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Episode 14 | Otter.ai

Episode 14

Lisa Shen35min

Lisa Shen

00:05

Hello and welcome back to so you got a lifestyle degree. We're your hosts Frieda and Lisa to low sigh undergrad students trying to navigate our future careers. This is Episode 14 and we're talking to Shikha Sharma about being a pharmacist. How are you doing today? Lisa? I'm good. I'm good. Listen, I want to be that person right now who tells people about their dreams, but I promise you will be worth it because it's all a setup to a really great punchline at the end. Okay. Okay. So a few days ago, I had a dream in which I was eating cookies. And specifically, I was eating the m&m cookies from subway. It was like weird. There was other things in the dream, but it's not important. The point is that I was eating those cookies. And then the next day, I wanted to get lunch and I was like, Hmm, maybe I could order subway. So I ordered something. I've got my usual you know, Turkey sub. And then I got the Kavos I got two cookies. And I chose the m&m cookies. So I literally had the subway meal of my dream. And it was literally a dream come true. And that's all I have to say. Amazing. kind of related this one time, my friend accidentally called me in her sleep as like the first thing she did in the morning. And she wasn't like aware that she was calling. She just like woke up and saw that her phone was dialling my number and then hung up. And so I called her back like, hey, like, Is everything okay? She's like, Yeah, I was asleep. I somehow ended up dialling your number. And then I was like, Oh, I guess you could say I'm just the woman of your dreams. Oh, yeah, you're real? Yeah. What's up with you this week. So this technically didn't happen this week. But it's really new and exciting. So I'm going to talk about it anyway, my friend and I basically built me a new computer, which was super exciting. I now don't have to deal with leg on my really crappy laptop and can do things with ease, which is nice. And it just looks kind of cool. And I feel really cool using. I feel like I have memories of like friends of ours from middle school cough one person in particular, talking about like building their own computer over the course of a summer. And for some reason, in my mind, this is something that takes months or weeks. But yeah, you talked about how you did this, or hours with your friends. Yeah, so that actually really surprised me as well, because I thought it was also like, oh, we're gonna get a computer by the end of the semester. Not like, Yeah, but what actually takes the longest is the research and kind of finding the best parts, okay, and generally people who want to build their own computers are doing it for gaming and want like the very best parts and so they research for a very long time to get the absolute best. Okay, and, you know, search all the forums, whereas I was like, okay, anything is an upgrade from my laptop. a literal rock is better. Yeah, exactly. And also, my friend has done this, like, twice before. So the research process was very much expedited, thanks to his expert. Yes. Either that were like, our middle school friends are just really incompetent. I mean, they were in middle school, or like graduating. Yeah. Also, I just want to mention that the perseverance rover landed on Mars. Oh, yes. I was waiting. Yeah, I know. Yeah, I get so emotional with space stuff. I

Unknown Speaker

03:19

don't know why. But it's

Lisa Shen

03:20

just something like something launches or something lands in I'm like, potential as humanity. Yeah, I mean, I feel like it's very justified. Like, it's kind of weird if you don't get emotional with space stuff, because you're literally pushing the edge of humanity. Yeah, off the earth. We go. Yeah, it's so exciting. I've talked to you for about how one of the things I'm interested in is potentially advancing human spaceflight. You know, I'm interested in cancer research with like, cancer research, but what about cancer? phase one. But one of the things that I do think about is I'm like the ethics or the morality or you know, how stick with certain things. It's like, we're so focused on trying to do it that we don't think if we should do it, and sometimes I'm almost thinking is me helping cure cancer and space to be dramatic one day going to end up in some multiplanetary I mean, that's not on you at that point. Right. Like, I mean, I know but it's I don't know, man. Yeah, that's a lot of the sentiment I think around AI ethics or it's Oh, yeah, everyone's doing this but no one's Well, that's the thing though. I feel like more people are thinking about AI ethics like way more like I feel like yeah, closer Yeah, maybe. Then interplanetary travel was the goal of war. Yeah. Anyways, Frieda

Unknown Speaker

04:46

I am really excited

Lisa Shen

04:47

about this episode because we are introducing a new intro segment called the squirrel of the week. So from now on every single episode, one of us will be crowning our personal favourite squirrel of that week. Now, this can be based on cuteness, intelligence, or in some cases even married. Very exciting. What's the squirrel this week? Okay, so the squirrel of this week is this little fellow that I saw on the spotted at Mac page. This is one of those University pages that they just post various anonymous posts from students and we will link it in the show notes. And it's just a little squirrel on a tree and your McMaster he's just he's doing the split, you know, like, blue but the squirrels blue. It's a thing like 100% and he's just like holding this giant piece of bread. Do I get to click on it?

Unknown Speaker

05:33

No, you do. Okay.

Lisa Shen

05:37

I can't exactly tell how the squirrel is holding this bread. Oh my god, you're right. Like, imagine that you as a human could like in your mouth carry something that was like the volume of your torso. Yeah, it's about like three times or two and a half times the size of a TED. Yeah, okay. Okay, but it's bread. Like the reason we can't do that as humans is because we don't make bread that size. I feel like I could hold it in my mouth. Could you 100% bread is not that heavy, especially if it's one of those baguette loads. They're 80% air. Yeah, but it has to be like the right size. I don't think I can unhinge my mouth. Well, I guess we found the secret to their powers. unhinging of the mouth. Yeah, did you know in snakes, the top and bottom half of their mouths are not actually connected, which is why they could open their mouths and like swallow entire huge animals. Oh, what do you mean they're not connected? You know how we have things that connect the top and bottom? I just have a top and a bottom of the mouth that can like okay, then unattached, basically. Okay. Okay. Wild, wild. Yeah. Okay. But like part of the reason I wanted to make this the squirrel of the week, the inaugural squirrel that is that it also ties into this weird thing that's been happening around Mac and some people have been posting about this on various Mac pages where they have been finding half eaten baked goods or just whole baked goods on various windowsills or doorsteps of

Unknown Speaker

07:06

their home.

Lisa Shen

07:06

What I know and so there's multiple theories. One theory is that it's like squirrels weaving. I have seen squirrel carrying giant pieces of bread, and then they just seem to give up halfway and they just scamper away and just leave a random location. So I'm like, could that just be what's going on? possibility number two is just someone drinking from the possibility number three, which is kind of creepy is that some people have said that it's a way to check if a home is occupied. You place like a bucket on the doorstep and if it disappears, then the home is probably occupied. Very interesting. Yeah, like there's got to be 1001 better ways to do it, then you can leave some manure like same effect. People would remove it if they're living there. I feel like cupcakes are easier to obtain unless you live on a farm. I mean, manure comes in batches. were expensive and it was cheaper for a bigger bag. Anyway, I don't know why I'm having this right. So yeah, anyways, this is the inaugural score of the week I am quoting him bread squirrel and looking forward to all the other squirrels that will brighten our days. All right, ready for an interview with her Sheikha so so ready. This episode is sponsored by study buddy. Study Bunny is a free focus timer app available on Android and iOS. With the help of an adorable studious bunny. By your side, you can set your study time or an in game coins and use them to buy items to customise your bunny. They also have other helpful enap study tools like flashcards and a to do list. We've actually mentioned study buddy on the podcast before in our mini cast to be specific even before they decided to sponsor us. Personally, I use it to track what kinds of work I'm doing throughout the week and for how long. I love seeing my study metrics visualise in a colourful schedule at the end of each week. Meanwhile, Lisa uses the app to set timers when studying to ensure she won't fall into the among us rabbit hole. Pun intended. Download the app today on Google Play or the App Store. You can also follow them on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter at the links in the show notes for updates and periodic cuteness. This podcast is also sponsored by kick it back alpaca ranch chicken back alpaca Ranch is an alpaca farm near Collingwood, Ontario that's run by Carolyn and Doug Lilian. They raise beautiful alpacas offer close up alpaca tours and create wonderful products from alpaca fibre. At the moment. Other tours are in small groups and lasts between 45 and 90 minutes. During this time, you'll get the chance to pet the alpacas feed them treats and take lots of photos. You even get to learn all sorts of interesting facts about the species like why they don't like it when you touch their heads. Plus, after the tour, you get to visit their store and check out some cute alpaca products. I was surprised to see the range of items they offer including socks, dryer balls and get this alpaca plushies made using real alpaca. fibre. I myself have visited their ranch this past summer. My favourite part of my tour was without a doubt seeing all the cute baby alpacas who are also known as Korea's. They're just so so adorable. My favourite Korea was pipsqueak who is a small fluffy white alpaca, but lately I think I'm taking a real liking to Paisley who is a young alpaca that looks like she always has a tiny smile on her face. It's especially fun getting to feed them treats the feeling of their mouths, nibbling against your palms is just such a delight. kicking back alpaca Ranch is open year round and are currently following all government protocols regarding COVID-19 you can book a tour at WWW dot alpaca tours.ca. Their alpaca products are also available for purchase online@www.lastline.com that's lslyn.com or at the link in the show notes. You can also follow him on social media at the links in the show notes for cute alpaca photos, but most importantly, book a tour and pay those cute alpacas a visit. For Shikha is a registered pharmacist in Ontario. She has worked at several different pharmacies and is currently applying her trade at Bayshore healthcare as well as Walmart Canada. She completed a double major in neuro psychology and biology at the University of Toronto, followed by a master of pharmacy at john Moores university in the United Kingdom. Thank you for joining us today. Shikha. Thank you for having me. Thank you so much, Lisa. All right. So the first thing I want to ask you is, what is your job as a pharmacist?

Unknown Speaker

11:30

What do you do?

Speaker 1

11:32

So my job as a pharmacist is more in a specialty field. So it's a little different than the retail setting that you see a Shoppers Drug Mart or Walmart. We deal mainly with IV medications, mostly our patient population is palliative patients who, you know, are on pain medications, and then we do get a lot of antibiotics to minimise I guess, hospital stay. So we dispense IV medication to patients who are now discharged from hospital and recovering at home on IV medication. So we mostly make IV medications in bags that we compound, and we send it over to patients. So there's no face to face interaction. It's just we send the medication to the clinic or to their home.

Lisa Shen

12:12

And this was referring to your job at Bayshore health store. Sorry, yes. Okay. Do you want to maybe tell us a bit about what the more traditional pharmacist behind the counter role at Walmart, just kind of what that's like, I feel like most people have an idea of that, maybe just to give them more insight?

Speaker 1

12:28

Yeah, yeah, for sure. And definitely, I guess, when most people approach, you know, the pharmacy career, that's the first sort of, you know, image everybody has about a pharmacist and working in retail, I guess is is very different than specialty because you get the benefit of, you know, having the face to face interaction with patients. And so the patient will bring you their prescription, or their doctor will either fax it to you. And then you know, within 1015 minutes, you give them their medication, and they're good to go. So that's basically the role of a retail pharmacist. And the little bit downside of working in retail, is that, you know, you have to make sure you can eat your food really quickly, because you have lunch breaks here and there. So yeah, that's something that's different about retail and specialty.

Lisa Shen

13:15

Yeah. And so I think most people actually don't know about this distinction of retail, pharmacy and specialty pharmacy like until five minutes ago, I didn't know that Specialty Pharmacy was a thing. So do you want to just tell us a bit about that distinction? What exactly is Specialty Pharmacy? Are there different subsets of specialty pharmacy?

Unknown Speaker

13:32

What's what is that all about?

Speaker 1

13:33

Yeah, so there are actually different subsets of specialty pharmacy, for example, my previous job at McKesson, Canada before Bayshore was mainly dispensing chemo medications or autoimmune condition treatment medication. So it's similar to my role, I'd be sure in the sense that there's no face to face interaction, where we get the prescription directly from the hospital. And then, you know, we counsel the patients over the phone, because of course, that's very important part of our jobs, and then we either send it to their home or to their clinic. And of course, we have to ensure that you know, the prescription is appropriate, the dose is appropriate, all the you know, all the guidelines and the parameters of the prescription have been met. And then if we need to reach out to the doctor, we are still able to do that working in the specialty setting. So I guess the only real difference is that in specialty there is no face to face interaction. And then you're focusing on one major aspect, like my previous job was mainly chemo medications and and these medications can be very expensive compared to retail. So most patients will their private insurance can usually not cover the full cost. So in specialty setting, the difference is that they're usually the drug programmes. For example, if you have like abawd or GSK, they themselves will try to fund the medication and support the patients in that case, because the monthly costs can be anywhere from like a grand to $10,000 a month.

Lisa Shen

14:55

Yeah, for sure. It can be crazy. Maybe focusing in a bit more on Your work at Bayshore healthcare and kind of like working in this Specialty Pharmacy field. Do you want to let us know what an average day of work looks like to you? So what time you arrive at work? What time do you leave? Let's assume this is before COVID. And you mentioned like your lunch break is really rapid. Yeah, just kind of like how many hours do work a week, that kind of thing.

Speaker 1

15:19

Yeah, so my work I Bayshore, actually, pre and post COVID, nothing really changed because we don't have the face to face interaction with patients anyways. So we didn't really get affected by that very much. But usually, an average day is about eight and a half hours because the we're blessed with a one hour lunch break. So that that's the good thing about specialty where you can actually sit and enjoy your lunch, but usually when we go in, so the roles vary from day to day based on you know, what we have been assigned to do, but usually the pharmacist would get the prescription, they would approve it. And then depending on the kind of IV medication that the patient is getting, we will then approve the supplies that they need. And then the medication gets compounded. And then there's a pharmacist in the final room checking the physical IV bags, and then those are then sent out to the patients or to the clinics as needed.

Lisa Shen

16:10

Did you want to just briefly explain what it means when you say the prescription gets compounded?

Speaker 1

16:15

So yeah, that's actually a very I guess, pharmaceutical one till until I was in this job, but compounding basically means that there's like a clean room or you know, sterilised room you can say in which case you have to gown up and sort of, you know, wear a hairnet and wear masks and in this was even pre COVID, where you have to do the NPP and then basically depending on the medication, they will then reconstitute it with I guess, sterile water and then depending on you know, the patient's body weight and age, as the pharmacists we will approve that, say, for example, it's amoxicillin. Right, and the dose is 500. milligrammes, so, then we will say okay, 500 milligrammes is best in one litre of of normal saline, so, then they'll prepare those IV bags like say 500 millilitres, or one litre of the IV bag will then have say, 500 milligrammes of amoxicillin in it. So once we give them that direction, then they will prepare the bag in such a manner, and then there's a pharmacist at the very end point to check that compounded product is what compounding basically means. Yeah,

Lisa Shen

17:20

preparing the medication. Okay, I see. I see. So in your role, are you sort of responsible for making some decisions about the medication? How it's like paired, like, you mentioned, how much water it's diluted with? So is that like a decision you have to make based on your background?

Speaker 1

17:36

Yeah, definitely. Because based on their age, or even on their current conditions, like if some patients have a heart condition, or if they have a blood pressure or hypertension, which we say we want to minimise their fluid intake. Right. So we'll try to make the bag as concentrated as possible. But with some medications, for example, there's an antibiotic called vancomycin in which the concentration with the bag is very important, because the line itself like the vein can get damaged if it's too concentrated. So based on our experience, and the patient's demographics, we sort of go based on that as to what's suitable for them.

Lisa Shen

18:14

Yeah. And so does this mean that you just have in your head knowledge about hundreds, if not 1000s of different kinds of drugs? Or do you pull off like a database kind of thing? Yeah, yeah, no, definitely. Because

Speaker 1

18:26

there's always new medications coming out. Yeah. So you know, have that sort of a memory. But we have to constantly keep on, I guess, referring to our resources, because even based on the different age groups, you know, the medications, their doses vary, and some of them are weight based, some of them are based on the patient's kidney level. So there's a lot of factors that go into deciding an appropriate dose. So you will see that pharmacists will often run to their computer or into their phone to double check.

Lisa Shen

18:54

I have seen doctors and pharmacists do that. I'm like, Oh, so like, what should I know about this medication? And they're like medication side effects. They pull up Web MD and I'm like, Okay. I mean, we do have like a little more strict resource guideline. But yeah. So it kind of sounds like you essentially are using the knowledge that you have to decide like the best way to fulfil a prescription that a patient gets.

Speaker 1

19:18

Exactly, yeah. And along with the clinical parameters, like there are also guidelines that the college requires, like for example, a prescription should have the doctor signature, and then the doctor's licence number and patient's demographics. And there's a lot of things that will often be missing on a prescription. So we have to call the doctors for like, sometimes you cannot even read the doctor's name. So like how the medication like who are you billing it

Unknown Speaker

19:44

under?

Lisa Shen

19:45

Yeah, that's something I've always wondered like as a pharmacist, do you have a magical ability to read doctors writing or is it equally difficult for you? It's very difficult, like there shouldn't be a course in pharmacy school where the like Yeah, definitely, definitely an art. So something else that we wanted to ask is, what would you say is some of the toughest or least enjoyable parts of your work? Hmm,

Speaker 1

20:09

that's a good question. I guess the least enjoyable part of my work is that sometimes we get bound by, you know, the guidelines and the time constraints that we have at work. So when I was doing my internship at Shoppers Drug Mart, yeah, I actually came across this one patient, and he was actually severely depressed. And he was he was a young fellow, you know, doing doing pretty well in life otherwise, but he was depressed. And I and you know, he was really talented, very artistic. And he told me, I've tried so many medications, nothing is seeming to help. And I felt like he just wanted an ear to listen to, and he needed somebody to talk to, because he couldn't find that, you know, in his friends or his family. So I feel like I would love to give him that time as my patient. Because as a health care provider, we want to care for people, right? That is our basic goal. So I feel like we're bound by that time and restriction that we have to maintain this patient caregiver relationship, like even if, as a friend, I want to be there to help him or give him that extra time I'm bound by my restrictions. So I sometimes feel that is a downside. Like, even with a lot of you know, palliative patients, they basically need somebody to talk to because you know, they're in a care home, or they have nobody for them, but because of our role. And because we're so caught up with time, we cannot do that for them. So I guess that is the downside that I wish I could give more time to my patients.

Lisa Shen

21:27

Yeah, yeah, it's always tough. I feel like navigating boundaries in healthcare is it's hard. So you kind of told us a bit about your job and what it involves, but then maybe taking a few steps back and thinking about how you got to where you are, let's let's go back to like 19 year olds, who I'm sure you want to revisit, and just ask why did you choose to study neural psychology and biology? So it was a double major? Yes. Yes, it was. Yeah. So why did you study that in undergrad? And where were you kind of thinking when you are going into that that you would do for your career?

Speaker 1

22:00

Yeah, so I guess as a kid, I was always really fascinated by the brain and the concept of psychology versus like it controlling the entire body basically, right? Like our emotions are what we think affects how we feel. So I was just always really curious about that. And I thought you For me it was either I would become a doctor like most of you know us. As kids, we want to do that or I was like, but I want to balance so I guess when I started undergrad, I was pretty clear. I want to go for med school. But then I guess over the years as I took more psych courses and I got more interaction with with patients, I realised that I enjoyed the balance of being able to give my time and because I feel like as doctors, sometimes they're they do all the clinical work. But then the people interaction is usually done by the caregiver is on the other end. And of course, I did a lot of job shadowing and then I realised that you know, the pharmacy world is good for me also, because I can have a good work life balance. Right. I'm very involved in extracurriculars, I play tennis, I play the violin. I also do classical dance. So I feel like having time for these things is very important for my mental health. And I felt like pharmacy was a very good option to you know, have my balance the neuro psych part. Sorry, I totally got deviated. But I guess neuro psych, that was the reason why I chose neuro psych and bio wise as my topics. Yeah.

Lisa Shen

23:24

So you kind of graduated undergrad, and you went more or less directly into a master of pharmacy. So I saw you do you want to clarify?

Speaker 1

23:35

Yeah, so I actually didn't finish my undergrad. So I didn't finish it before entering into pharmacy school, I finished them simultaneously. Because in the UK, they don't require you to complete your undergrad, they just wanted you to have a certain number of credits that they require. And so for myself, I did two years of my undergrad and then I went into pharmacy school. And because you know, we have these long summer breaks for about four months. So I would come back every summer and finish off the last two years of undergrad over the four years of my Masters summer you can say Oh,

Lisa Shen

24:09

so the pharmacy masters is four years. Wow, that's a long time that is essentially like an undergrad,

Speaker 1

24:14

it basically is but if you you know some of my friends who wanted to pursue like the pharmacy career in the UK, then they would do the extra one year and they would do their internship. So for them it will be a five year programme, but I chose to you know, of course become a pharmacist here in Canada so that I skipped that last year.

Lisa Shen

24:33

Right. You mentioned clinical rotations. So

Speaker 1

24:35

is that a mandatory component of all pharmacy programmes, it is mandatory as far as I know that the different thing that I know is that in the UK, it's not as vast and as intense as it is here at U of T that my friends went to like we would probably have two or three clinical days every year and then just the one full year towards the end but I as far as I know here, it's more extensive and they give you more time during the year to As a different sites and like even at my specialty pharmacy often have students come from u of t and you know, they shadow us for a good two, three months. So, yeah, but clinical rotations definitely give you a good insight. But for students who are thinking I'm considering pharmacy school, I would definitely say that they should try to maybe find like a summer job as an assistant and sort of give more time to understand if pharmacies for them or not, because a day or two is sometimes hard to judge if, if they wanted to set it.

Lisa Shen

25:32

Yeah. And then when you mentioned how there are pharmacy schools in Ontario, as well, as you know, pharmacy schools all around the world, essentially, it reminded me, Are there different qualification tests for being able to work as a pharmacist in certain country? And do you want to just talk about how that works and how you got qualified to work in Ontario?

Speaker 1

25:50

Yeah. So to apply to the UK, they wanted you to have above an 80%, average in undergrad. And then, of course, after qualifying there, I completed my four years. And then after coming back to Canada, we have to write licencing exams. So the pharmacy exam Board of Canada is the one that basically runs these examinations. And these exams also apply to Canadian grad students. So this is not only an international licencing exam, it's for everybody who wants to join the Ontario College of pharmacists or British in British Columbia. So by rote, basically two written exams and one oral exam. But the only different thing is that for Canadian grads, they don't have to do that one extra written exam. So for them, it's just one written one oral, but for international graduates to written and one oral without the licence you cannot work in, in Canada. And then of course, once you get licenced, with the pharmacy examining board, then you have to get licenced in the province that you want to work in. So then you have to write a legislation sort of an exam or the jurisprudence exam is what they call it with the Ontario College of pharmacist.

Lisa Shen

26:56

I see. So you first have to get licenced by a higher up board, and then you get a licence in your specific province. Wow, there's a lot of work.

Speaker 1

27:03

Yeah. So I would say like, and those exams are usually twice a year, the pharmacy examining board exams. So yeah, most people study for I would say at least six months for each exam. That's crazy.

Unknown Speaker

27:15

Yeah. Wow.

Lisa Shen

27:18

There's a lot and then kind of backtracking more. Getting back to our earlier question. Do you want to go into more detail about what the classes you took in pharmacy school? Or like, did you have biochem? In the morning, what were the different courses you took? Or subjects you learned about? Yeah, so

Speaker 1

27:32

I guess first year, it was kind of like, you can say grade 12, bio or grad bio, where they kind of bring everybody to the same level. And

Lisa Shen

27:45

they're like, Okay, this is DNA, double helix. Exactly, exactly.

Speaker 1

27:49

And then like the organic chemistry, that's sort of, you know, which all of us like to skip, but you cannot skip organic Chem. And then of course, after that, then we started getting into, like, what goes into a drug, there's excipients. And then like, the stability of the medication, how it's stored the different tablets, capsules, liquid solutions, so then you start getting into that. And then as you go into your upper years, they give you more, I guess, practical classes, right, where you kind of have to mimic the patient and caregiver relationship where they give you practice settings. So as you went to your upbringing as you do that, and then in our final year, we had to do a thesis project. So depending on what interests you, you can propose that and then you have sort of a professor who you work under. And so in my case, I chose to study on the bioavailability of medications, how they will be different different species, like, for example, monkeys, versus humans versus dogs. So I guess that's what the last year sort of spent doing the majority of the last year.

Lisa Shen

28:51

Yeah, that really does sound like an undergrad, you described it, like, you know, like, first year is the basic basic violence that can use more pharmacy stuff going on where it's applying the knowledge and then thesis. So yeah, I guess in some ways, it's kind of like an undergrad that actually was really interesting, though, about like drug delivery. I find that quite interesting because I know that sometimes the issue with medications is getting it to the right spot, and you can somehow target like a liver medication to only the liver, you can minimise the side effects throughout the rest of the body. And I think we actually interviewed someone who she is looking at using viral vectors to specifically deliver drugs to certain areas of the body. They know there's all sorts of bioengineering people who are looking into using like certain small beads to deliver medication. So yeah, definitely a really interesting area. Are there any up and coming or ma technologies that like you're really excited about or that you were really surprised to find out exist?

Speaker 1

29:44

I guess, I don't know if it is a pharma technology as such, but I do know that they have started because as you know, there's the DNA, you know, mapping where they're sort of trying to figure out which genes are responsible for causing these cancers. They're trying to detect early on if they could sort of target that one gene B and make medication specifically for that gene, which is causing cancer in person a, but there's a different gene causing the same cancer in person B. So they would basically make like targeted chemo medications instead of having like one over overview medication for everybody. It was sort of target that which they're hoping would give a better result. So I find that really interesting, where they're sort of using technology to target that particular disease.

Lisa Shen

30:34

And then the last question I wanted to ask you about pharmacy school is just what are the requirements are getting in like, so what are the prerequisites that you need? around? What grade? Do you need reference letters, etc?

Unknown Speaker

30:45

Oh, yeah. So

Speaker 1

30:46

usually, to get into pharmacy school, like in the UK, it was needed above an 80%, average. And then you needed to reference letters. And then of course, there's the interview that all of us, you know, are always looking forward to. And prerequisite wise, like it was basic bio basic math, chemistry and organic chemistry, then you need stats, and I guess these were the main requirements that they wanted. And this has to be over that first year and second year subjects. But math they just wanted for first year month, but biochem for first and second year in organic chemistry.

Lisa Shen

31:20

And then as we wrap things up, is there anything that you wish you had known before you went into the field of pharma?

Speaker 1

31:27

Is that actually a very good question? Actually, I always thought that which is, which is actually a good thing that I learned, I never knew that the specialty side of the pharmacy world existed, it was always like, I wish I have this job, but I never knew how to approach it. So I guess I was pleasantly surprised when I got to know that the specialty side of the pharmaceutical world exists, and you contribute a lot to patients, the specialty setting as well. And the good thing about working in that side of things, or in the specialty side is that you realise how valuable the gift of health is because you see such critically ill patients and some of them are so young, and like, you know, speaking to one of the chemo patients that I had last year, and they were telling me that, you know, I'm so happy the doctor initially predicted three months of lifespan for my wife, but the results came out positive. So now she has a year of time to spend with us. So I guess I'm happy that I discovered the specialty side because I get to learn a lot.

Lisa Shen

32:26

Yeah, yeah, perspective really, really gives a lot. I feel like we don't realise the things that you have until you realise that Oh, not everyone has eyesight. We're not everyone can go outside in the sun without their skin blistering. And so yeah, for sure. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. As we wrap up, is there anything else you would like to add?

Speaker 1

32:44

I would just like to add that, you know, whichever career path that one chooses, you should just remember that your contribution is very valuable. And so you know, you should just follow your your heart and and I guess pursue it with the with all the passionate interest that you have.

Lisa Shen

33:00

Ah, that's very sweet. Thank you. Thank you for that. Oh, sorry. Keep going.

Speaker 1

33:05

Yeah, no, and I just wanted to thank you very much, you know, you and your team for you know, giving me the chance to share my my experience, and I'm really thankful and honoured.

Lisa Shen

33:15

Yeah. Thank you so much for being here. For the listeners. Me and Rishi go. We were talking earlier about how I essentially just creeped her out on LinkedIn. We have reached that stage. Finding random people loving response. Yeah, thank you so much for responding to my message and for being here. And by the way, it is your birthday. So where she goes, you're on her birthday, doing this podcast, so extra bonus points for that. And yeah, I hope you have a great rest of your day.

Speaker 1

33:42

Thank you. Thank you so much, Lisa, thank you for the birthday wishes and I wish you all the best and keep continuing this awesome effort that you are doing and I'm sure it's gonna help a lot of students and you know, reach out. Well. Thank you. All right, that's a wrap. Hey, if

Lisa Shen

33:57

you made it all the way here, congratulations. It's time for a review of the podcast review of the podcast. Frieda. What does this week's review say? This week's review is from ILO rice, ILO writes an amazing resource for science students. This is a great source for students who are feeling lost in their career direction or exploring their options. The hosts do their best to give as much information as possible. And the guests are really amazing to offer their experiences to students. Thank you all five out of five stars. If you would like to leave us a review, like eila you can do so on Apple podcasts link in the show notes. Feel free to include honest feedback about the podcast what you think we should do what works, what isn't working, we would seriously love to read that and we'll probably read a review on the show. This has been another episode of so you got a lifestyle degree with Rishi Sharma about being a pharmacist. We want to give a special thanks to a crew of lovely patrons including our little leaf patrons nyeem, the Neil Shafiq and Shema and our fantastic foliage patrons Stephanie if you would like to become a supporter of the podcast, you can visit our Patreon at patreon.com slash so you got the lightside degree. The music you're hearing is no regrets from audio hub.com Thanks for listening and see you next time.

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