New President of the Society

At the Pharmaceutical Society’s National Executive meeting on 26 November Professor Rhiannon Braund, University of Otago, was elected President.

Professor Braund will take over from current president Ian McMichael, who is stepping down as President. Dr Natalie Gauld was elected Vice President and Bronwen Shepherd was elected Treasurer.

“I am looking forward to working with the Society to help shape the future of pharmacy and to provide opportunities for pharmacists to utilise their clinical skills and work in newly defined scopes of practice,” says Braund.

Professor Braund has been on the Society’s National Executive for 3 years, is a previous branch president of Otago from 2007-2010 and a committee member from 2002 -2012.

As a practising pharmacist, Rhiannon works closely with local organisations including primary health organisations and district health boards.

Her passion is the advancement of pharmacy practice and she has a particular interest in primary care. Her research aims to understand current practice and provide evidence for the developing roles that pharmacists have.

She has published work in the areas of adherence and specifically "Medicine Use Reviews", reclassifications of trimethoprim and sildenafil, and recently was involved in the introduction and evaluation of Pharmacy Accuracy Checking Technicians.

The National Executive thanked Ian McMichael for his passion and commitment to driving change for the profession in his role as president and are glad that Ian will continue as a member of the executive to support their advocacy work for pharmacy.