The AJP Podcast

The cost of living is hitting Australians hard – and arguably none more so than students who need to complete unpaid practical placements, says one high-profile student 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.” 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  Carlene McMaugh

PSA Victorian pharmacist of the year Sara Murdock talks about a “sliding doors” moment in her career – and why it's important to make sure every patient's voice is heard 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? 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  Carlene McMaugh

AI is a field full of misconceptions, with many afraid to use it – but expert Andrew Bartlett tells the AJP Podcast how it's being used to help learning and simulate patient interactions “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 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  Carlene McMaugh

The AJP’s podcast host Carlene McMaugh shares her career lessons and tips “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.  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  Carlene McMaugh

A leading aged care pharmacist discusses how pharmacy has changed over the years – and his passion welcoming those changes 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 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 

“Saying sorry seems like such a simple, inherent notion, but it can also be a minefield,” PDL professional development pharmacist and Be Risk Ready host, Amy Minion says  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).  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 

One multi-award-winning pharmacist talks to the AJP Podcast about why we need to value the services available in pharmacy – and pay for them 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 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 

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