Pharmacy’s best take on national competition

Pharmacy’s cream of the crop in New Zealand will be celebrated this year.

Nominations closed yesterday for Pharmacist of the Year.

Pharmaceutical Society of New Zealand Chief Executive Helen Morgan-Banda is excited about the calibre of the candidates put forward by their peers.

“This is great to see. The panel of judges will be faced by a difficult choice this year. It’s tremendous to see this level of enthusiasm and work in our field.”

This year’s nominees are Vanessa Brown, of Hawke’s Bay, and Hoda Fahmy, of Auckland.

The Pharmaceutical Society of New Zealand (PSNZ) Award recognises achievement of an individual pharmacist who has given outstanding service to the profession and the wider health system.

The award was established by PSNZ in 2012.

Award nominees can be from any of the pharmacy sectors including community, hospital, primary care, and non-patient facing roles, but must be a Society Member.

The panel of judges will soon be assembled.

Nominees will be judged on how they’ve raised the profile and role of the pharmacist, how they have provided a model of practice that others can strive to emulate, and have consistently demonstrated excellence in professional clinical pharmacy practice by providing high quality pharmacy services that improve patient outcomes.

Helen is hoping that as the competition continues to evolve over time.

“That means work goes into expanding it to include the entire pharmacy workforce and looking at the addition of competition categories that people can enter.

“There is so much going on in pharmacy and I want to see that recognised on a national platform.”