Welcome to this special recap of Your Pharmacy Career podcast, proudly produced by Raven’s Recruitment - Australia’s experts in pharmacy career and locum services for over 30 years.
Sitting under the Queensland sun with sweat dripping and splinters in hand, Mitchell Everlyn was picking up sticks on the family farm when he received an email that would steer his life away from dirt roads and into pharmacy aisles. It was a scorching 45-degree day—one of those moments that forces reflection. When his uncle offered a choice between a lifetime of hard yakka in the heat or an air-conditioned future in pharmacy, the decision was obvious.
But Mitch didn’t just choose pharmacy. He embraced it with both grit and grace—blending academic teaching, locum work, and a deep ethical compass into a career that’s as diverse as it is impactful.
Episode Summary
In this heart-led and unfiltered episode of Your Pharmacy Career Podcast, host Krysti-Lee Patterson sits down with Mitchell Everlyn—a pharmacist with a passion for rural health, ethical decision-making, and education. From emotional childhood experiences in a chemotherapy ward to being booked out for six months as a locum, Mitch shares stories that speak to the soul of pharmacy.
Whether it's confronting the ethical gray zones of supply, navigating burnout as a locum, or launching mental health Facebook Lives during COVID, this episode is a candid look at the real challenges—and humanity—behind the counter.
Key Takeaways from the Episode
From UNO to empathy: A childhood moment playing UNO in a chemotherapy ward sparked Mitch’s interest in medicine and empathy-driven care.
Rural roots matter: Growing up in Bundaberg shaped his ability to communicate with farmers and approach care practically and respectfully.
Teaching by doing: Mitch began teaching pharmacy students only one month after registration—bringing real-world, rural pharmacy wisdom into academia.
Locum lifestyle pros & cons: Flexibility, high demand, and good pay are positives, but lack of patient continuity can be emotionally taxing.
Ethical decision-making on the fly: From declining overuse of cannabis scripts to mental health interventions during HMRs, Mitch shares how defining your pharmacist identity matters.
Mental health in focus: Pharmacists play a crucial, often overlooked role in early mental health support—both for patients and within pharmacy teams.
Know your worth: One of Mitch’s proudest career moments? Saying “no” to offers that didn’t respect his value.
Future undefined—but exciting: Whether it's GP collaboration, education, or mental health, Mitch reminds us that pharmacy careers can evolve in bold and unexpected ways.
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Full Episode Transcript
Speaker 2 (00:00.302)
Welcome to Your Pharmacy Career Podcast, proudly produced by Raven’s Recruitment, the experts in pharmacy career and locum services for over 30 years. Every episode is your gateway to new opportunities in the pharmacy profession, from expert advice to inspiring success stories. We're here to spark ideas, guide your career and help you achieve your goals. Stay tuned. The next step in your pharmacy journey starts here. Hi, everybody.
Welcome to another episode of your pharmacy career podcast. I'm your host as usual, Krysti-Lee Patterson. And today I am joined by a dynamic and multi skilled pharmacist whose career spans medication reviews, education, welcoming and advocacy as well as probably many other things as well. Mitchell Everlyn, I'd like to welcome you to the podcast. Now, Mitchell, is it okay if I call you Mitch for the purpose of this podcast?
Perfect. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (00:55.598)
Yeah, I much prefer that actually, even in the academic setting, I really don't like the titles. So please, is completely fine.
Excellent, perfect. So Mitch, let's start with the early days. What first drew you into becoming a pharmacist or pursuing a career in pharmacy?
So if this question we have to rewind about 20 years, I know I don't look or sound that old despite my voice. Let's rewind a little bit. So one of my favorite stories I like to tell people that sort of drew me into pharmacy as a profession. So when I was growing up, my dad had cancer. Not a good time. And it's very hard to watch that as you're growing up as a young person. So I remember very distinctly, I was 13 years old and dad was getting chemotherapy treatment in a very small hospital.
just to the west of Brisbane, very small little hospital. And for some reason, I went into chemotherapy with him one day. It was a Wednesday, so I'm not really sure why I missed school just to go to chemotherapy with him, but that's okay. And because it was a private hospital, there was, you know...
people from overseas, those people whose hair was falling out at one time. And like, it's very much like the typical chemotherapy ward you would see back about 20 years ago. And being a child, 13, I bought a pack of UNO cards. So for somehow, and some reason, I managed to set everyone up in the room. So there was about six or seven of us and everyone, you know, there was still chemotherapy hooked up to IV, all of that sort of stuff. And we managed to set everyone up in a circle just to play UNO together. And you have this really amazing moment.
Speaker 1 (02:15.502)
remember very distinctly being a 13 year old with a little old lady sitting next to me, her head's pulling out. You could hear the chemo pump going through and you have a draw four on your head and you have a decision for Matt. It's just like, what are you going to do? She's already in pain. Do you win the game with the draw four or do you let it go off another round and see how you go? But that's.
That small moment inspired me to join the healthcare profession. That small moment is just like, we can look at drugs doing so much. We can look at like four grams of paracetamol a day can help with pain. We can look at, know, milligrams and micrograms of chemotherapy to actually help with chemotherapy or help with cancer. So it's the biology, it's the chemistry behind it, but it's also the people. It's the healthcare. It's actually treating people as individuals. So that's why I chose pharmacy.
Well, I love that story. It's a heartwarming story, but it is also, I guess, a bit of a sad story as well for you having to go through that at such a young age and to see your dad go through that. And yeah, so many questions being a 13 year old going to a chemo with your dad on a Wednesday. But you know what, that's, it sounds like you've got a fond memory of that, which is nice. And please tell me you didn't put the drawer four down with that.
Of of course, in a 13 year old, have to win some outs all that win.
I wouldn't expect anything less. love it. Now you also just mentioned that the biology and the chemistry part fascinated you and especially how do medicines work? Do you remember from like a young age that that's something that always fascinated you and do you think that's because maybe you were around medicines a lot because of what was happening with your dad?
Speaker 1 (03:48.654)
Definitely towards like the ladies in high schools or around medicines a lot more just because of what was happening at home. I think I just naturally drifted more towards science growing up. I was just naturally better at it. Like I just, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed how if you do A with B like you get C, like I just enjoyed the logic of science rather than having a theoretical conversation about Shakespeare 500 years ago. And that's slightly boring. And then of course, growing up in that environment, you know, you naturally better chemistry and biology because you do that in your spare time. You're doing that at home anyway.
I guess.
Speaker 2 (04:16.952)
that's exactly right. I also know that you grew up in a rural area, so town of Bundaberg. I also feel that has probably impacted you both your career and probably your life as well. And do you think that that's had an impact on you leading into your career with pharmacy? Yes.
Ironically, the day, so my family has a farm just outside Bundaberg. So we have a house at Woodgate, which is near the beach and that a farm, Kedawa. And it's, it was really ironic the day I actually got the offer to be accepted into pharmacy. It was a 45 degree day on the farm and I dropped that day was pick up sticks.
Literally picking up sticks.
It was the highlight of my career as a farmer. And I went to my uncle, I'm just like, uncle, what do think I should do? And he said, Mitchie, do you want to stand out here on the hot sun all day for rest of your life? Or do you want to stand in air conditioning office? I'm like, all right, sign me up, let's go. So like you have a very basic understanding of like, know, chemistry to a much broader aspect on the farm. But at the same time, it's helping those people. It's helping the rural environment. It's being able to talk to those people. And I'm very grateful to have that upbringing as well.
Like as much as we can talk about receptors and bonding sites and protein affinity and all of that sort of stuff, it's being able to help the farmer walks into the pharmacy, who's going to be like, what's this drug actually going to do? What happens if I don't take it every day? It's creating a much broader conversation where we can help more people, but much different, much different.
Speaker 2 (05:42.414)
That's so true, especially when you ask that question, what happens if I don't take this? I grew up on a property as well and so it's pretty hard trying to get any sort of, especially males that are out on the farm, that live on the land to take anything. So I think my dad was using like eye drops that I couldn't even tell what they were anymore. He's like, can you get me another one of these eye drops? They're amazing. I'm like, I don't even know what they are.
Yeah, it's a super different conversation is that like, and there's some things actively wrong and you can't actively go to work, which is a rare case in those environments. It's just like, do you do? And how can we help that farmer who comes in? Like if they actively come in, something's actively wrong. So what can we do for those people?
Yeah, that's a really good point. If they've actually been bothered to come into the pharmacy, like that's pretty massive, really, if they've actually made it all the way into that pharmacy. Now, if I fast forward, maybe just a little bit of so you've got gone to university, done your degree, and just one month into becoming a pharmacist. This is pretty wild. You got asked to return and come back and teach.
So can you tell me a little bit about that experience? Like, wow, that must be, I don't think that's something that happens very often.
super privileged, super privileged to be in that position. Thankfully I was in Canada to celebrate finishing my internship and I got an email while I was over there to be like, hey Mitch, like I really liked you doing like your honors project and your majors project. Can you come back and do like one guest lecture for us? I'm like, yeah, sure. I can talk about whatever you want me to talk about. can talk to That's completely fine. So I get there and I start teaching and then they're like, you're actually pretty good at this. Do you want to do some more? So that was at UQ when I first started and then one thing then to another and then within
Speaker 1 (07:27.276)
Another month or two, I was teaching at QUT at the same time, which is pretty exciting. So it's in this very rare position where they just needed people desperately. So despite only being registered for a month or two months at that point in time, they're like, yeah, come back and teach. What do want to teach? Yeah, literally whatever you want. I'm like, you know, I have zero skills. I know nothing about life. And they're like, no, you'll be fine. You're registered. I'm like, that's not really how life works, but that's completely okay.
I love that humility that you have me like, oh, this is just who I am and this is what I can bring to the table. I think if I think back to when I was a student, I really related to the lecturers that were just open and honest with what they know and what they don't know, but then also have that real world experience as well. And so were you still working in a pharmacy as well at this time or did you just go straight into 100 % academia?
No, no. So I was like working in community pharmacy as well. So I was like community pharmacy four or five days a week and teaching one or two days as well as all the online stuff. But I really liked your point before about saying like just the relatability to people in the real world. So even my recent teacher, you and me like last week, for example, it's great teaching alongside professors or pharmacology and like, you know, we can talk about receptors and bonding sites, but I feel the students really appreciated me and my very real world aspect to be like, this is a patient who's going to walk in. They're going to walk into the emergency department, that.
or they're going to walk into a community pharmacy. These are people who I've seen in real life. How can we actually help them? And as much as we can talk hypotheticals, I think it's just having that real person there. And I think that very much helped my teaching, you know, back in 2017, 2018, when I first started, just to say, like, let's actually talk about the real world.
Yeah, absolutely. Do you think that you seem to have a natural knack for education? Let me say that again, a real knack for education. I I was trying to say mentoring and education in one word and just talking to you, I can see that you're very easy to talk to, have a way of kind of articulating things in a way that people can understand. Is that something that you maybe...
Speaker 2 (09:28.246)
like did experience when you're younger or didn't experience when you're younger or when you're going through your own degree and thought, maybe I didn't have a good experience. So this is why I want to give back and do it better. Or is it just something that just comes natural to you?
So a bit of both. I think firstly, it starts with working in rural environment, having to learn very hands-on and very practical skills. So, you know, if a farmer's teaching you, they're not going to give you a 15-minute demonstration. They're going to be like, I'm going to explain this once and good luck and off you go. But sort of leading on from that, especially within my student years, I had atrocious lecturers and atrocious mentors within the pharmacy setting. So for example, I had a pharmacist I used to weekend work at a particular pharmacy and she hated pharmacy and hated me.
wow, okay, that would have been fun. my god.
It was it was not good in the slightest. So you flag labelling, like, so she said you're doing an atrocious job, Mitch, keep in mind I'm like a first year so I don't know anything about anything. Right. She made me stem the corner of the pharmacy for four hours one Sunday and just do flag like
my god, that sounds literally like a nightmare. Like honestly, could be better things you could be doing with your time,
Speaker 1 (10:35.438)
But like, you know, you start contemplating your life choices being like, is this my life? Like, is this fancy? Is this, is this me? And like, you'd ask her a question and be like, what's the difference between courtroom assault and to benefit and she's like, look it up. Thank you so much for your so wonderful advice. I really appreciate this. But in saying that because you're so hard.
Yes.
Speaker 1 (10:53.014)
I learned more working with her for six months. Thankfully, that's as long as she lost in that particular fallacy than I did in the first two years of university because she made me look up everything because we actually had to have those super hard conversations. It really spoke to the mentor that I wanted to be. So even when I'm teaching now, I love teaching, I love mentoring just to have that one moment just to see when people actually get the stuff, whether it's an intern, whether it's a first year, whether it's file assistant who's been registered for 15 years. That's what I love to see and that's why I get really passionate about.
I can just see that passion come through as you're talking and I totally agree. think probably most pharmacists that are throughout their career, they've had maybe experiences with people around them that maybe aren't that great, maybe not that...
It's inspiring, but it certainly can leave an impression on you, whether it's for the better or for worse, that even if it's just as, well, I don't want to be like that. And so I know I've had similar situations too in the past. And I always try to make, especially when I was on placement. So I was actually really lucky that I had great jobs while I was working in pharmacy while I was studying, but the, some of the placements, I didn't have great experiences. And I just thought I'm so lucky that.
This is not my rural experience. I'm working in a pharmacy, so I know that's not like everything, but there's some pharmacy students out there and that's all they experience for a couple of years. And I worry that, my gosh, they're going to see that and not want to continue. And so I always try and make it a point that when I have pharmacy students, like I don't make them do cleaning or put stock away or stock take or something like that. Cause I think, my gosh, they're never going to.
actually finish 30th grade if this is their experience.
Speaker 1 (12:35.054)
Like it's super hard and even like with somewhat of the corporations taking over a lot of pharmacies these days, it's not even that there's not adequate pharmacists out there, but the students just don't have time to learn anything. Like if they're whacked on the schedules, counted for two shifts and you don't actually have any traction with the pharmacist, like you're not really creating those learning environments, but it's also the patients who are being impacted at the end of the day. They're like, if you're not actually having these conversations and they're not getting any better within themselves, we can only learn so much from lectures. We can only learn so much from tutorials. It's actually getting in there and
teaching students to inspire the next generation to help the people who can actually, they're the ones who will come in.
absolutely. Yeah. Not the nail in the head right there. Now, Mitch, let's fast forward a little bit more to your role as a locum pharmacist. So the podcast sponsored by Raven's recruitment, I've done a number of locum roles for them in the past and still do. And locuming can be really rewarding, but it can also be quite challenging as well. so Mitch,
Maybe you could just give us a bit of an understanding of what locum work looks like for you and why locuming is actually a good option for what you're doing in your career right now.
Yeah, so again, that's, I don't know how much time we have, but let's just go for the whole long story, shall we? Why not? So in 2022, I was managing a pharmacy just north of Brisbane. I had COVID, we're still doing like isolation at that point in time. So I was at home with COVID, I had to organize the locums, I had to organize pay and rosters and all of that sort of stuff as I'm pretty unwell at home. And I just thought, you know, enough's enough. Like the owner of the pharmacy is based in Victoria, so he couldn't come up with all like the isolation rules. And it was just me having to deal with it. And I just thought, you know,
Speaker 1 (14:17.44)
Enough's enough for how you can still with like the KPIs and budgets and all that sort of stuff. So that's sort of take a bit of a holiday overseas. So I had a bit of a break and came back and just told a few people I was welcoming. And then I told two or three people that I was booked out for six months, which is
It happens with being a low-comer, right? Especially if you're half decent. You'd tell one or two people next thing you know, everyone is hitting you up.
Yeah, it's like Christmas time and you're just like, it's February. What are we doing? Yeah. Yeah. Like there's pros and cons about being a loco. And I'm sure a lot of other locums have told you that like the pay is great. The biggest thing that I'm finding as a con is the satisfaction. So being in a regular place, whether it's a hospital pharmacy, whether it's a community pharmacy.
whatever it is, you're seeing regular customers for the most part. You're seeing regular people, you're seeing your interventions either work or not work. And you don't really get that as a logan. Unless you're like a month stint from that, she doing like a month on month off, or unless you're like a three months stint somewhere, you're not really seeing those people come back. You're not building up the rapport. You're not building up those relationships, which is super hard. So it's a big.
sort of catch 22 for me being like, I love welcoming. I love the diversity. love knowing every day can be somewhere different. I love going to the small little rural pharmacies and you know, central Queens that'll send to New South Wales and like they're the real people that I like actually talking to and dispensing systems are dispensing systems no matter where you are and people are people and drugs are drugs and you know, we can travel anywhere as far as this around Australia and work and that's super exciting, but it's just sort of weighing up for me what's most important at this point in time.
Speaker 1 (15:43.67)
So it's sort of way up like the satisfaction or the limited satisfaction I get versus the pay that I'm sort of getting. And thankfully I sort of supplement that satisfaction with other things. So like I teach and I lecture, which is pretty amazing. And I also do HMRs on the side, which is cool. So I get that full sit down conversation with people and I know you don't get like the repeat HMRs typically speaking, but it's actually building a genuine connection with someone, which is what I miss out on when I'm working full time somewhere.
Hmm, no, that makes complete sense. And I can definitely relate to that as well. feel like now just managing my own workload, now I've got kind of a set few pharmacies that I will do like regular locums where I go back to and some of the customers there are now like starting to.
like remember me and they're like, Oh, so when you coming back again? And so I actually did one in orange and I was mainly just doing flu vaccines to be honest, because it was it's coming into that season. They're like, Oh, when will you be back? I'm like, probably this time next year. So I'll do your flu shot for you next year when I'm back.
It's interesting especially when you have like a very recognizable face like mine like being bald and having a beard and people just recognize you anywhere and like that's him that's my pharma system like where where where are you looking what's happening and it's like it's super weird when people recognize you based on those that 30 second experience or that two minute experience when you get in flu shot or whatever it is and people remember you for that but that's what really love about the profession being like people trust you and people will respect you for like for those conversations
Absolutely. And actually it's one of those things that you probably don't realise the impact they have on people, right? Like they're just one of maybe hundreds, if not thousands of maybe people you've seen in a day. But for them, like you are the one pharmacist that they've come to see. So they do remember that. Yeah. And sometimes they remember the good stuff and the bad stuff as well. Not always perfect, but you know, it's how you deal with those kinds of situations.
Speaker 2 (17:40.224)
I'd love to chat to you now a little bit more about some of the things that you face when you are a locum. And there's some really great things that you can see how different people approach different workflows and things like that. Like I love seeing going into different pharmacies and even within the same banner group, it can be so different, which I find hilarious because you would think it's the same and half the time it's yet the variations between the same.
banner group stores, can pick up these rule gems of like, wow, they do this. This is a really great idea. Like one pharmacy, I was at, you know, when you go to a pathology place and you get the numbers, they were doing that for their flu vaccine clinic. Super simple, but my gosh, I've worked, but they can also sometimes be, I guess, not necessarily negative, but maybe dilemmas that you face as a locum. You've been locum for a while, so I'm sure you've probably got a whole handful of
these types of stories, but yeah, could you maybe talk to the listeners a little bit about maybe some of those ethical dilemmas that maybe you see the most and for people that are thinking about becoming a locum, how can they actually navigate these situations?
There are so many other world leaders. I think the most important part, especially when approaching a lot of those things, is who are you as a pharmacist? Like, what are you willing to, like, where are you drawing the line personally and professionally? Like at the end of the day, we have our insurance providers. They're fantastic. But if it's five o'clock on a Sunday and someone's coming in being like, need ointage, and you're just like, yeah, like, what are we actually doing in this circumstance?
Speaker 1 (19:20.169)
Yeah. suppose I could tell you that once, well, actually I will. will say for listeners. was looking at this. I'm not going to say which pharmacy, a very bad pharmacy for the sake of the conversation. They didn't really care. So they're very business oriented. They weren't customer very, they weren't customer oriented, which I think is a very big difference. So even between bad groups, depending on where the owner is situated with the penny.
Even where the manager's situated, like are they customer focused or are they business focused? That's a very big question. So when you're walking in anywhere, what's happening, who's the priority at the store?
Other stuff the priority or other customers the priority. It's a very big question. The staff get their lunch breaks. Are they angry come 2pm because you know, they haven't had a cup of tea all day. Like that's a very interesting question when you walk in. But sort of back to the really bad F4Ks. So I was doing this weekend shift like as a favour to the retail manager for the time because I knew her from another pharmacy. Their top two sellers of this particular pharmacy were cannabis and rikodeine, which sort of sets the scene for the pharmacy someone. And before I walked in, like I didn't have any real communication with anyone. They're just like, yep, rock off this weekend. Here are the keys. Someone's got to let
and happy days, which is pretty expected for lot of farms.
That's just typical local life in some ways. Good luck even if you get keys too sometimes.
Speaker 1 (20:30.368)
Sometimes she just mock up and like, I don't know anything about anything. Hopefully someone has a key or a code or alarm. If not, yeah, it's great. Like thankfully Ravens or other companies are really good giving you a lot of background details to be like, this is your average script count per day. Do do methadone? Do they not? Do you have any text on like that sort of information is super helpful when you walk in. And even as like a private locum, so to speak, it's just like, it's good to have some sort of basis before you walk in. like, what am I expecting?
Yes, it's very helpful.
this particular pharmacy like it was a Saturday, I was sorry, Sunday afternoon at this point, and I already had a super interesting weekend. This lovely lady came in. She's like, I'm here for my cannabis. I'm like, you got it yesterday. She's like, Yeah, but I don't have a limit on like a 3d clearly says in the script that you have like a three day limit. And I have a look and she had 48 tubs of 15 grams that month. And she's like, Oh, but I'm going through and I'm really depressed. I'm like,
that's actually have a genuine conversation like you know, you're not smoked dog unfortunately, like you know, how do you like 30 grams of cannabis per day? Like what's actually happening with mental health like but it provided a much deeper conversation being like other pharmacists more than happy to supply this they may have out of contact with doctors that's give them benefit of the doubt for the sake of the conversation. I'm not too sure. But in that situation is like how's the patient actually feeling? they just medicating?
medicating themselves with medicine just for the sake of their condition? Or are they actually actively looking for help? Like what's actually happening? But at least that conversation we provided, like that person walked away happy knowing they couldn't get the medication that day because I'm like, talk to your doctor tomorrow, today's a Sunday, I can't call anyone. But they actually said, okay, thank you so much for actually listening to my concerns as a person, because no one else had done that beforehand. So like, even when you're situating yourself as a pharmacist, you still need to ask yourself, who am I as a person?
Speaker 1 (22:12.526)
Who am I as a pharmacist? Like, where am I going to draw the line to actually help these people? Is it a conversation? Do I need to call mental health services? Do I need to call like paramedics? Like how cute is the situation? How can we still help them the other day?
Pharmacy Daily is a proud supporter of your pharmacy career podcast. If you're in the pharmacy world, it's a great resource to stay up to date with the latest industry news. To subscribe, just head to pharmacydaily.com.au to get the newsletter delivered straight to your inbox. I think that is a really powerful story and that could have gone a number of different ways, right? You could have just flat out said, like, absolutely not get the hell out.
or yeah, and that would have completely changed that relationship and maybe that person's trust in the healthcare system. But you essentially declined supply, but she walked away feeling like you'd helped her, which is really amazing. So as opposed to just treating them like they're like drug seeking people, because yet majority of them they do have genuine ailments or conditions or things that need to be treated. That's why they're there. mean,
It's much easier to get this sort of stuff on the street than these three pharmacy and doctors. So let's be honest, if they wanted to do that, they would be doing it elsewhere. So I think that's a really powerful kind of takeaway message that yeah, what type of person do you want to be? You can still abide by your own, first of all, from the legal requirements, but then also your own, I guess, values as well by you still helping that person, but you still not crossing any, any lines there.
Yeah, of course. And that's what I think the biggest thing is even for people listening to say, you're going to walk into these environments, you have no idea what you're going to walk into. And even if you think like there's a relatively safe pharmacy, for lack of a better word, you still don't know who's going to be coming in that day. But it's up to you as your own person to say, how can I help them? Or how can we even compromise in this healthcare journey that they're on?
Speaker 2 (24:09.502)
absolutely. I think we've kind of this conversation is kind of leading now more towards like the mental health aspect of of pharmacy, not only just from a patient pharmacist interaction, but even yourself. So even being put into that situation can sometimes
I know it will cause me a bit of anxiety having to go and give people the news that they don't want to hear. Now I'm much more confident in saying no and telling people where to go if I need to. But yeah, know especially early on in my career when if I had to be that pharmacist to go out and decline supply or give someone news that they didn't want to, it would scare the living daylights out of me.
so nervous. And I'm only a little person half the time. Like you can't even see me if I'm behind the dispensary. So sometimes, yeah, the people who going out to it can be be intimidating. But and so I think you also mentioned like what's going on in that pharmacy, like other staff getting their lunch break. So they're having cups, like being able to go and have a 10 minute break. And it's funny, I see some pharmacies in my
my experience and they can be very to the T of you can only have a 10 minute break and like it's only half an hour if you're one minute late like my gosh like which I do understand like I can understand but at the same time what type of culture is that leading and I don't know just to use it frustrates me when you've got to go and get your lunch you're heating up your market and your food and the microwave's like 100 years old so it takes 15 minutes to heat up your lunch.
And then you've got to eat it in like five seconds. It's not really creating a very supportive place, but I think this is a good time to kind of delve into maybe what you believe can be the role of pharmacy in mental health. And I know that is a huge, huge question. And we could probably have a whole series of podcasts dedicated to that one topic, but maybe we can talk about it from, yeah, like looking after your own mental health.
Speaker 2 (26:11.138)
but then also the mental health of your staff and patients. Or you can come up with something else if you like.
If I share a mental health related HMR story and then we can circle back to your questions. I feel that'd be really helpful. Okay, cool. So about six months ago, give or take, I had two back to back HMRs on a Saturday afternoon. One was at four o'clock, one was at 5.30. The 5.31 was like a favour to the doctor. They gave me a call at about, you know, five o'clock on a Friday afternoon being like, hey, this patient's suicidal. We really want to look like different antidepressants and antipsychotics for them.
Can you see them ASAP for a review? Yep, that's easy. I got that. Like as soon as the patient can last for the weekend, like that's completely okay. But like I'm very aware of that situation when I walk in. The four o'clock one, I tend not to really like to look at the referrals too much these days because you all of the medications are five years out of date. There's those one-inch products that the doctors have never bothered to take off the meds list. Like all of that sort of stuff. So I tend not to look at the referrals really in depth. So all I really knew is that the patient, the mom, she had dementia. The daughter was looking after her. Yeah, that's all I really knew.
So I get there at four o'clock, you know, mom's walking around. has no idea what day of the week it is. Like she's very late stage dementia. And I asked the door, I asked the car. I'm just like, how's mom? Very open question. You know, we can interpret it anyway, anyway one. And the daughter said, yeah, I'm going to kill it tomorrow. And then, you know, it's, four o'clock on a Sunday, right? It then shifts your entire perspective. Then like, I can't call the doctor. This is what's generally going to happen. Like we're not having a joking manner here. Like some people would be like, like, you know,
wow.
Speaker 1 (27:40.334)
you can like this was no joking situation. And then it really puts into perspective being like the diabetes that the patient had doesn't matter. The hypertension patient had doesn't matter. So you know, I still went through the other medications anyway, because I was there, not that there are any significant importance and the you know, the care and tips saying, Oh, can you take the patient with you? Can you take them with you? Otherwise, this will definitely happen. I'm like, I, I generally can't I can't drop them off to a nursing home. I can't drop off the hospital like I
I can't do any of that. have to answer this, this patient afterwards who was suicidal, which, it's a lot of pressure on you as a pharmacist in that situation, right? So sort of wrapped up everything fairly quickly. So it's only about half an hour, which is pretty short for HMR. But I'm like, the biggest concern here is not hypertension. The biggest concern is not diabetes. The biggest concern is the patient will not live to Tuesday. Like that's just the fact. So sort of to wrap up that conversation, uh, went outside, drove up a few K's again, another rule HMR this one was thankfully I called PDL and I'm like,
please help me. What do I do? And they're super fantastic. Like if you're ever in doubt, please just call your insurance providers. Like there, that's what they're there for. Please just call them. And they just said, you know, best thing you can do now, just call the ambulance and like just get her out of that situation. So I gave the ambulance a call and they said, do we need police? What's the whole situation looking like? And I'm like, I personally didn't feel threatened, but this is the situation I generally felt. This was a large concern here. This is how we're looking to it. The paramedics came.
took the patient to the hospital and then later a nurse come to sort of just take the pressure off the carer. And like, whenever I think about mental health, that's the case that I think about being like, it wasn't just the patient. It wasn't just the carer who was obviously a massive burden in mental health. And like, you know, we don't, we don't want to be those people, but it was then me afterwards being like, okay, I've now got half an ounce of drugs, my next HMR to a gentleman who I know was suicidal. Like, how do you keep yourself in that mindset? And it's a great question that you asked like,
what you do with mental health in those cases. Who do you reach out to? Is it family? Is it friends? Do you go to the gym just like that out of all your frustration? Like what do you do here? That's a super important thing. Yeah, it's so interesting. And thankfully he was okay. Thankfully I didn't have to call the ambulance for him because the motion here just wasn't up to it that day. And thankfully he was very receptive to talking about different antidepressant types and his journey so far, which was really good overall.
Speaker 1 (29:50.668)
Yeah, like that was good. But just sort of relating back to like the pharmacy question, she said, I guess there's two people we can really think about when we think about mental health. Is it the patient or is it the staff members? Is it, you know, having an extra two minutes to enjoy your hot cup of tea? Or how can we actually look at this from a patient point of view when people come to the pharmacy? We do meds checks, we do diabetes meds checks. Why can't we do mental health meds checks?
Like there are so many herbs and supplements out there and especially with the information that we have at our fingertips like with my health record, assuming there's consent of course, you know, people are hopefully getting somewhat regular blood tests. We can sort of pick up like a lot of the things there and there's very clear evidence-based or evidence-based guidelines for like a lot of over-the-counter stuff before we even get to scripts. And I'm not saying like overstep by any means or diagnosed by any means. Like I'm not saying any of that, but like there's very good evidence for saffron or for St. John's ward or for B12 or...
you know, iron deficiency, can link to, you know, let the gene things like that. So why as pharmacists can't we start having those conversations with patients? Why can't we sit down at console rooms and have those conversations? If it's Medicare funded, if it's privately funded, like, why can't we start having those conversations with people?
Great question. And I wouldn't really know how to answer that straight away off the top of my head as to why, but I think maybe the one thing that people can do is there's a saying and I'm trying to remember it. It's like, not everyone can.
change the world, but one person, I don't know, I can't remember the exact one it is, but it's basically saying that like one person can do one action and then that will have a flow and effect. Yeah. I wish I could actually remember it anyway. I'll remember and I'll pop it in the show notes for those going to want to know what that quote is. Yeah. I think the purpose of that is like, aren't we doing it is that we'll maybe rather than waiting for it to be like a full on service or like, we have to get paid for it. is just like, well, what can you do as one person and what you can do as one person.
Speaker 2 (31:45.008)
person is yet just look at the person in front of you and look at them with a little bit more empathy. And I know when it's really busy and you're working in a pharmacy that's like doing six, seven, 800 scripts a day, there's even a pharmacist I know that are doing like over 1000 scripts a day and it's just hectic and but remember when people coming into the pharmacy, it's not because they're well, but like there's usually something something going on. so just trying to remember that. And I know for me,
when it is really busy and I could feel myself not maybe being as patient as what I could be is that's when I'm like, okay, I need to just go for like a walk. And I know when you're in a pharmacy, like where can you walk to? But sometimes there might be just like literally just walking out the back for five minutes or a couple minutes and just kind of clearing your head. Yeah, taking the moment to yeah, if maybe one of your staff members has had a conversation with someone that's quite
quite deep or has experienced maybe some aggression or something like that, just giving them five seconds or five minutes just to go sit out the back, collect your thoughts. And you know, even if it's busy, like they'll wait. So maybe there's just little things that you can do as a single person. Yeah. To try and make a little bit more of a difference.
And I think really links back to what you're saying a few minutes ago being like the insignificant moments for us are really significant for people. Being like that one person is coming in and you can't see on Moxie's select because they're unwell. They're going to remember that. But even people starting on like SSRIs, like it doesn't matter if they've had a half an hour console with their doctor or whether they're already seeing a psychologist. It's those few minutes or even those 10 minutes you're spending with someone actually generally going through everything. They're the moments that can generally help people.
And then looking back to us as healthcare professionals, it's really hard and it's hard to like neck off the massive burden that we have and just take it all home. And it's very hard to like de-stress and take away everything and take on.
Speaker 1 (33:35.756)
because we're taking on so much like a motion from everyone else we're seeing throughout the day. It's a super busy pharmacy, you're dispensing, you know, 800 scripts a day or you're checking the scripts and there's, know, Webster Pack problems and there's 50 flu shots you have to do. And like, that's a normal day for a of other community pharmacists. And it's like, how do you, how do you rewind or how do you unwind at the end of the day? And how do you debrief every
Yep. And sometimes even too is one of the biggest things that I love to do is just give patients realistic time expectations on how long things are going to take. And I know it's such a small thing to do, but I find especially like what I do, like him since stuff like that is when I hear, yeah, he like,
Oh, it'll just be a couple of minutes. I'm like, Oh my gosh, no, I do not ever say that. So I just find by giving those realistic expectations like be 10 or so minutes or so, or if it is really busy, look, it's going to be about half an hour. We're under under the pump. Our pharmacist hasn't had had lunch yet. So it's just going to be a little bit of a wait. And I find that 99.9 % of the time when you're honest like that and your staff are honest and the customers and patients will lay understand the
They're like, okay, sure. I'll come back later. It's okay. I'll just sit and wait. And I remember this cute old couple, they had nowhere else to be. So they just sat there and we kept like, you want a cup of tea or anything? And they were quite happy to sit and wait. And so I think sometimes too, we put pressure on ourselves that we don't need to that we have to be like super fast. Like, I mean, I don't know if anyone went and ordered fish and chips on Good Friday, but I mean, my local area, was like an hour and a half wait for fish and chips. People didn't care. were like,
That's fine. I mean they're welcome. They're okay to wait an hour and a half of fish and chips Surely they can wait 10 minutes for a script
Speaker 1 (35:17.486)
Yeah, it's a super important conversation as well. And then like, it's all well and good if you want to be that, you know, stoic heroic pharmacists and work through lunch breaks. But at what cost is that happening? Like is it it's not just like the potential risk for patients. It's also if you're in mental health as well, like whether it is just going for a small walk around the pharmacy about whether it's like just jumping out the back and doing scrolling, tick tock for five minutes. It's just being that circuit breaker being like, I'm just taking five minutes me and custom weights five minutes for other script like it's not the end of the world.
No doubt they've waited longer than five minutes to see the doctor. Then they've travelled to the pharmacy, they've handed the script in. All of that's taken longer than five minutes. So you taking five minutes yourself is more important.
Absolutely. I'd like to maybe turn to a positive question. And that's, you've done so much in your career, and there's probably a lot that we haven't even scratched the surface of yet. But this question, I think we'll be able to maybe catch on some of the things that we haven't talked about. But what's some of the maybe the career defining moments that you're most proud of in your career to date?
Yes, super hard question, super important question. So thank you for that. I look back at my career so far and yes, I've got a few different degrees and yes, I do a whole bunch of different stuff in my spare time. I think standing up myself as a pharmacist and treating myself for what I should be and what I am worth sort of defines who I am these days. And I sort of, you know, you get offered local gigs around the place and you, you you look at the wage and it's much less than like, it's about half like a war right for pharmacists. And I'm like,
It's not the fact that I'm booked out for months. It's not the fact that their HMIs will teach you anything like that. I know who I am as a pharmacist. I know what I'm worth and to step away from like sort of full full-time positions where I was employed like during COVID and like a great pharmacies and you learn to like you're really part of like an awesome team and all those sort of things. It's stepping aside to be like I know
Speaker 1 (37:08.43)
what I want to be. I don't want to be in a massive corporate store for the rest of my life. I don't want to be achieving KPIs for somewhere else. I want to be helping the people who generally come in. And I think that's one of the biggest highlights of me being like, I can do all of these amazing things. I can teach at different places. I can speak at conferences. Like I can, like I'm super proud of all of those moments. I think we should be like, it's not just the one degree that we all have all. Like that's something to be proud of, but it's saying who I am as a person. It's to be able to say no to different opportunities when they come up. I think is.
What?
Speaker 1 (37:38.254)
It's a fantastic thing to sit back and be like, no, I don't want to do that shift to December. No, it's not worth my time to fly 12 hours to do one shift no matter how much you're paying me. Like it's, it's to stand up for yourself and for who you believe in. think is the biggest, the biggest achievement that I've seen myself progress with.
Wow, that's amazing. It's very deep answer. It's not what I thought you were going to say. That's for sure. I've got some notes for those that are listening, got some notes here. And I honestly thought that you were going to talk about the Facebook Live mental health sessions that you ran during COVID. But I think what you said was, yeah, really, really inspiring. Much better, in fact.
Yeah, yeah, that would have redirected me so much better if I actually looked at the notes first thing she before. Like because you brought it up, people don't know too much about me during COVID. was working in a pharmacy just west of Brisbane and one of the pharmacy owners really amazing ideas was to have like regular Facebook live sessions for people who didn't want to leave the house or for people who still wanted to catch up with like health related news but didn't want to like, you
Absolutely, yes.
Speaker 1 (38:38.176)
Obviously, this isn't the news because all that time is just covered covered covered stuff. So I teamed up with a local psychologist and we did a Facebook live session. And for those who have not a Facebook live session, it's super awkward. It's super clunky and you sort of get there. And there's a very great analogy that I can make that I am deaf, not for the sake of this podcast, but it was so good because we actually had that very open and honest conversation. Be like, let's talk about mental health as a whole. And that was something that I never thought my pharmacy career would ever take me to do, which is absolutely amazing. Like to do like an open event.
where we can actively talk and our healthcare profession's been like a pharmacist and a psychologist together just answering questions to public and like those sort of events, I never thought my career would take me there.
That's really cool and also really scary. I've done Facebook Live accidentally and it's terrifying.
And the shit advertised like you don't know who's gonna blog on you don't know what questions are gonna get asked and it's not like a structure thing and you're just like this is so weird and awkward but you get there and you get the job done right?
I love it. Really, really good. Well, thank you for covering that for our listeners. Appreciate it. You've done so much in your crew, Mitch, and I feel like you've still got so much more to give and do. What do you think is next for you? She knows.
Speaker 1 (39:50.264)
fantastic question. Yeah, I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm very one of those like gold-driven people to be like, what's next? Who's the next person we can help? What's the next bit of information we can do? And it's very hard when you're so gold-driven and you have so much spare time because I have so much to learn.
Yes!
But it's like, it's like, what's next? It's like, you know, we've, ticked off GP pharmacy work where working towards that credentialing with diabetes, diabetes educator sort of stuff. I've done some, you know, HMI credited, done some sort of stuff in terms of like natural medicines and natural things that like double than that sort of area as well. And it's very much of like, what's next? And to be frankly honest, I have no idea, but I'm excited. I'm excited to see where pharmacy takes us.
So excited to see where pharmacy takes everyone else as well. Like it's not just GP pharmacy. It's not just hospital pharmacy or nursing home pharmacy or HMRs. Like is it private practice we're going to? Is it like, is it mental health related things we're going to? Like where, where is the dementia pharmacist? Like is it teaching? Like I've held so many different jobs or even like casual positions over like my somewhat nine years being a pharmacist, but I'm so excited to see what's next for everyone. In terms of me, I have no idea. We'll just throw all the cards up in the air and see what falls.
I love it. And dinnerware, think that's the best. And for those that are listening that maybe they're still studying or maybe they've been in their career for 10 years, 15 years, 20 years and want to do something different. think the fact that
Speaker 2 (41:15.662)
I think now with pharmacy, it's so exciting that you can pretty much create your own path a little bit and create your own adventure. But there's so many different opportunities out there. yeah, like sitting here today, 2025, like when I first started in pharmacy back in 2008, I think was my first pharmacy job. Like that pharmacy.
Like the most innovative thing they were doing was blood pressure and weight loss, like weighing, like that was like, whoa, but now look at, look at where we are. Gosh. Yeah. Pretty excited to see the next next 15 or so years. Well, Mitch, thank you so much for taking the time out to chat with us. I know we didn't cover everything in your career, but it's been a really, really good discussion and yeah. Thank you.
It's a very nice tech and do thank you so much for having me on.
Thank you so much.
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Final Thoughts
This episode isn’t just a feel-good listen. It’s a blueprint for sustainable pharmacy careers in Australia—where flexibility, ethics, and self-respect aren’t optional extras but essential survival skills. Mitch’s story speaks directly to the challenges faced by pharmacists working in remote settings, as locums, or in high-pressure dispensaries—offering tools and mindset shifts for those at any stage of their career.
Raven’s Recruitment understands those pressures. If you're seeking to realign your career with your values—or simply explore a new direction—our experienced team is here to help you navigate the path forward. Let us help you find a pharmacy job you love.
