Cathie Reid - My Journey from Pharmacist to Entrepreneur

Cathie Reid and her husband Stuart Giles co-founded the Epic Pharmacy Group in 1998 and also co-founded Australia’s largest dedicated cancer care provider, the Icon Group in 2012.  In 2020 Cathie and Stuart established their family office Arc31, where her long term activity in the healthcare and technology sectors is providing insights and access to a wide range of global investment opportunities.

She is the Chair of AUCloud, the Canberra based sovereign cloud infrastructure as a service provider, a Director of the Brisbane Lions Australian Rules Football Club, and served as the Deputy Chair of the Federal Government’s Cyber Security Industry Advisory Committee until November 2022. She’s also a Future Astronaut with Virgin Galactic, and eagerly awaiting the opportunity to travel to space for the ultimate delivery of her long held mindset on the importance of looking at the world from a different perspective!

Cathie was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 2019 for services to healthcare and philanthropy, and has been recognised throughout her career with numerous awards.

You can find Cathie Reid on LinkedIn.

Do you have questions about your pharmacy career? Then contact us or meet our team.

Transcript

0:03

Your Pharmacy Career podcast proudly brought to you by Raven's Recruitment Australia's Pharmacy recruitment agency

0:10

spotlights the myriad of career paths available to pharmacists your host Kristi Lee Patterson and her esteemed guest

0:16

will be sharing invaluable career advice that you can Implement at any stage of your career Journey welcome to another

0:24

episode of your Pharmacy career podcast I'm your host Kristi Lee and today we have Cathie Reid on the show Cathie is the

0:32

co-founder of both EPIC Pharmacy and icon group she's a member of the order of Australia and is also a future

0:40

astronaut with Virgin Galactic I had to add that in there so pharmacist to

0:45

astronaut now that is an interesting career progression welcome Cathie hi

0:50

Kristi thanks for having me on the show and yeah I mean it's the astronaut

0:55

piece is yeah I guess it's certainly not anything that I envisaged when I first went into my Pharmacy studies but you

1:01

know one of my big one of my big beliefs is always that opportunities present

1:06

along the way in life and if you don't go through those doors as they open you

1:12

never know what you might find on the other side and yeah bizarrely um becoming a future astronaut was one of

1:18

those doors at one point along the way now let's start with the story behind

1:23

the Inception of Epic Pharmacy and then icon group I think that's probably the best place to start what motiv ated you

1:30

to start these Ventures and um yeah to go down that path yes I think if we if

1:36

we go back to um what was the start of Epic Pharmacy Group it was really about

1:43

um was driven driven by a couple of external changes that were happening in

1:48

the broader industry at that time uh one in aged care was the introduction of Age

1:53

Care accreditation standards and so there was the opportunity there we felt for pharmacy for a specialist Pharmacy

2:00

service to operate to provide a service to uh groups within the age care

2:06

industry who are looking for a consistent standardized level of service that helped them comply with those

2:11

accreditation standards so I guess that was the timing circumstance behind the agare part of of the Epic Pharmacy

2:18

business and then similarly in the Private Hospital space at the time there was a lot of consolidation of Hospital

2:24

operators going on around that same time back in the late 90s and again there was

2:30

a desire for a consistent replicable standardized service AC from their

2:36

Pharmacy providers and as those both as those Industries Age Care and Private

2:42

Hospital were operating across multiple states there was an opportunity we felt

2:47

for a pharmacy service provider to also op operate across those multiple States

2:52

and be able to meet the needs of those customers and back in the back sort of in that in the '90s if you sort of had

3:00

one Pharmacy and then bought a second Pharmacy it tended to be in an adjacent suburb rather than a different state

3:06

there weren't there wasn't really anybody doing very much across state across state borders essentially so when

3:13

Stuart and I first started out we bought four pharmacies in three states in the first four months and that was I guess

3:21

that was the beginning yeah that sounds so interesting and especially the way you said that you um you bought thees in

3:27

different states I know even now people as pharmacists they do tend to sort of

3:33

stick within the geographical area um when they're purchasing pharmacies I'd

3:39

love to also understand what were some of the the challenges that you had during that time CU I dare say when

3:46

you're looking back and it's always very easy to think of all the highlights but

3:52

not everyone can see all the The Blood Sweat and Tears I'm sure that went on in the background um so yeah how did you

3:59

overcome those challenges throughout that time look I think hindsight's

4:05

always a beautiful thing because it allows you to look back and reflect on what were the things that were the key

4:11

contributors and what were the things you know what were the things that didn't work and I think you one of the biggest advantages that we had you know

4:17

we were both we we were both young we were I think we were 28 29 when we were when we were first starting starting the

4:24

business and one of the biggest advantages I think was we didn't know what we didn't know if we actually knew

4:30

how big the magnitude of the challenge in what we were setting out to do was we probably would have been quite daunted

4:37

by it and maybe wouldn't have gone ahead with it so in a way there was a degree I

4:43

guess of naivity that really worked to our advantage and then the other piece I

4:48

think that again with with hindsight it's kind of easy to unpick the things that actually were were the biggest the

4:55

biggest contributors and we learned very quickly because there were four pharmacies and only two of us that we

5:03

actually couldn't both we couldn't be physically in each site each time so you know when you when you're first starting

5:09

out a business that need to kind of feel like you're there in this all-encompassing presence and being the

5:16

person who's responsible for everything is um is quite can be quite overwhelming

5:22

but in our case because there were essentially four locations and only two of us 50% of them had to be without one

5:28

of us at any given time so we had to get very good very quickly in Building

5:34

Systems and processes that and communicating what the goals were and communicating and training people in

5:40

what those systems and processes were so that we could actually depend on those

5:46

for that delivery of the service and I mean I think for the first 18 months or so I never spent longer than 72 hours in

5:53

one place because I was just constantly going from site to site essentially hiring people training people

6:00

overseeing the service implementation because the number of customers was growing really rapidly and then moving

6:06

on to the next site and and doing it again so those I guess those lessons in the importance of clarity of

6:15

communication um making sure that you put had processes that were easy for people to follow and clear so they

6:21

understood and knew what they were doing and also being willing to delegate and not essentially owning every bit of

6:28

responsibility it you I can be a bit of a control freak at times so that wasn't the easiest

6:34

thing in the world for me but it was it was a necessity and being prepared to

6:39

essentially hand over the Reigns and to the to the manager or the or the lead people at each of the sites and say okay

6:45

well this is what we're trying to do this is what I need you to do as part of your role in it and here you go and I'll

6:52

see you next week and you know ring me at any time but um that ability to be

6:58

able to recognize that you have to let other people be part of it and be in

7:04

control otherwise you're um you know your growth is always limited by your own personal capacity otherwise so that

7:11

was that was a really early enabler and I don't want to say that like we were

7:17

super smart in figuring that out it was one of those things that just kind of happened but when you look back and go

7:23

well what were the things that really actually allowed us to do what we did and to grow and scale so rapidly that

7:29

was a really key part of it oh absolutely and I think what you were saying about um you can't be everywhere

7:35

at once and having to have that trust in your staff as well um is so important

7:41

and to help them feel engaged and take ownership as well but with the you

7:46

talked about the processes and streamlining that did you have to look

7:52

to technology or any sort of digital solutions to kind of help you with that

7:58

process so I guess look it's it's fascinating to think now when you um

8:05

when you think of how we work and operate all of us every day today you know back back when we were first

8:10

starting out in the late 90s email was really only just coming in and you know if it it was we had email but so many

8:18

people didn't and particularly in Pharmacy it was common you know you had like an email address for the pharmacy

8:24

rather than necessarily individual a lot of the communication was still done by fa so we had and particularly you know

8:32

in the hospital and Age Care industry you know all of our orders came in through fax fax machines were woring

8:38

constantly all day every day it was I think we you we I think one of the

8:45

things that we've always been passionate about is using the using the tools that

8:51

are available at the time to the to the best of the abil their abilities and we look back you look back now and how we

8:57

ran in those early years is and you would say it was very very low Tech but

9:03

at the same time it was using the best of the available technology that existed

9:09

then you know I remember we went to the US I think it was um maybe 2000 because

9:16

I wanted to see how some of the big agare Pharmacy operators uh worked over

9:21

there and how they were actually growing and building at scale you know we were looking at we were doing all all fully

9:28

manual dose ad Administration Aid packing at that point in time and I was really interested in the automation of

9:34

that and the solutions that were available overseas so we went to the US and at the time we were also doing a lot

9:40

of medication reviews and that was a really onerous and labor intensive process you know you'd had to photocopy

9:46

all of the medication charts you'd go and You' go to the nursing home you'd sort of do your interviews and your

9:53

meetings and your reviews and then you come back to the pharmacy where all of your textbooks and your resources were

9:58

and write it all up then and then and so you were kind of double handling every

10:04

single review that you did and one of the things that I saw in the States was

10:09

and you know and this is very much carbon dating me now is when Palm Pilots were first coming out and you could get

10:14

a Palm Pilot that actually had a um and again it was it was a us um pharmacopia

10:22

that was loaded onto it rather than you know it wasn't Mims and it wasn't APF or

10:27

any of the Australian Texs but it did actually mean that I could literally go to the nursing home with drug

10:34

information in the palm of my hand and accessible and that actually streamlined

10:39

that process there and it was a really I guess a really good reinforcer of

10:45

something that has gone on to drive many many innovations that we've done with techn with with technology as the

10:51

different technologies have come to hand about the benefit of having information

10:57

accessible where you need it not being limited to having to be in a certain

11:03

location to access that information if you can access it when and where you need it at the point of care that can

11:10

make a real difference into both the quality and the productivity of what you're doing that's I was trying not to

11:16

laugh when you were talking about in the '90s and talking about email and facts and it's 2024 and pharmacies that I work

11:23

in now I still doing that so um I think it's uh when you're talking about using what technology have

11:31

available to you at the time um but then also looking at what's next and I like

11:38

that ethos of what you saying okay how do I get that information accessible um because I think at the moment lots of

11:45

pharmacies are wanting to kind of embrace digital technology and there's

11:50

all these new things coming out um and you don't want to just digitize for the

11:55

sake of oh some new technology this seems cool but is is it actually changing your process is it actually

12:02

helping so I guess yeah fast forward to today yeah where do you see technology

12:09

being yeah pivotal in enhancing that patient care and the pharmacy

12:14

operations yeah again I think it it comes back to the same the same basic Theory I think where do you actually get

12:22

both how do how do you see how does technology enable um improvements in

12:28

quality whether that be via having the information available to hand or

12:33

reducing the duplication of information so then you're eliminating potential sources of errors and also how does it

12:41

actually help you be more efficient and often one of the things that I've always found really helpful is talking to

12:47

people about what what part of the what part of their jobs are do they find the

12:52

most frustrating you know one of the things that we always used to say is what is what is the thing that you have to do every day that just makes you want

12:58

to stick a fork in your eye because it just seems like such a waste of time or you know are you entering the same

13:05

information into three different systems and you don't understand why it can't just roll through and be Universal there

13:13

you know you enter it once and then it's there and it's accessible wherever you need and I think thinking about whether

13:20

it's thinking about you yourself and what are the things that you find most frustrating and the biggest pain points

13:25

or talking to team members and finding what they biggest pain points are and

13:30

then thinking about is there a way that technology can help overcome that and

13:36

quite often one of the things you know that we sort of always have found and

13:41

I'm a huge believer in don't just stay in the industry that you're in for your

13:49

professional development and your learning make sure that you're looking at other Industries and being curious

13:55

about what's going on in other Industries because quite often pain points can be Universal particularly

14:00

when they apply to kind of basic stuff like duplication and processes that seem

14:08

senseless and maybe there's somebody in another industry that's already actually solved that same issue and you can hack

14:15

their solution and repurpose that yet yes you know we we have a lot of regulation in healthcare and you have to

14:21

be really conscious about that but I feel like sometimes regul that regulation can be used as a blocker to

14:30

Innovation and to change because it means that people have to get out of

14:35

their comfort zone and do something different than the way than the way that they've done it before and the answer of

14:42

because that's the way it's always been done has always been one that's been a bit of a red flag to me and it's like

14:48

well just because it's always been done that way you know let's unpick that and maybe you get to the end of it and you

14:54

go well unfortunately at the minute it does have to stay being done that way

14:59

but quite often when you actually go through you go well there's no logical reason for why or we can actually

15:06

achieve the same outcome we can still be compliant with all the regulations we can actually still meet all of those

15:12

needs but we can do it in a much more efficient and effective way and I and just if you can take away the things or

15:20

reduce the things that make people really frustrated in their day-to-day

15:26

work experience it's a much more engaging workplace dynamic as well you know no no one wants to come to work and

15:34

do things that seem pointless and frustrating if you can take those things away and give them the chance to do the

15:40

things that they actually find enjoyable and engaging that's a win-win for

15:45

everybody absolutely I've always kind of thought that sometimes the pharmacy industry we kind of have blinkers on and

15:53

we're very insular and I love learning about what other people are doing in

15:59

other Industries and um going to events that are outside of the pharmacy

16:05

because yeah you can learn so much more from other people as you say and yeah

16:10

maybe they've got a solution and something that we can um yeah Implement into Pharmacy but do you think that that

16:18

maybe comes with a certain type of mindset or maybe like that entrepreneurial mindset and as

16:26

pharmacists we're very um I guess logically thinking checking the boxes

16:32

but not sort of thinking that bigger bigger picture cuz that's how we've been trained um do you think if more

16:38

pharmacists maybe had that more uh Entre entrepreneurial thinking could that

16:44

actually help them with that Innovation yeah absolutely and I and I

16:49

think in Innovation gets used a lot sort of as a buzzword in you and I mean I

16:55

can't be critical we we actually had you we always had it as one of our or as one of our core values and our our belief

17:02

was always that Innovation doesn't need to be you know it it doesn't need to be

17:08

extreme things it's really just about finding new and better ways of doing

17:13

what we do and ways that benefit you ways that benefit us as individuals ways

17:18

that benefit the patient and ways ideally that can have a business benefit as well you know the the number of I get

17:26

a lot of pitch decks and things sent to me and particularly in the healthcare space and the some of the ones that go

17:32

you know we this is this has got the potential to revolutionize the way

17:38

healthc care is delivered and that's always a red flag to me because as we all know anyone who works in healthcare

17:43

knows it's really really hard to revolutionize healthare there's a lot of barriers to change there but then as you

17:50

as you and then as you start to walk through the deck and you find that they're essentially what they're proposing would require someone to turn

17:57

what's currently a three-step process into a 10-step process and you go well why is anyone going to bother doing that

18:04

it needs to come from the opposite end you need to be able to turn a 10-step process into a three-step process and

18:09

then maybe that'll be interesting and engaging and you know there's always that go why why would anybody engage in

18:17

doing this and it's always oh but it would be for the good of the patient you

18:22

go well the good of the patient is a great and worthy goal but at the end of the day the good of the patient things

18:29

that are things that drive benefit to patient also have to drive benefit to

18:34

the person delivering the service to engage them in deliverying they actually have to be sustainable from a cost

18:40

perspective and ideally provide a cost benefit as well as part of the incentive

18:45

for the change and I think a lot of um at times a lot of the Innovation that's

18:52

pitched towards Healthcare tends to be about more focused about kind of this

18:58

good the patient very worthy goals without actually thinking of the practicality as to is it is it actually

19:05

deliverable from the people delivering the service and is it also financially viable because one of the things we know

19:12

as Pharmacy you know the the vast majority of our income is is actually

19:18

fixed by the government in terms of what the government is prepared to pay for prescriptions and the markup on

19:24

medicines and and the service fees associated with that so it's not like you're in an industry where you just

19:31

have that flexibility of being able to put your price up to accommodate a changed model of service in fact one of

19:37

the things that you're always trying to find is ways that you can be more efficient and more effective as the um

19:45

as the as the price that you're getting paid is continually getting crunched downwards rather than expanding upwards

19:51

but at the same time you know we've always I guess tried to focus on the positive that comes with that knowledge

19:59

that if you can actually find better and more efficient ways and use that as an

20:05

use that price constraint as an incentive for finding those ways to be

20:10

more effective that is that is where the change can happen and those ideas can

20:17

stem for and it needs to be about whole team engagement as well you know no one has a mortgage on being the only person

20:24

to have a good idea so it's one of the reasons why you know we've never an innovation department or a head of

20:31

innovation because that just gives everybody a leave pass from being able to you go oh we can we know we don't

20:37

have to worry about that that's the Innovation Department's idea it's like no there is no innovation Department

20:43

we're all responsible for think finding new and better ways of doing what we do I love that

20:49

and there's a philosophy that I came across it's called a kaisen philosophy

20:55

you've probably heard of it and they've it's very big on um having small changes

21:02

that make big impact but bringing the whole team on board um and anyone can

21:07

come up with the idea and I love that about what you said about the head of

21:13

innovation and um yeah it can kind of make people oh well that's not my my

21:19

remit that's not my section so I'm just going to turn up do my job um but a lot

21:24

of the time some of the greatest ideas can be coming from the other people that

21:29

are maybe I don't like to say lower down the chain um because that most of the time they're the most important people

21:36

um but just in my experience sometimes we've had some great ideas from The

21:43

Young Junior working on a Sunday oh why can't we do this oh yeah I don't know

21:50

that's just not how yeah why why do we do it this way I don't know um and when you said about the doing things the way

21:57

you that we've always on them yeah red flag for me anyone that any place I've

22:02

worked at where people say that I'm like oh okay I don't think this is places for me but not not just making change for

22:10

the sake of change but yeah really creating those efficiencies because you're right uh in Pharmacy people are

22:17

now looking for uh other revenue streams and I guess maybe wanting the exciting

22:24

cool things that are more exciting and and might be

22:30

revolutionizing but sometimes you can have more of an impact and have a better impact on your bottom line as well on

22:36

those small things that are maybe not as sexy or fun but it's actually really making that impact so when I reflect on

22:44

you talking about Age Care at EPIC Pharmacy a lot of people would probably St clear of that because it's yeah not

22:51

fun it's not exciting um but by streamlining those things you can make a real impact yeah

22:58

exactly I I I think that's the thing and the to me if you if you think

23:04

that change can only come from the people kind of in managerial or senior

23:10

positions you're actually missing a big opportunity to to identify where the most impactful change can potentially be

23:18

look I mean it's important to have big bold visions and strategies but one of the things that we've always been really

23:24

big on is that going to people and saying you know what are the things that are actually giving you the most grief

23:30

every day because we know that if we can solve those those problems for them it not only makes makes their daytoday life

23:38

easier and it almost invariably delivers delivers efficiency gains but it also

23:45

means too that it it embodies trust because they people can see that you've

23:50

heard what their issues are and that you've been open and honest you know you

23:55

can't solve every single problem that's not that's just a pipe dream but if they can see that you've listened to them and

24:01

that you've actually taken it on board and you have devel developed Solutions it means that you've got established

24:08

that trust and also opened up the floor to be able to make people go well

24:14

actually if they fix this well I'm going to tell them about this as well because then maybe we can actually fix that or

24:20

if you've got a bit of a crazy idea that you come to them with and say look I know this is a bit of a leap of faith

24:25

but trust me I think it could be really good but it is going to stretch us out of our comfort zones to take on board this new

24:32

way of doing things if you've got that trust established from the problems that you've solved for them previously they

24:39

are more likely to go well it sounds a bit mad but okay I'll give it a go and and also know that not everything

24:47

is going to work you know we've had some we've had some things that we've tried that have seemed great ideas at the time

24:54

but for various reasons they just haven't worked you know I I was in the original Google

24:59

Glass Explorer program and again one of the things I hacked from another industry uh one of the problems that we

25:05

had at that time was in the compounding area you know the need for the the four eyes verification and it was super

25:12

inefficient because it meant that a second person had to gown up and go into the compounding suite and do that 4i

25:19

verification piece which you know just the fact that the door was opening and someone else was coming in was

25:24

potentially um a source of contaminant or if you didn't want to do that you had

25:30

to double bag everything up and then send it out through the hood for someone to do the second set of eyes verification and then send it back in

25:37

and redo it and I was like what about if the person in the suite actually was

25:42

wearing Google Glass and they could live stream what they were doing so you could

25:48

they could be looking down and you someone someone outside of The Suite could just have a screen open see see

25:54

what they were doing could do that and could actually do that for our very the second set of eyes

26:00

verification um we could use it for training where you had a centralized training you know instead of having to

26:05

fly trainers all around the place you could actually have a trainer in a centralized location and as new

26:10

technicians came on you could run that training remotely and you could see firsthand what they were doing you could

26:17

it was a video so it could be recorded for training records and everything else all sounded brilliant in theory and it

26:23

actually worked really well except for the basic practicality piece that the

26:30

battery of the Google Glass just didn't last long enough and you you couldn't actually do it for enough time to you

26:39

you could only do it kind of for two hour blocks and then you had to recharge the glass and so

26:46

then you there was no point in only having kind of a 2hour efficiency window

26:51

and then the rest of the day you had to had to Res to revert to the process so sometimes it can be the really basic

26:57

things that can actually um kill an idea despite all of the best intentions I mean personally I

27:05

still think I was on the right track with the concept and now you know I mean

27:10

the Apple Vision proos just come out and we are going to see I think new advances

27:17

in those in that sort of area and I think that will become something that is

27:23

much more part of the pharmacy process of the future but at the time when we first it it was a total failure in the

27:30

end purely because of the limitations of the technology but you but you know if you if you don't try you don't

27:38

know yeah you gave it a go and I think that's really important um

27:44

sometimes and it's almost creating a safe space that you can try things and

27:50

even if it doesn't work that's okay and you can pivot and and change or okay we'll might Park that idea but maybe few

27:59

months later or a few years later oh remember we're doing this thing and this

28:04

product now exists maybe that can help us so exactly yeah looking at it that

28:10

way um because I think too sometimes pharmacists we are probably bit of a

28:16

perfectionist as well because we have to we have to be right when we're checking scripts things have to be

28:22

perfect but when you're trying new things it it's not always going to be

28:27

perfect and you're going to things aren't going to work and you need to adapt and creating that that safe space

28:35

for your stuff that if they are going to try something new or different that if it doesn't work that's okay I think

28:41

that's also really important absolutely and I and I think you know it's I I I actually went to a

28:48

conference a few years ago and there was a international speaker I think from memory might have been from Canada out

28:55

and he was actually talking about he' done this Research into what were the

29:00

kind of what were the Baseline personality traits of people who went into Pharmacy and as as you as you

29:06

identified it really was tended to be fairly risk averse process driven not

29:13

not really entrepreneurial thinkers in in the in the um so his point was that

29:21

for change to occur you know the vast majority of our profession the people who are attracted

29:27

into f Y and the the ones who actually choose that choose to study that and then go on to make that fair career from

29:34

his research were not the most likely personality type to be able to drive

29:41

significant change and he was talking about how to how to overcome that and to try

29:46

and you know bring more entrepreneurial thought in and you at the end of the day you wired the way that you that you're

29:53

wired and if you're a conservative risk averse person by Nature you're not going to go out there and blow up the farm

29:59

with wild and crazy ideas but maybe that's where the opportunity is you know

30:05

to bring somebody in and it do it and by that I don't necessarily mean you know it doesn't need to be an expensive

30:11

consultant or somebody like that but some of the some of the best things that we've ever had have been that we've ever

30:17

done have when we've brought in someone with literally no idea about Pharmacy

30:22

who who's never worked in the space who's just actually followed a process from end to end and then come and gowell

30:29

why do you do that why do you do that why do you do that you know someone who works in the technology field in another

30:34

industry and have them look at look at every step of a process with a really

30:40

critical lens and then come to you and say well this seems crazy why are you doing this why are you doing this now

30:47

the reality is that because of their lack of Industry knowledge and particularly around the regulations and some of the

30:53

constraints eight out of the 10 things that they that they put forward where you could do this differently may not be

31:00

possible because there are those constraints in place but two of them

31:06

could be and they could be the things that change and like I said it it doesn't need to be an expensive

31:11

consultant or anything else it could be a mate that you went to UNI with who went into a completely different field

31:19

and you say you know can can you just come in into the pharmacy and observe for the day I'd really value your

31:24

feedback on the way that we do things and just anything that you can see that you think is a bit mad just let me know

31:33

and that can be the trigger that actually brings that idea that could be the thing that you've like you said that

31:39

that unlocks a whole lot of um a a whole lot of new initi

31:46

initiatives it's funny when you say maybe a mate or someone like that um

31:51

quite often my husband I whenever I travel anywhere I have to go into Pharmacy

31:59

whether it's overseas or just a different town that I'm in I'm like I just want to pop into this Pharmacy and

32:04

have a look and the way that he sees things is so different to the way I see

32:09

things and um I'm like oh wow this Pharmacy is so great and he's like oh

32:15

but it's so annoying like as a customer like why would I want to do that I'm like oh I didn't even think of it that

32:20

way so yeah getting people to to highlight things in a different way is

32:27

is so important so yeah it's always quite funny when we go on holidays together it's yeah make him make him

32:34

observe different phes and give him my my insights yeah oh look I think that I

32:40

think that's a great illustration because you know otherwise it's very easy to fall into the Trap of you know

32:46

we we see what we see and particularly when it's our profession you look at it through a very you you you've got kind

32:52

of a unconscious bias already because you go oh no that's just the way it's done in pharmacy and sometimes you need

32:59

that person who doesn't know that that's the way that it's done to be asking that question of well why is that the way

33:06

it's done that may that makes no sense to me whatsoever and I think you it's one of the things I've always been

33:13

really conscious of in my career of kind of making sure that I don't just stay

33:18

solely in that Pharmacy Lane that I do different things that I go to different events in different Industries and in

33:25

different countries to make sure that I'm just not always seeing things

33:30

through the same lens you know that looping back to your introduction that that's really the goal of the um of what

33:38

drove me to you want to want to be part of the Virgin Galactic future astronaut program that if one of the things that's

33:45

really important to you is making sure that you look make a conscious effort to look at the world from a different

33:51

perspective kind of going to space is almost the ultimate expression of that you know it's the you're looking at the

33:59

whole earth from a completely different perspective so that's uh but it's it's

34:05

yeah that's something that I've always been really passionate on yeah I was actually going to mention U and try and

34:11

bring in the the Virgin galactics story so I'm glad you brought that up um and it's a great segue into my next question

34:19

I guess based on your experience uh what lessons or advice

34:25

would you offer to to pharmacists that are wanting to expand their career Horizons you mentioned going to

34:31

different events and looking at different Industries but yeah do you think that yeah they that pharmacist

34:37

should be even maybe working in different Industries as well um or um

34:42

looking at different areas to get that different thinking or different ways of

34:48

working look I mean potentially but I think you don't necessarily have to

34:54

change careers one one of the other things that I've always been really on as well is you know that that lifelong

35:00

learning and you know I've always been I was always doing some kind of online

35:07

course or education sometimes connected to Pharmacy sometimes disconnected to

35:12

Pharmacy to try and get get some get an understanding of of new things that I

35:18

that I wasn't aware on I think one of the things that I would say you know if if you're an employee pharmacist and

35:25

you're wanting to do something different try something different the often times

35:30

you know the the pharmacy owners can really you know will really certainly in

35:36

my experience if someone comes to you with an idea for something that they want to try and something that they want to implement that's fantastic because

35:44

particularly if it's a different idea that you have or an area that they're really passionate about that doesn't

35:49

really float your boat for whatever reason but I think what I would say is if you're going to do that make sure you

35:56

plan it properly put together it doesn't need to be a 30 page deck or anything

36:01

else but just make sure you have kind of some consistent notes on a page go go to

36:07

the person and say look I've got an idea that I would really like to talk to you about when is the time that we could sit

36:14

down for 15 minutes or 30 minutes or something and I can explain it to you if you try and you then that way they will

36:21

hopefully be in the right mindset when you when you're talking to them if you kind of interrupt into their day start

36:27

pitching the idea you don't know what's actually going on in their head you don't know what you might have interrupted that they were busy thinking

36:33

on and you can then get quite a negative response which actually you you might not have got if you planned and prepared

36:41

a little more for it and I think if you can spell out what it is that you're trying to achieve what resources you

36:47

need for it what the benefits of it are are going to be you know it's almost like it's a bit of a pitch deck in

36:53

miniature and then if you get I guess the go ahead to proceed making sure that

37:00

you actually report back on how it went like monitor monitor what happened both

37:06

in terms of what you thought was going to happen and how it's tracking to that or how it's not tracking to that because

37:12

it's just as important to be then or sometimes even more important to be honest about what hasn't worked the way

37:19

you thought it would be and how you've tweaked and tried to overcome that than it is you I think sometimes we can be

37:27

very nervous about being vulnerable and only wanting to actually highlight the things that have worked and hope that

37:34

nobody finds out about the the part that did it but I think if you actually say look these are the things that I'm going

37:40

to be monitoring and whether it's kind of every week if it's a new professional program that you're wanting to introduce

37:45

or something else and go you know I feel like it's G my target is that I want to I want 10 people a week to be accessing

37:53

this service and then it's great if you can go and say well actually it's going

37:58

really well and 15 people have been able to access but if only five have or only

38:04

three or only two it's just as important to say look it's not going as well as I

38:09

thought it would be and I think the reasons are this and it might be you know what I need is a bit more we need

38:16

to do some some more marketing or it turns out that we actually haven't got as many patients in the demograph that

38:23

that I thought we had so I think we need to tweak it or pivot or change in that

38:28

way but I think that having a plan being really clear about what it is you're trying to achieve what you need to make

38:35

it work and then reporting back on the progress or otherwise of it is certainly

38:41

the way that I the way that I always used to go about it when I was an employee pharmacist great advice and you

38:47

can definitely apply that process to anything uh really as well I think um

38:52

we've been chatting for a little while now and it's nearly up to the time to say say goodbye now the last question I

39:00

I'm starting to ask everyone is what advice would you give a younger self so

39:08

something that you wish you'd known when you were younger that in hindsight um

39:13

maybe you've learned and that can be your parting message um I think I think one of the

39:21

things that uh you know hindsight's a beautiful thing because it does allow

39:27

you to see what worked and what didn't work and I think the thing that I would

39:33

say to my younger self is the highs are never as high and the lows are never as

39:38

low and when you're living in a roller you know when you're living in a roller coaster moment and we always have those

39:46

take a deep breath and try not to be super reactive in that moment because

39:53

when you get when you get past it and all moments in L pass and you look back

40:00

it was never as bad as it seemed and it was never as great as it seemed either so try and try and take that perspective

40:07

going forward great advice I think that's the yeah best ending I've had so far which is really good so thank you so

40:14

much pleasure now Cathie it was absolutely um amazing having you on the

40:20

podcast today thank you so much for for joining us and I hope that you'll be guest again because I think we've got

40:27

plenty PL of other things we could talk about as well be very happy to just say the

40:32

word you've been listening to Your Pharmacy Career podcast brought to you by Raven's Recruitment don't miss our next

40:39

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