THE Pharmacy Careers Summit 2025 kicked off this morning with leaders from three pharmacy peak bodies coming together to share their visions for the future, including opportunities and challenges for the industry.
Prof Trent Twomey, President of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia, and Tom Simpson, President of Advanced Pharmacy Australia (AdPha), each presented their pitch as to why students should consider a career in community pharmacy and hospital pharmacy respectively.
Prof Twomey's vision for the future of community pharmacy is turning Australia's 6,000 community pharmacies into urgent care clinics and mini emergency departments.
Simpson shared AdPha's vision of every pharmacist practicing at the top of their scope, connected to their peers across the country, and having maximum impact on the patients they support and care for.
"We've seen the wonderful evolution of new roles often started in hospitals, such as clinical pharmacy services and medication reviews; and stewardship programs, such as analgesic and antimicrobial stewardships," Simpson said.
Meanwhile Assoc Prof Fei Sim, President of the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia (PSA), focused on the PSA's vision of seeing the full potential of pharmacists unleashed.
With an ageing population and medication use on the rise, as well as a health system under pressure, she pointed out that pharmacists' skill sets can go a long way to ensuring patients access the care they need, while also improving the way medications are used.
As custodians of standards and guidelines for all registered pharmacists in Australia, as well as education and training provider, the PSA is about ensuring pharmacists meet the highest standards of patient care, she said.
The leaders panel then turned their focus to opportunities and challenges presented by sweeping changes currently affecting pharmacy, from expanded scope of practice and digital integration, to workforce reform and shifting community expectations.
Hospitals are where the most complex patients and medicines are, Simpson said, highlighting the opportunities for speciality practice in pharmacy, such as oncological pharmacy or paediatric pharmacy, particularly with the new pathways for specialisation now available.
Meanwhile, challenges arising from recent medicines shortages and supply chain disruptions have given pharmacists even more input into what medicines are used.
All agreed technology presents both opportunities and challenges.
Simpson pointed out that with technology, the role of the pharmacist will become more important rather than less.
"As technology can check for dose interactions, bring in medication histories and so on, the role of the pharmacist is by the bedside, practising patient-centred care."
For community pharmacy, Prof Twomey said embracing technology, enabling online access to advice and products, will allow pharmacists "to be there when our patients want, and how our patients want".
For Assoc Prof Sim, "the biggest opportunity is to actively allow ourselves to really contribute to improving patients' access to care, but also really helping to improve the use of medicines, whenever and wherever they are used".
The biggest challenge, she said, given the evolution of pharmacy, is to ensure pharmacists are supported through these changes.
"However, in Australia, we're quite lucky to have very strong pharmacy bodies representing us, and when we work together collaboratively, we can create a very strong future for pharmacists," she concluded. KB
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