A Journey into Pharmacy
Abundance Temile
Transformation Programme Manager
Lloyds Pharmacy Clinical Homecare
If you're anything like me, pharmacy was not your first choice. I remember as a student choosing a course felt like one of those life-defining moments that would solidify who I was going to be and what I was going to do for the rest of my life. When I finally decided on who I was going to be and then didn't get the responses that I expected from my top universities, I was very lost and if i can be honest a career in pharmacy never crossed my mind, the only pharmacists I had previously encountered, prior to starting the course, were seemingly boring, highly intelligent shopkeepers and/or academics, who were content doing the same thing day in day out and I dreamed of an exciting life full of adventure and change.
But what I've grown to love and appreciate is that this journey called life is rarely straightforward, often taking many unexpected twists and turns, but it's along the way that you learn so much about who you are, what you love and importantly what you don't (!), what you'll tolerate, what you'll change and that you are completely in control of the choices you make - whether consciously or not, and life has a funny way of working you towards your true self.
Everything about my journey into and within the world of Pharmacy has been a glorious combination of hard work and serendipity. I started my career in a small independent community pharmacy, where engaging with patients was the best part of my day, and made a opportunistic shift to pharmacy homecare, where I was very much office based dealing with clinical queries and drug formulations and product manufacturing and specialist conditions like HIV and oncology, now I'm in business transformation working alongside both hospital pharmacists, industry pharmacists, community pharmacists, doctors, nurses, CEOs, Directors, developers, the list goes on. There will come a moment where you discover that pharmacy is not merely about dispensing medications, that you don't have to only choose between community, hospital or general practice pharmacy as there is a dynamic blend of science, healthcare, with pharmacy and almost every industry you can think of!
Whether you have a love for business, medicine, IT, science, pharmacy offers a unique intersection. From pharmacology to medicinal chemistry, pharmacy delves into the intricacies of drug mechanisms and their impact on the human body, it bridges the gap between science and humanity in the most unexpected ways.
My journey into Pharmacy is only beginning and just like most of you, I still have a lot to learn and a long way to go, enjoy the journey, work hard and embrace every opportunity along the way. For me being a pharmacist has proven to be not just a detour but an interesting ever changing journey and one thing I've learnt is that sometimes the most rewarding destinations are the ones we didn't anticipate.
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