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MARCH 2025
Solving ‘dire’ problem
Old school pharmacist Ian McMichael had plenty of advice for the Waikato University pharmacy class of 2025 as they began their journey towards joining a profession on the move. Senior writer Mary Anne Gill discovered what those tips were.
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witch off your social media and learn to listen, like and love people, solve problems and become empathetic. Then when you talk to someone dying of cancer, or someone who has been sexually abused, a change gender person or a mental health patient, you will understand because you have become a good listener rather than an observer. That was the message from veteran Hamilton pharmacist Ian McMichael to the 22 students, soon to be 25, of Waikato University’s new graduate-entry pharmacy
programme. The advice clearly had an impact. Within minutes, as they introduced themselves on day one of a programme expected to help solve the “dire pharmacy workload problem”, Tauranga’s Jamie Mitchinson had taken his advice on board. “I’m excited to get stuck in and learn…and delete Facebook,” she said. Mitchinson and the others excitedly spoke to a range of industry and university guests about what led them to the university’s two-year Master of
Pharmacy Practice programme and the lecture room in Te Huataki Waiora Division of Health in the TT Block late last month. Their experiences, ages, backgrounds and journeys were varied; some had science degrees, another had a master’s degree in biology, a couple had come via nursing and other healthcare professions, been researchers, qualified as pharmacists overseas or been pharmacy technicians in New Zealand. All needed a major in one of the molecular sciences - biochemistry,
biomedical science, chemistry, molecular and cellular biology, pharmacology – and achieved a B grade average in their final year. They hailed from Auckland, Palmerston North, Coromandel, Gisborne, India, London and Brisbane and will undertake 375 hours of primary practice in community, primary care and hospitals as well as time in the lecture rooms. Students will learn pharmacology, pharmaceutics, the law, ethics and pharmacy practice. “I’m really excited about
deepening my pharmaceutical understanding and applying it the real world,” said one. A mother of two had been at home raising two daughters for the last six years. “I’m so excited about this. Hopefully I can come out of my comfort zone,” she said. “My whole point is to learn more about medicines and put it into a research background or somewhere clinically so I can do better for patients and the community,” said another. CO NT I NU ED O N PAGE 2
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Waikato University Pharmacy School’s first intake including Jamie Mitchinson, fourth left front row, and Chaney Solomon-Wilkinson, back row extreme right, join Te Huataki Waiora Division of Health staffers, pharmacy and Chemist Warehouse representatives and pharmacist Ian McMichael, centre rear, in TT Block’s top floor. Photo: Mary Anne Gill.