Hello everyone and welcome to our first blog post since the APC Conference 2019 in February! Thank you to everyone who came to support us, we hope you found the day as enjoyable and interesting as we did. We had a wonderful time hearing from all of our inspiring speakers and particularly loved the motivational speeches by Dr James Desborough (Pharmacy Practice Researcher and APC Organiser) and our APC Chair Daniela towards the end of the day!
The conference started with our first keynote speaker Professor David Wright (Pharmacy Practice Researcher and Educationalist), who discussed his research, his role as an academic and his outlook on the future of pharmacy. After this we had 4 breakout sessions from: Naomi Power (GP pharmacist), Angela Kam (Careers and Tomorrow's Pharmacist editor for The Pharmaceutical Journal), Joanne Headspeath (Mental Health Pharmacist) and Katharine Law (Military Pharmacist). Tony West, a previous chief pharmacist at Guy’s and St Thomas’ hospital, discussed his career path and experience working for the hospital in our final keynote speech.
We had over 150 attendees, with representation from all 4 years of pharmacy and even some foundation year students too, which was excellent! Students from UEA, Hertfordshire and DMU stated they enjoyed learning about other pharmacy careers that are available and networking with students from different years.
The key message of the day was that if there is a particular area of pharmacy which interests you, stick with it! It’s incredibly likely you’ll be able to shape your career around subjects you’re passionate about. Persistence is key! What we really wanted to show students is that, pharmacy doesn’t just mean community or hospital, and even if you begin your career in one area, there’s so much opportunity for progression and change. You may end up loving a career in a specific area of pharmacy you haven’t even considered yet! Hopefully you left the conference feeling inspired and hopeful about what your own pharmacy career may look like in 10 years time.
Here’s what some of our attendees had to say:
‘I enjoyed listening to how all of the speakers got started in their careers. I found this interesting and very inspiring. I liked being able to choose which sessions to go, making the day more of interesting to me individually, and enjoyed the frequent networking breaks’
-Charlotte Nicholson, 3rd Year Pharmacy
‘I enjoyed all the talks simply because the people present were from completely different backgrounds and that was useful to me in order to widen my knowledge of the opportunities available once I graduate'
-Ema Damyanova, 1st Year Pharmacy
‘I enjoyed the interactive GP breakout session and the opportunity to network with representatives from Lloyds, CPPE and Pharmacist Support during the lunch break. The conference was very well planned, congratulations!’
-William Stewart, 3rd Year Pharmacy
Keep an eye out for our next blog post (coming in April!) and keep following our Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts (@altpharmcareers) for regular updates on new and exciting events we’re planning for next year!
Comments