Three pharmacists recognised by PSNZ

It is a wonderful job where you have the opportunity to really make a difference

Three pharmacists have been honoured by the Pharmaceutical Society of New Zealand.

Auckland pharmacist Natalie Gauld has been given the 2022 PSNZ Gold Medal Award for her ground-breaking medicines reclassification work. It has only been awarded 33 times.

Meanwhile, antimicrobial stewardship pharmacist Sharon Gardiner and clinical advisory pharmacist Marilyn Tucker have received the society’s Fellowship Award 2022.

Education is essential in Dr Gardiner’s and Ms Tucker’s lives. Despite nearly missing out on pharmacy school, Dr Gardiner went on to do a master’s degree and important research.

Ms Tucker says education has been the mainstay of her career.

Having fun in her first year and not studying enough meant Dr Gardiner was initially rejected from pharmacy school in Dunedin. However, the setback shaped her. “I worked really hard at pharmacy school because of that concern about failure, which I know resonates with lots of people.”

After pharmacy school, she became a medicines information pharmacist in clinical pharmacology at Christchurch Hospital, where she researched drug safety during breastfeeding.

While working part time in community pharmacy, she completed a Master of Clinical Pharmacy degree with distinction in 2002.

In 2007, Dr Gardiner’s pharmacogenetics PhD was recognised as an “exceptional thesis” by the University of Otago. The Australasian Society of Clinical and Experimental Pharmacologists and Toxicologists gave her a New Investigator Award the same year.

Since 2013, she’s worked as an antimicrobial stewardship pharmacist at Te Whatu Ora Canterbury (formerly Canterbury DHB). The highlight was being a panellist for the chief science advisor’s 2021 report, Kotahitanga: uniting Aotearoa against infectious disease and antimicrobial resistance. She hopes the recommendations will be adopted nationally.

Antimicrobial stewardship is part of Te Pae Tata Interim New Zealand Health Plan: “It feels like things are moving forward...like the stars are aligning,” she says.

She’s come a long way since dusting the shelves of her parents’ pharmacy as a teenager. “I’ve landed in some really good jobs with lots of autonomy and surrounded by people I can learn from.”

Evan Begg, Carl Kirkpatrick and Steven Chambers have been crucial mentors.

For Ms Tucker, the fellowship is a great honour, was a huge surprise and was a bit overwhelming. The highlight was working with Ray Laurie at Greenlane Hospital in Auckland. Mr Laurie was the pharmacistin-charge for 35 years and her preceptor. He told her she needed continuing education and predicted it would become compulsory.

“That was in the 1970s, so you can see how forward-thinking he was,” she says. He and his colleagues initiated the New Zealand Hospital Pharmacy Association and “took the profession forward”.

Young people who want to become clinical advisory pharmacists should continue with their education, says Ms Tucker. “It is a wonderful job where you have the opportunity to really make a difference.”

A campaign in Wellington to avoid the unnecessary use of the opioid oxycodone in secondary and primary care was her most important work. The drug led to many overdoses and “destroyed families” in countries like the US, Australia and the UK before coming to this country in 2005, she says.

By the time it arrived, New Zealand had the benefit of hindsight. However, retailers promoted the drug inappropriately for conditions such as lower back pain, says Ms Tucker. The pain team she worked with at the former Capital & Coast DHB managed to decrease its use by 58 per cent in three months.

There have been many changes over her five-decade career. Tuberculosis was a big problem before modern antibiotics. Pharmacies used to be “completely divorced” from the rest of the hospital, but now pharmacists work closely with other colleagues in wards. More medical centres also have their own pharmacists.

She’s had five different roles in her career and predicts more will open up because of the shortage of health professionals, and there will be more prescribing pharmacists.

Ms Tucker retired last year to care for her partner of 36 years, who passed away in September. She is toying with returning to the profession part time because of staff shortages. “I feel guilty not working. However, one has to give up at some stage.”

The awards will be presented at the society’s conference, starting 17 June.