielsen, pharmacist and head of the Addiction Research Centre at Monash Univeristy, speaks to Carlene McMaugh about her career in harm reduction medicine and research, and key issues around the topic.

Among the topics discussed are:

• Naloxone, and the role of pharmacists in its provision
• Her research into substance use disorders and harm reduction
• Drug testing
• Her insights around safe injecting rooms
• Successive interventions in harm reduction
• New psychoactive substances
• Confronting negative media perceptions

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

Carlene McMaugh

In this podcast, Carlene McMaugh talks to Richard Lim, owner of Lim’s Pharmacy in Springvale, Vic.

Richard set up the pharmacy in 1991 after previously working in hospital pharmacy. Since then he has combined what he says is an ongoing passion for clinical practice with community service, both as a health professional, a retail owner and through service on the local council and in various community groups.

Richard, who won the Order of Australia Medal in 2014, talks about coming to Australia, learning to speak English in a migrant hostel. Studying pharmacy in Australia, his hospital pharmacy years and his lifetime of ownership.

He also discusses his role as a councillor for the City of Greater Dandenong, his longstanding involvement with the Cambodian Youth Association, which he founded, and with other community support groups.

Richard says Australia is a ‘land of opportunity’ and he discusses how hard work, dedication and inspiration can drive community involvement and clinical and business success. 

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

Carlene McMaugh

Rodney Whyte has worked for more than 25 years as a senior pharmacist in charge of medicines information for Monash Health.

In our latest podcast Rodney talks to Carlene McMaugh about his experiences in the role. Among the topics he discusses are:

• How pharmacy’s medicines information role has been sidelined as other areas of practice have expanded
• The growth of telehealth
• The importance of collaborative work, and his experiences working with a wide range of primary healthcare providers
• Dealing with medicine information inquiries from the public
• The importance of having emotional intelligence
• The differences that can occur between clinical experience and product information  

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

Carlene McMaugh

In this podcast, Jenny talks about her career, the development and progress of consultant pharmacy work, the home medicine review program and other aspects of practice. 

Jenny Gowan

Jenny also discusses the importance of networking and presentation, how pharmacists can identify areas where they can expand their scope of practice to fill needs within the health system and expanding your role within the community. 

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

Carlene McMaugh

In our latest podcast, we hear from Professor Andrew McLachlan, Dean of Pharmacy at the University of Sydney, and Associate Professor Rebekah Moles, also of the University of Sydney.

The academics talk about the changing face of pharmacy education, the development of post-graduate courses (including Doctorates of Pharmacy) and how educational institutions coped with the impacts of the pandemic.

Professor McLachlan and A Prof Moles also talk about their views on the expansion of scope of practice for the profession, the growth of vaccination services in pharmacy and the potential for pharmacy prescribing.

They also discuss awareness around student mental health and the impacts of mental health issues when they occur, as well as how academic institutions can react.

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

Carlene McMaugh

In the latest AJP podcast, former NAPSA president Shefali Parekh speaks about her experiences in pharmacy to date.

An early career pharmacist working at the Austin, in the haematology and oncology departments, as well as part time at the Alfred Hospital, Shefali talks about her experiences and achievements to date, she also talks about how she strives for a work-life balance.

Shefali also talks about her involvement with professional organisations, being currently on the PSA early career pharmacist group, and other organisations.

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Carlene McMaugh

In this podcast, Carlene McMaugh talks to Catherine, a pharmacist and mother of two about her insights on women in the pharmacy workplace, the impact and reality of maternity leave, family, workplace support.

Catherine also describes the impact that parenthood can have on the careers of female pharmacists, and how important it is to have workplace and family support.

In addition, Catherine tells how a pharmacy can build trust in its workforce by making mothers to be feel respected and valued in the workplace, and encouraged to return.

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

Carlene McMaugh

Our host, Carlene McMaugh, talks to leading pharmacists about a diverse range of important pharmacy topics.

Among those we hear from are: 

• Anthony Tassone speaks about conflicts of interest, and how they don’t need to be exclusionary
• Chris Freeman discusses the importance of developing a collaborative model for pharmacist prescribing
• Lauren Burton explains how prescribing can be a polarising topic, but can also promote discussion around quality of care and scope of practice
• Ross Tsuyuki compares collaborative and independent prescribing models, as well as looking at conflicts of interest
• Chris Campbell and Catherine Duggan talk about emotional intelligence, taking on feedback and not expecting everyone to like you 

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

Carlene McMaugh

Our podcast host, Carlene McMaugh, speaks to a number of influential pharmacists about what the profession was like in the past, how they see its current shape and where they think it is heading.

Among those in the podcast are:

• Lauren Burton talks about the importance of being aware of the history of the profession and understanding the barriers it faces, the benefits of teaming early career pharmacists with experienced pharmacists and the growing importance of electronic systems and data 
• Liam Murphy discusses how pharmacy is breaking away from its traditional divisions, the growth of a broader scope of practice, the need for flexibility within your career and the importance of providing pharmacists with a framework for trying other areas and fields, both within and outside pharmacy 
• Rachel Dienaar and Peter Crothers explain why its imperative that pharmacy resolves its issues around remuneration for clinical services if it is to advance a debate that has been ongoing since the 1960s
• Ross Tsuyuki says that pharmacy is struggling to identify its identity and role at the moment, and looks at the rise of Amazon and Dr Google.

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

Carlene McMaugh

Our podcast host Carlene McMaugh has collated a series of interviews with leading pharmacists on a diverse range of pharmacy ‘hot topics’.

In this podcast, we hear about:

• Genomics – Ravi Sharma and Jarrod McMaugh discuss the increasing role of personalised medicines
• Homeopathy – Deanna Mills talks about the need for pharmacies to stick to evidence-based medicines and avoid selling homeopathic products. Ross Tsuyuki talks about how pharmacists are often their own worst enemies when it comes to supplying such products.
• Locuming – Liam Murphy discusses the lessons from his first locum role, how to overcome isolation and why you need to be adventurous. 
• Regulator Scope – Anthony Tassone looks at the role of the TGA, community pharmacy agreements, Real-time prescription monitoring and the rescheduling of opioids.
• Personal barriers – Amy Page and Amanda Cross explain how personal challenges and barriers, such as financial issues and imposter syndrome, can stand in the way of career progression.

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

Carlene McMaugh

Our podcast host Carlene McMaugh speaks to a wide range of pharmacists and pharmacy leaders about how the profession has evolved, and continues to evolve, along with what this means for practice.

Among those in this podcast are:

• Chris Freeman discusses the need to continue evolving pharmacy’s professional service role, and evolving remuneration structures to facilitate this role
• San Keitaanpaa talks about how the evolution of pharmacy practice mirrors the growth and maturity of a person, and why we need to invest heavily in new ideas and concepts
• Amanda Cross says it’s exciting times for the profession in terms of the expansion of practice and changes to its remuneration structures
• Deanna Mill and Erin Cooper talk about how pharmacy wasn’t always considered a profession, and how we can continue to engage students and early career pharmacists

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

Carlene McMaugh

Our host Carlene McMaugh chats to a number of pharmacists on topics relating to stress in the pharmacy workplace.

Among those Carlene speaks to are:

• Karalyn Huxhagen talks about workplace bullying, finding resources to help deal with bullying and stress, and how you need to leave your attitude at the door 
• Joyce McSwan discusses the importance of being adaptable and flexible, developing resilience, and seeking support and therapy when required
• Elise Apolloni talks about achieving a better work-life balance, trying to keep pharmacy within the four walls and not confronting work outside work hours
• David Heffernan considers how patients can sometimes project their anxieties onto you, as well as talking about the importance of developing a strong culture, especially in rural and regional pharmacy  
• Amin and Leila Javanmard discuss how workplace stress impacts both owners and staff

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

Carlene McMaugh

Our host Carlene McMaugh once again discusses a range of topics of interest with different pharmacy experts. 

Speakers include

• Carlene McMaugh herself talks about the importance of mindfulness and ‘being present’ in the pharmacy
• Liam Murphy discusses apps that can help with mindfulness, as well as breathing and calming techniques, and grounding
• Ross Tsuyuki looks at international pharmacy practices, in particular new Canadian pharmacy models
• Steve Morris describes how the issues in pharmacy are similar around the globe, but have differing contexts
• Simon Carroll talks about charity and being charitable
• Amy Page discusses rural practice, and the best advice she received in her career
• Michael Troy talks about building relationships in rural pharmacy

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

Carlene McMaugh

In our latest podcast, host Carlene McMaugh presents pharmacists talking about a diverse range of topics.

Speakers include:

• Steve Morris talking about the role of Chief Pharmacist, and how the responsibilities of the position can vary between jurisdictions
• Ross Tsuyuki talks about the importance of research, especially into poorly managed conditions, but also how some research can be of little value and unnecessarily repetititve
• Amy Page and Amanda Cross discuss their insights into doing further pharmacy education, how to apply, what to apply for, gaining a mentor and choosing a PhD topic 

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

In this edition of the AJP podcast, our host Carlene McMaugh, speaks to Anna Barwick, recognised for her pioneering work in telepharmacy, rural health and women’s health.

Anna was recently honoured with the NSW Premier’s Award for Woman of the Year and NSW Minerals Council Regional Woman of the Year Award for her work, particularly in founding of PharmOnline, a 24/7 telehealth advisory service which provides further opportunities for the community to access health and medicines advice.

In this podcast Anna describes her career, her work in clinical pharmacy, consultant pharmacy, academia and the development of PharmOnline.

She also discusses the role of her mentors, her insights on pharmacy, the need to see and grasp opportunities for career and business development, the value in pushing yourself in new areas and her suggestions for starting or developing your career.

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

Carlene McMaugh, AJP podcast host

AJP podcast host Carlene McMaugh talks about her own recent experience of maternity leave as well as discussions with friends, colleagues and peers about their experiences, both good and bad. 

Carlene talks about the need to manage the expectations of both employers and employees, keeping communication open and how to open up conversation on the topic.

This podcast should provide important tips for both employers and employees.

Podcast host Carlene McMaugh speaks to US pharmacy academic Dr Vibhuti Arya, leader of the Federation of International Pharmacy (FIP) taskforce for health equity and diversity.

Dr Arya speaks to Carlene, who is also a member of the taskforce, about a range of topics relating to striving for diversity and equality in the pharmacy workforce and equity in patient care and health outcomes. 

She talks about the need to have “uncomfortable conversations” within pharmacy and within organisations or corporate structures to begin the process of striving for equity and social justice.  

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

Carlene McMaugh, AJP podcast host

Our host, Carlene McMaugh speaks to a number of leaders of the profession, both from Australia and internationally, as well as sharing some of her own tips on advancing your career.

In this edition, among those Carlene speaks to are:

• Chris Freeman who talks about the value in having the courage to approach those you admire for advice and guidance
• Krysti-Lee Rigby who outlines the career benefits of doing what’s right, and not taking the easy option
• Steve Morris who explains the value of taking risks and chances, and why you should not expect a linear career progression and should consider the benefits of stepping sideways or even outside pharmacy
• Joyce McSwan says a mentor told her to be the best you can be, and then to be better. She explains how this advice, and the ability for self-communication and self-care, such as relaxing, have helped her career
• Erin Cooper and Deanne Mills talk about the importance of taking chances, and why its invaluable to have a good mentor

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

Carlene McMaugh, AJP podcast host

Among the speakers in this podcast are: 

• Chris Freeman discusses a fatal medical error, and how it highlights the importance of empowering pharmacists to speak up
• Krysti-Lee Rigby talks about the need to be strong, without becoming rude or unprofessional, thinking before you speak and being measured
• Lauren Burton talks about the tension between pharmacists risk-averse nature and the need to speak up on occasion
• Deanna Mills looks at how and why pharmacists are often inherently not assertive, and how that relates to patient relationships
• Carlene McMaugh herself discusses the need to keep the best interests of the patient in mind and  being self-aware when needing to be assertive with fellow healthcare professionals and with patients.       

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

Carlene McMaugh, AJP podcast host

In this podcast, host Carlene McMaugh speaks to a diverse range of pharmacists to examine the state of play around deprescribing, and where the profession’s role current sits, and where should it be?

Among those in the podcast are:

• Rachel Dienaar and Peter Crothers speaking about adverse events, discussing deprescribing with elderly patients and ensuring deprescribing is a means to an end, and not an end itself 
• Amy Page discusses the role of polypharmacy 
• Steve Morris talks about the challenges in talking to patients about deprescribing, and the need for support   
• Amanda Cross looks at the barriers to deprescribing, the evidence to support it, and where it sits on the prescribing continuum

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

Carlene McMaugh, AJP podcast host

There’s plenty of discussion around pharmacists practising to their full scope, but what does this entail? 

Our host Carlene McMaugh speaks to a number of leading pharmacists about where they think pharmacy should concentrate its efforts, where pharmacists need to improve their skills 

In this podcast, Carlene speaks to:

• Rachel Dienaar and Peter Crothers talk about opportunities for expanding practice in areas of health prevention such as screening and risk assessment, the need for a rural pharmacist generalist role and training for diverse roles
• Joyce McSwan discusses why pharmacy should improve its capacity to work in non-tangible service areas that truly expand its skills and scope in areas such as communication, planning and actioning
• David Heffernan relates the state of plan around vaccination in pharmacy
• Steve Morris considers the skills set required to expand scope of practice   

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

Carlene McMaugh, AJP podcast host

In the final episode in our podcast series focusing on careers advice, Carlene McMaugh talks to the following pharmacists:  

• Lauren Burton talks about moving to find the best opportunity, and mixing your passion with your career
• Joyce McSwan explains why the first couple of years of your career are so important, and you can evolve your knowledge and your career
• Amanda Cross discusses growing your career and how to stay motivated 
• Lily Pham, Jess Chen and Tina Buffari discuss the benefits, and limitations, of specialising, plus the importance of receiving recognition and support

Go here to see the previous podcast in our careers progression series.

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

Carlene McMaugh, AJP podcast host

In the third of our series of career advice and progression podcasts, Carlene McMaugh talks to the following pharmacists:  

• Amy Page talks about the importance of making connections and taking opportunities when they present
• Rachel Dienaar and Peter Crothers discuss having a passion for change and being flexible, the value of networking and the benefits of working in the ‘bush’  
• Jarrod McMaugh talks about his experiences with students and the impact you can have on your interns

Go here to see the previous podcast in our careers progression series.

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

Carlene McMaugh, AJP podcast host

In the second of our series on career progression, Carlene McMaugh speaks to pharmacists about how their careers have progressed and any advice they can offer.

Carlene speaks to:

• Ellis Apolloni talks about internships and learning from people, the benefit of networks, career counselling, balancing your learning with reality, what hinders career progress and knowing your limitations
• Sandra Minas discusses niche pharmacy roles, looking outside hospital and career pharmacy, not being stuck in one area and the benefits of surrounding yourself with positive people
• Steve Morris offers advice to early career pharmacists, and talks about be open to a range of opportunities
• Sam Flood talks about dealing with employer perceptions, applying for your first role and having an open mind. He also talks about how he’s confronted his career opportunities while having a physical disability

Go here to listen to the previous podcast in this series

Carlene McMaugh, AJP podcast host

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

Welcome to the first of our new series of AJP Podcasts.

In this episode, the first of a three-part series focusing on career progression, our host Carlene McMaugh hears from a range of leading pharmacists talking about their career experience and advice.

Carlene speaks to Taren Gill, Adam Livori, Renae Beardmore, Tinu Abraham and Dr Ross Tsuyuki to discuss how they enhanced their skill set, ensured their career was advancing and ensured their resume had a competitive edge.

Carlene McMaugh, AJP podcast host

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

In our latest AJP podcast, Carlene McMaugh talks to a number of pharmacists about how the profession frames its identity, and how it is viewed by others.

Carlene and her guests discuss some of the key factors in how the profession perceives and describes itself, and how it advocates for its itself and its role.

The impact of working in isolation, the way the profession is presented to younger pharmacists, the views of health care colleagues, the importance of being active within and for the profession are among the topics that are discussed. 

Among those we speak to in this podcast are:

• Rachel Dienaar
• Peter Crothers
• Amanda Cross
• Amy Page
• Steve Morris
• Tinu Abraham
• Taren Gill
• Ross Tsuyuki
• Lauren Burton
• Deana Mill

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

Our podcast host Carlene McMaugh talks to a number of pharmacists, and pharmacy leaders, about the expanding scope of practice open to the profession in the era of COVID-19. 

They also talk about determining the appropriate level of recognition and reward pharmacists deserve for this expanded range of work.

Carlene speaks to the following thought leaders:

• Catherine Duggane (FIP CEO)
• Chris Campbell (PSA General Manager: Policy)
• Jarrod McMaugh (PSA Project Pharmacist)
• Elise Apolloni (Community Pharmacist, PSA and Guild Branch Committee member ACT)
• Kristy-Lee Rigby (Community Pharmacist, PSA Committee Member NSW)
• Tinu Abraham (Pharmacist in ACCHO practice)
• Taren Gill (Community Pharmaicst, PSA Committee Member Vic)
• Liam Murphy (Locum ‘Roaming’ Pharmacist)
• Lily Pham (Immediate Past NAPSA executive)
• Tina Blefari (Immediate Past NAPSA executive)
• Jess Hsaio  (Immediate Past NAPSA President)

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

Our host, Carlene McMaugh, speaks to a wide range of pharmacists and leaders of the profession to see what they do to deal with stress, workload and overcoming their isolation.

Many of the participants also discuss how they have built their support networks, and talk about resources to help support you in stressful periods.

Speakers in this episode are:

• Amanda Cross
• Shane Jackson
• Steve Morris (NPS Medicinewise CEO)
• Tinu Abraham
• Taren Gill
• Deanna Mill
• Erin Cooper
• Rachel Rees 
• Peter Crothers

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

Our host, Carlene McMaugh, steps to the other side of the microphone to discuss the importance of having transferable skills, and some lessons from her own career.

Carlene also speaks to a number of other pharmacists, including:

• Taren Gill on the importance of the intern year
• Peter Crothers and Rachel Dienaar on rural pharmacy careers
• Amanda Cross on the importance of having a strong support network   
• Simon Carroll on why you need to follow your passion 

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

Host Carlene McMaugh speaks to a range of pharmacists on the progress of automation in pharmacy and where they think it will lead.

Among those we hear from in this podcast are:

Shane Jackson discusses the investment and cost savings from technology, and what it can and can’t do

Elise Apolloni talks about the benefits and future applications of automation, what she would like to have in her pharmacy and the skills that are required

Sam Turner talks the benefits for forward dispensing, and describes his experiences with automation

Jacinta Johnson describes the efficiencies brought by automation and technology, and the impact on the clinical technician role     

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

In this episode, host Carlene McMaugh speaks to a number of leading on how they have overcome the profession’s seemingly natural reticence and become assertive when needed in their dealings with patients and other health professionals.

What is language and tone you should use? How do you balance the need to be assertive against people’s level of health literacy? What’;s the difference in the attitude between GPs and pharmacists?  

Among those in this podcast are Peter Crothers, Rachel Dienaar, Aman Javanmard, Leila Javanmard, Liam Murphy and Karalyn Huxhagen.  

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

Assertiveness: what is it? should you be assertive? how do you be assertive? when should you be assertive?

In our latest podcast, host Carlene McMaugh speaks to leading pharmacists about the need to develop confidence in a respectful way when interacting with both patients and prescribers.

We discuss whether our universities should teach this import skill to pharmacy students, how we develop a presence in our careers, what additional training we need and is assertive the term we should be using?

Carlene speaks to: 

• Adam Livori
• Renea Beardmore
• Joyce McSwan
• Amanda Cross
• Mark Naunton  

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

In a special edition of the AJP Podcast, host Carlene McMaugh speaks to leading Canadian pharmacist, Dr Ross Tsuyuki – an academic researcher, editor of a pharmacy journal and worker in a specialised area of pharmacy practice not yet available in Australia: a cardiovascular clinic.

Dr Tsuyuki talks about his career progression, his controversial views on GPs and on how pharmacists may be their own worst enemies.

He and Carlene also discuss the differences in practice between Canadian and Australian pharmacy, how and why Australian pharmacy may have fallen behind comparable countries in scope of practice.

 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 speaks in depth with Lauren Burton about how pharmacy can, and should, address and respond to this proposal.  

They say pharmacy must “strongly fight” to retain this “regular touch point with our patients”, but believe it can’t be approached from the perspective of pharmacy and money, the focus has to be on preventing hospital admissions due to medication error, inappropriate use of medicines etc  

Carlene also speaks to a range of other leading pharmacists, including Taren Gill, Peter Crothers and Rachel Dienaar, to seek their views on how pharmacy can combat the extended dispensing threat.

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