Pharmaceutical, Work Health and Safety Legislation

Excellent interpersonal skills, a customer focus, flexibility and conflict resolution skills.

When dealing with a client, a pharmacist should make the buyer feel welcome and well attended and listen carefully to the customer. A pharmacist should also be able to relate well to both the customer and his colleagues to work effectively. And most importantly they should be able to solve conflict either between employees or with the customer amicably.

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While working at the community pharmacy, I have been able to learn and develop all of these qualities, and they have helped me create a better working environment. When dealing with a client at the pharmacy, I always guarantee that they have my full attention to ensure that they feel satisfied and well attended. This is important because if a customer feels neglected he or she will not open up about the problem she or he is having. I remember an experience where a customer walked into the pharmacy, and she looked very uncomfortable, I approached her and made sure to give her my full attention. She was able to open up, and I found that the source of her discomfort was that she required ointment for a genital rash and did not want to say this out loud, I pulled her aside to a private area where she was more comfortable and where she could not be overheard by others, and she explained about the rash and I was able to give her the required medicine. If I had not focused on her, I would not have been able to see the discomfort she was projecting with her body language. On the other hand, conflict with either colleagues or clients can sometimes be unavoidable at a place of work. The one conflict I have had with my colleagues was with a colleague who kept second-guessing by the professional opinion in front of my clients making it had for the client to have confidence in the drug I was giving her. To solve this problem, I called my colleague aside after hours and used a very open and flexible approach to explain to her that we had to be able to trust and respect each other's decisions to work well together. She graciously accepted my request, acknowledged her mistake and even apologized. We have continually worked well together in mutual respect to date.

Attention to detail and the ability to follow pre-determined procedures accurately and diligently.

As a pharmacy student, most of what we are taught and most of what we do at the community pharmacy follows predetermined procedures. For example, the procedure for compounding drugs is complicated and must be followed to the letter to avoid complications with the patients taking the drugs. The first compounding procedure I did at the pharmacy was for a syrup, Ciprofloxacin suspension in syrup NF, I followed the following procedure to prepare it correctly: ingredients; Stevioside 500mg, Xanthan gum 500mg, Glycerin 5ml, flavor qs, Ciprofloxacin hydrochloride(monohydrate) qs, syrup NF 100 ml. The procedure was:1. Calculate required quantity of each ingredient for the total amount to be prepared.2. Accurately weigh each ingredient.3. Comminute the Ciprofloxacin tablets, Stevia powder, Xanthan gum, and mix well. 4. Mix powder with 5ml Glycerin to make a paste.5.add 90ml of syrup NF, in portions with thorough mixing after each addition.6.add the desired flavor and mix well. Add sufficient simple syrup to volume and mix well.7. Package and label. After following this procedure, I got the syrup and sold it to the client after getting verification from my supervising pharmacist who said I was well done.

Some previous dispensing experience and knowledge of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and Safety Net Scheme.

I have a deep understanding of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and Safety Net Scheme of the patients with a certain agreement with a medical center following my previous experience. When doing my practical classes at the hospitals and healthcare centers, I realized that it is possible for a patient to have a subsidized price on the medicine cost and costs of treatment following the agreement plan with the health center. Following my experience with a patient who did not have enough capital required for his prescription but by good lack had subscribed to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and Safety Net Scheme which allowed him to be given the medicines and services at a subsidized cost, I can say I can be advising the patients to get subscribed and get the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and Safety Net Scheme to enhance their safer treatment even on an affordable economic budget. This is so because, A pharmaceutical benefits scheme safety net, the PBS safety net, provides critical protection against on-going, high prescription medicines costs thus enables the clients to make payments annually.

Ability to critically analyze medical and pharmaceutical information and exercise independent professional judgment.

As a pharmacist whether a student or a qualified pharmacist it is very imperative to be able to critically analyze medical and pharmaceutical information before making any professional decisions. This requires all pharmacist to poses a lot of information on all drugs they deal with especially problems that may occur with the interaction of some of these drugs with different patients. While working at the community pharmacy, a client came in with a prescription for Digoxin, after consulting with the patient about other medications he was using he mentioned that he was also using Quinidine. I recalled that my lecturer had talked about this drug interaction and he said that the interaction could lead to a marked increase in plasma concentration levels of digoxin in more than 90% of patients. Significant changes in serum digoxin are noticed within 24 hours. The effects from this interaction range from nausea and vomiting to death. Quinidine also decreases renal and nonrenal excretion rates of digoxin, which leads to increased steady-state concentrations of the cardiac glycoside. From this information, I knew that patients taking Digoxin should avoid taking Quinidine. I explained this to him in a way he could understand and made the professional judgment not to sell him the Digoxin to prevent complications. I later consulted with the supervising pharmacist who said that I had made the right judgment call.

Knowledge of relevant legislation, regulations, codes of practice and practice guidelines including Society of Hospital Pharmacist of Australia Standards of Practice and principles for the quality use of medicines across the continuum of care between hospital and community.

The entire medical practice and the field of medicine are baseless without a strict understanding and adherence to all the legislations, regulations and the code of practice and ethics. I know the advantages and disadvantages of not adhering to either of the above codes following the experience that I have gunned in the previous locations of practice. Regarding the current society where most medical practices like abortion are done illegally, I have a deep concern to uphold the values of the society and the standards of the hospital and the entire medical practice in Australia ensuring that proper and legal medical services and practices are undertaken. The Heath standards are designed for individual pharmacists to self-assess their professional practice, identify areas where improvement is needed, and re-assess their performance after the appropriate changes have been implemented. Following the standards, I have committed that throughout my entire practice, I will ensure that proper care is provided legally and strictly considering the codes of ethics and morals of the host community.

An understanding of appropriate Work Health and Safety legislation.

While undertaking my placement activities in a health care center, I witnessed a fatal accident where a staff member accidentally inhaled poisonous fumes in the lab. The healthcare center, by good lack had an effective work health and safety legislation which ensured that the staff member was taken care of medically. This built my further understanding of what a WHS act is in a working environment. It is crucial that both the employers and the employees adhere to it to ensure safety at the work place. I also did a lot of research to understand what the pharmacists who caused the 2012 outbreak of meningitis did wrong to ensure that I did not fall victim to the same mistakes. From my research, I found that simple procedures such as sterilization were among the causes of the outbreak. I found that Compounded sterile preparations pose the additional risk of microbial contamination to patients.