Dr Audrey Kinahan, a pharmacist at University Pharmacy, Galway, believes customers are demanding more and more from their pharmacies
Every day is different. As my business is a late-night pharmacy open 364 days a year, I work with a team of other pharmacists and my schedule is varied but is somewhere between a 9 a.m. start and a 9 p.m. finish.
As a pharmacist, I am responsible for all aspects of patient care within the pharmacy meaning that I supervise all our operational procedures for dispensing prescriptions and the sale of over-the-counter medicines. Like all of our pharmacists, I spend a lot of time in our semi-private patient counselling area talking to patients and making sure that they understand their medicines. This is the most rewarding part of my day where I can talk with my patients face to face.
We try to ensure that no patient leaves our pharmacy without knowing exactly what their medicine is for and how to take it. This could range from demonstrating to an asthmatic how to use their inhaler correctly to explaining to a customer how to prepare a series of injections for fertility treatment. It's all about responding to individual patient needs.
It can be confusing for elderly patients taking several medicines at different times during the day. We can provide unit-dose dispensing where all of the medicines for a particular time of day are packed in one clearly labelled unit. This is particularly popular for carers or for patients in residential care.
Pharmacy in Ireland is following trends which I have seen when I worked abroad where customers expect longer opening hours, demand a wider range of stock and greater access to the pharmacist and insist on a more efficient service.
In modern society, people lead very busy lives. Gone are the days when people were prepared to leave in their prescription and come back in a few hours. As the pharmacy is located across the road from a regional hospital, we are very conscious that our customers may have had a long wait in A&E or may be still quite ill as they leave hospital.
In addition to working in the pharmacy in Galway, I also run the Irish Pharmacy website at www.eirpharm.com with my husband, Brendan Rochford, who is also a pharmacist, and runs the Ennis branch with his brother, Martin Rochford, a medical doctor.
I spend some time every day updating the site and answering queries through our 'Ask the Pharmacist' email service. Currently for hayfever sufferers, we are running a free pollen forecast service which is sent via email or text message. This is supported with online and in-store information and tips.
Our interest in sports led us to develop an online database of Irish medicines which athletes who have to undergo drug testing can check for free. The Irish Sport Council endorses the site which should help prevent athletes inadvertently testing positive as a result of taking medicines.
The most frustrating part of the job is the amount of time spent on paperwork and administration. Even though lots of procedures are electronic, they still have to be checked. But the feeling that you could hopefully make a difference to somebody makes the job rewarding.
(Interview by Sylvia Thompson)