HPS People in the News:
Feature Article “Opportunity Knocks”
by Jennifer Cooke
“I moved to Hobart from Launceston to study pharmacy in 2016 due to pharmacy not being offered there at the time. The opportunity to study pharmacy was incredible but also hard as I had to move away from home to take it.” Charlotte Sulzberger (MPS), Imprest Hospital Pharmacist (TAS)
Congratulations, Charlotte, on this great editorial coverage!
I moved to Hobart from Launceston to study pharmacy in 2016 due to pharmacy not being offered there at the time. The opportunity to study pharmacy was incredible but also hard as I had to move away from home to take it.
In my second year of pharmacy study, I started working as a pharmacy technician for HPS Pharmacies at Calvary Lenah Valley Hospital. This led to an opportunity after graduation to complete my internship with HPS across four different private hospitals in Tasmania. Since registering, I have worked in different areas including as a clinical pharmacist at St Helen’s
Private Hospital in Hobart (now closed), and a dispensary and clinical pharmacist at Hobart Private Hospital.
My first standout opportunity that made a significant difference in my career was accepting a pharmacist position for Calvary Lenah Valley Hospital in 2021. Within this position, I covered the dispensary but one of my responsibilities was to manage stock control and supply of the different medications for each of the wards, or “imprest”. We order the required medicines so they are readily available for the nursing staff, and don’t need to be dispensed each time by the pharmacy.
A big part of my role is to review when medicines are out of stock and decide whether different brands or sometimes different medicines all together are clinically appropriate to use while a medicine is unavailable. When our manager offered me this opportunity, I was excited but also a bit daunted by the idea of managing procurement for the hospital. I was responsible for ensuring the hospital always had medications on the wards. While it was scary initially, my manager guided me through each step.
This opportunity definitely came from left field and was not a role I expected when I started my career.
While scared of the unknown, I wanted to give it a go and see where it led me, and I fell in love with it! I have since learned about the logistics of medication supply and procurement and it has enhanced my problem-solving skills – making me resourceful and to be able to think outside the box for solutions.
Pharmacy has a range of opportunities available in many different areas. I hope to continue in the procurement field but would never rule out other opportunities that come my way!
Read the Full Article Here