It’s often said every pharmacist remembers their first script. The first prescription they checked – and checked again (and possibly again and again) once they attained full registration. What’s not always remembered is the sense of fear, trepidation or anxiety that often accompanies stepping up into the responsibility and accountability of becoming a registered pharmacist. While the first script may be the most memorable, those early weeks and months can be overwhelming as new and unpredictable scenarios arise.
But initial registration may not be the only time these feelings of isolation and uncertainty arise. It may be around a change in career, such as a newly credentialled pharmacist forging a new path in undertaking Home Medicines Reviews (HMRs), working as an on-site aged care pharmacist for the first time or a locum working in rural or remote community pharmacies on their own in new premises with few colleagues to support them. Uncertainty can also peak around the introduction of new services or taking on additional scope of practice.
Pharmaceutical Society of Australia acting General Manager – Education and Training Jacob Warner MPS says the pharmacy profession these days is dynamic and presents challenges.
‘There’s been significant changes to the practice of pharmacy recently, with increasing scope of practice and more services being offered by pharmacists,’ he adds. So where do you turn when these situations arise? And how do you build your confidence, capacity and resilience?
To help new pharmacists find their feet, PSA in November launched the re-invented Flying Start program to provide early career pharmacists with tools and strategies for meeting new challenges.
“Early career pharmacists often feel their first 100 days of practice as registered pharmacist away from the safety net of their preceptor are the most challenging,” Warner says, adding that Flying Start was designed to help these pharmacists navigate their early days on the job.
The program covers four modules including: legal and ethical challenges and scope of practice changes; leadership and interpersonal skills; delivering primary health care (and attainment of a nationally recognised unit of competency that can be credited towards the Graduate Diploma of Advanced Pharmacy Practice); and well-being and career development.
Each of the modules includes an online facilitated workshop with accredited multiple choice questions which count towards the learners’ continuing professional development CPD.
“The first Flying Start program was run in early 2023,” Warner says. “Given the exciting and face-paced changes to practice we have seen in pharmacy since then, the 2025 program has been re-invented to provide ECPs with even more ways to meet challenges they will face in their first 100 days and provide them a ‘passport for success’ as they embark on their pharmacy career.”
Flying Start learners also take part in a clinical game as part of the program which entails following a patient’s journey on an interactive platform. Participants are also given the opportunity to have a one-on-one meeting with a mentor who can answer questions and provide advice and support.
In further types of assistance, the PSA website includes a range of online resources and PSA operates a free pharmacist-to-pharmacist advice line for members, staffed by three experienced professionals to provide pharmacists with fast answers to technical, ethical and practice questions.
For example, practice-related queries might be about the Australian Pharmaceutical Formulary, professional practice standards and guidelines or competency standards. Ethics-related queries may concern ethical dilemmas or the code of ethics.
Technical questions might be related to medicines, compounding and medicine availability. Regulatory queries could touch on legislation and policy matters, while questions about registration may encompass Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) requirements.
Bill Wallace, a professional support advice on the advice line, says pharmacists who work in isolation face varied challenges. These can include limited breaks, limited resources and options for patient referral, a lack of immediate peer support and the difficulty of remaining up-to-date with professional development and the expanded scope of practice.
Launched in March 2020, the PSA advice line is operational from 8.30am to 5pm AEST, Monday to Friday, Wallace says. “The number of enquiries been increasing each month since the service commenced,” he adds. “It is currently averaging about 60 cases per week, split between 40 calls per week and 20 via emails to the PSA website.”
The time required to resolve each case varies, depending on the nature of the enquiry and how much time is needed to obtain the necessary information, he adds. “Simple enquiries can be answered at the time of the call,” Wallace says. “More involved enquiries may involve discussions with subject matter experts or state and federal regulators.”
Most queries relate to continuing professional development, immunisation, the scope of practice and training and regulatory matters, he adds. Calls rarely relate to emergencies. “Pharmacists are usually very good at triaging emergency situations,” Wallace says.
Pharmacist support is also available from professional and peer networks, Wallace says, including pharmacy organisations (such as PSA, PSS, PDL, AHPA and PGA), as well as primary health networks.
Additionally, PSA operates a dedicated support line for both member and non-members for the NSW Opioid Treatment Program (OTP), and concerning the role and requirements of pharmacists providing nicotine dependence support.
Meanwhile, the Pharmacists’ Support Service (PSS) offers help for pharmacists, pharmacy interns, and retired pharmacists who are struggling with work stress, burn-out, the after-effects of the pandemic and so on. They may need emotional support or counselling.
A not-for-profit charity, the PSS offers telephone support every day of the year from 8am to 11pm AEST on 1300244910 to pharmacists, pharmacy interns and students in Australia. Our main service is to provide telephone support every day of the year from 8am to 11pm AEDT.
The calls are answered by trained volunteers – all pharmacists or retired pharmacists. Callers can remain anonymous and all calls are confidential. Between July 1, 2023 and June 30, 2024, the volunteers answered about 400 calls.
PSS executive director Kay Dunkley says the focus of the service is support. “Pharmacy is very challenging profession due to a high level of responsibility we have for medication safety,” she says. “There are also a lot of legal and ethical issues in relation to medication supply which can be quite complex.” Callers ring regarding a range of issues, but the common feature is stress and the desire for confidential support, Dunkley adds, noting the focus of the PSS is to support and empower the individual – the service does not provide clinical or legal advice.
“We deal with people who are often unwell and who can be anxious about their health,” she says. “Sometimes the public does not understand the role of the pharmacist and the legal constraints we work within and so people can become emotional and even aggressive when, for example, we have to deny supply or if there is a problem with the prescription.”
The pace of change in the pharmacy profession has accelerated in recent years, so pharmacists returning to work after a break from practice have a lot to catch up on, Dunkley adds. Even when taking a break, pharmacists have to stay abreast of their required professional development activities. “Pharmacists moving into new areas of practice must upskill and undertaken relevant training and education,” she says.
In addition, pharmacies are often open for extended hours when other health services, such as general practices, are closed. As a result, many people seek advice on their health conditions from pharmacists after hours.
In another area, early career pharmacists can join the PSA’s Early Career Pharmacists’ Community of Special Interest (CSI), which caters for students, interns and pharmacists in the first ten years of their careers.
The group’s aim is to ensure “early career pharmacists are recognised as crucial stakeholders in the Australian pharmacy sector”, as well as identifying areas of importance to early career pharmacists, propose solutions, provide data and assist with testing to address strategic gaps.
Alana Mazuran took ten months off work when her son was born in 2018. She had been working in a busy inner-city pharmacy in Newtown, Sydney, dealing with many methadone patients. “It was a pretty hard-core position,” she says. “I loved it, but then when I had my son, I just didn’t feel like going back into that level of work.”
Now 41, she and her husband moved to Bowral in rural NSW after her son was born and she began weekend work in a local pharmacy.
“I went back to work because I felt I desperately needed that higher level of interaction and thinking,” she says, “but also I was really concerned new drugs were being launched, diabetes care was really changing and taking off, and I thought I didn’t know a lot about what’s happening.”
Before she returned to work, Mazuran was nervous, so she studied developments in pharmacy. At the time, she hadn’t come across PSA’s professional supports, such as the advice line. “If I had known about it, I definitely would have used it,” she says. “I wasn’t aware of them.”
Canley Chau, 24, recently began work at a medicinal cannabis dispensary in Queensland’s Sippy Downs, moving there from another cannabis dispensary in Noosa, also in Queensland, and last year from a pharmacy in Umina Beach, on the NSW central coast.
She relies on fellow pharmacists as well as on-line resources for professional support, and she also regularly monitors the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia’s online resource for less experienced pharmacists.
“I kept on top of the Early Careers page,” she says. “It helped me stay updated, and any interesting, weird things you had to know. A lot of pharmacists share their experiences in their community pharmacies, like how do they deal with the Ozempic shortages.”
She hasn’t yet commented on the Early Careers page, she adds, but she reads it to stay abreast of different developments in pharmacy. “There are a lot of people providing their opinions and thoughts. That was a page where I got some support.”
Dealing face-to-face with patients seeking medicinal cannabis can have challenges, Chau says, and she has also sought advice from a module in the PSA’s continuing professional development resources on the best ways to manage difficult behaviours.
PSA ADVICE LINE
- Danielle Giang, BPharm MPS: formerly a pharmacist in both public and private hospitals, she began working with the advice line in August 2023. She enjoys helping pharmacists to feel supported and empowering them to resolve their practice-related queries.
- Pooja Jadeja, BPharm MPS: currently a community pharmacist as well as working at PSA as professional support pharmacist in the field of opioid treatment. She has been working with the advice line since May 2024, and she likes to help pharmacists with changes in regulations and scope of practice.
- Bill Wallace, MPS, formerly a pharmacist in a community pharmacy, has worked on the advice line for four years. He enjoys providing advice on digital technology in pharmacy and assisting pharmacists returning to the profession.