Lead Pharmacist
Barts Health NHS Trust

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My name is Tase. I am a hospital pharmacist.

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As a hospital pharmacist, my job at the moment deals with the high cost drugs,

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and I am responsible for how those drugs are brought

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into the hospital for use and ensuring that they’re used in the correct way.

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We also look at the drugs that are delivered direct to people’s homes.

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So those are very, very specialised drugs as well.

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Hospital pharmacists do lots and lots of other things.

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So I started off as a clinical pharmacist working on the wards

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directly with doctors.

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That was a really exciting, enjoyable time for me.

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I got a lot of pleasure out of it because you could see

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the impact of my work on the patients straightaway.

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When you do become a hospital pharmacist there’s so many other things that you can do.

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So I’ve spent some time in the manufacturing unit

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and this is where we make the medicines in a sterile environment

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for the patients to use.

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And that’s the joy of being a pharmacist

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is that you get to do so many different things.

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At school, the GCSEs that I did were just a varied

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mix of GCSEs. And at A-level

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I decided to keep my options open by doing

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biology and chemistry and taking an A-level in French.

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I wanted to use a mix of my chemistry

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and to really focus on the chemistry aspects of things,

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and pharmacy was flagged as one of those subject areas

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where I could still do that and still be involved with people

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and with patients and still work very closely with patients.

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So that’s why I chose pharmacy.

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First and foremost as a pharmacist, the strengths that you really need

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and the skills that you really need are attention to detail.

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You literally hold people’s lives

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in your hands when you get those medicines and give them to them

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so you have to be absolutely sure what it is that you are either dispensing

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or you are having a discussion with a doctor to prescribe.

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You have to take in a lot of information, be able to process that information

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and make a decision from that.

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And bear in mind, you’ve got a patient who is at the end

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of all those decisions that you make to do with their medicines,

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and you’ve also got to have quite good people skills.

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So being able to have a conversation with the patients and help them

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to understand their medicines and how to use their medicines

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in the right way is really, really important

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Try and get experience, maybe work in a local community pharmacy.

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Do Saturday jobs in a local chemist or pharmacy

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even just working in somewhere like Boots

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working alongside a pharmacist or pharmacy technician.