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.
This week, Krysti-Lee Patterson interviews the powerhouse behind major pharmacy reforms Professor Lisa Nissen, a pharmacist, educator, researcher, and fierce advocate for health system transformation.
Episode Summary
When Professor Lisa Nissen describes herself as an “accidental pharmacist,” it’s hard not to smile - but it quickly becomes clear there was nothing accidental about her influence on the pharmacy profession in Australia. From growing up in a community-minded household with dreams of becoming a pro golfer, to becoming one of the architects behind expanded pharmacist immunisation and UTI treatment services, Lisa's journey is as inspiring as it is impactful.
In this heartfelt and empowering episode of Your Pharmacy Career Podcast, host Kryst-Lee Patterson chats with Professor Nissen about career-defining sliding doors, her fierce sense of social justice, and the often invisible scaffolding behind scope of practice reform. The episode is a candid reminder that the personal is political - and sometimes, professional too.
Key Takeaways from the Episode
The “accidental pharmacist” origin story - How a reluctant second choice became a lifelong purpose.
Rural practice reality - The steep learning curve of working across 13 health services in remote Queensland.
Scope of practice isn’t spontaneous - Behind every new service is a decade of advocacy, evidence, and elbow grease.
Being a rainbow pharmacist in regional Australia - Lisa’s powerful reflections on inclusion, identity and professional authenticity.
Policy windows and public health strategy - How events like swine flu opened doors for pharmacist-led vaccination programs.
Say yes, then figure it out - Lisa’s career advice to the next generation of pharmacists.
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Full Episode Transcript
Speaker 2 (00:00.302)
Welcome to Your Pharmacy Career Podcast, proudly produced by Ravens 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.
Welcome back. I'm your host, Kryst-Lee Patterson. And today's guest is the one who's helped shape the future of pharmacy in Australia. Professor Lisa Nissen is the Programme Director and Taylor Family Chair at the Centre for the Business and Economics of Health at the University of Queensland. That is a bit of a mouthful. Her work has led to groundbreaking changes in pharmacy scope of practice, including pharmacist-led immunisations and treatment of UTIs, just to mention a couple.
Lisa, welcome to the podcast.
Thank you. Thanks for having me here.
Now Lisa, the first question I ask most people is why did they become a pharmacist? So I'll hand over to you. What was your reason for jumping into the pharmacy land?
Speaker 1 (01:10.606)
It's not a straightforward journey. I think I'll often describe myself as an accidental pharmacist. My family had some ideas about what I should be when I grow up, including, you know, being an engineer or something similar to other people in my family. I had aspirations to be, you know, a pro golfer, which was quickly squashed by my mum, who told me that I could always play golf, but, you know, I should have a career. Golf is more a hobby.
wow!
Speaker 1 (01:38.946)
I'm glad you enjoy it, but it's a hobby and not a career. And probably at that time, it really was early days for golf as a career for women. But ironically, you know, I played schoolgirls golf with Karrie Webb, who is one of her most famous golfers in Australia. So maybe mum was wrong. Maybe you can say, but that kind of meant that, you if I didn't want to be one thing, what was I going to be? And I liked science.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:06.99)
And they were the kind of things that I gravitated towards. I was very interested in how things worked, why things happened. And so I chose to do science at uni as my first choice, mostly because I know I was going to do with it. I just thought it might be good thing. But luckily I was living in a residential college on campus and there's like a smorgasbord of people's individual lived experiences, the different...
courses and programs and I lived with a lot of people that were doing health courses and they were doing really, really interesting things. And I spent a lot of my second semester at university going to the art classes for OT. I made myself a wicker chair. I did woodwork with them. this is amazing. You know, very practical and applied kind of way of helping people. really liked the philosophy.
You're not well-missed.
Speaker 1 (03:02.478)
It was kicking people in their activities of daily living, but it was really quite science. And so at the end of that, I thought maybe I'll do something in that area. And I applied actually to do occupational therapy. Interestingly, I didn't quite fit into OT, but I had to have a second choice on my form. when I went into science, basically, first lecture said, look to your left, look to your right. Two of you, you know, won't have a job.
At the end of this, there's no careers in science.
Wow, that's inspirational.
So I'm guessing my second choice won't be staying in science, I'm to have to do something else. I really had liked chemistry out of all of my sciency things at school. Probably didn't know what I was getting into for university chemistry, but at school it seemed reasonable. And I thought if I'm going to do something that's helpful to people, I've had a really amazing interaction as a young person with our family chemist, Smith's chemist.
Currumbin and Gary West, you know, went on to take over that pharmacy. And they were always really friendly, approachable. They knew about you and who you were. They were really helpful. And they always had jelly beans. They always had a jar of jelly beans that they gave us when we were like kids. And I thought, well, it appears that, you know, chemistry and this profession might be related. I didn't really know much more about it other than that.
Speaker 1 (04:36.652)
And as it happens, I then became an accidental pharmacist because in getting to OT I got an offer to do pharmacy and so I said, okay, I'll go do that. And I guess the rest is history from there.
Wow, what a career for an accidental pharmacist. I love it.
Yeah, I guess so.
Was there any other things that happened in your life growing up that impacted or shaped your path or purpose in life?
Yeah, I think so. Look, I had really great role models with my parents. I think, you know, they're very giving people. They're very giving people. Mum's a very giving person, engaged with, you community organisations. She's turning 90 and she still, you know, volunteers and does volunteer work.
Speaker 1 (05:27.886)
you know, volunteer to help me in any of the things I was involved in when I was a kid, you know, actively. And they just drive me there. You know, she was on the committee. She was the secretary. She was, you know, really engaged. And I think I had sort of reflected a lot on that. And dad was very, very much a helping person. Like he give you the shirt off his back if it would help you. So I kind of grew up in that environment about, I think, helping other people and seeing
that you'll carve something a bit bigger than maybe just your thinly unit and the things that you yourself are doing. And that was kind of all around me while I was growing up. And I kind of reflect back and I think all, you know, the sort of drive to do some of the things as I've gone along has been sort of influenced by that environment. And I think other people probably heard variously that, you know, dad passed away.
when I was 15, which is kind of a tough time to lose a parent. But he'd been unwell. He'd had some health issues that sort of transpired while I was in primary school. And so he'd had a sort of altered ability to sort of continue his full-time work. He worked from home and did activities for people. did jobs for people from home and managed that around his health. And I think, again, people have said, well,
know, when your dad died, did you decide that you're just going to go into healthcare? And I'm well, kind of, no, probably consciously not. I didn't just suddenly go, I'm going to be a cardiologist because actually, or a pharmacist, because there were definite things now in hindsight in his trajectory that, you know, were health-related system problems. And he had some medication-related problems, you know, and I could have gone, I'm going to do that and I'm going to go and fix it. But it didn't immediately come into my mind that I have to go into healthcare because I have to fix.
the experience that he had but I reflect constantly on the experience that he had and what was preventable within his experiences in the work that I do now. So it's kind of maybe this sort of almost pervasive subconscious influence that it's had in maybe helping guide me to to wear a little maybe there is a greater thing that helps you be led to the thing that's gonna make the biggest influence in your life.
Speaker 2 (07:55.0)
Yeah, interesting. I was just reflecting on your story and I think when you were talking about your mum also being very heavily involved in committees and organisations and things like that as you're growing up, those values, I can see that from a distance of knowing what you're getting involved in in pharmacy as well. And so I can definitely see that that's probably had maybe a subconscious impact.
try it your life as well, having those values as a child.
And I think part of it, to my detriment sometimes is I have a really strong social justice. I can't stand injustice, social justice. And I think it very much comes from mum and dad's sort of influences that, you know, somebody needs your help, you help them. It doesn't matter who they are. And that kind of viewpoint that if you want something to be different, you can't be a bystander in that.
strong.
Speaker 1 (08:57.752)
that you have to engage in the things that you're doing to get the most out of them yourself, but for also, you know, things that you want to have make a difference. So I think it has absolutely come. You're a rooted family. Even if it's subconsciously when you're young, you don't kind of realise it, but as I've got older, I kind of know now where that's come from.
That's it. Actually, it's funny when you as you get older and then you start to see, yeah, some of yourself and your parents and you sitting there listening to them and then you think, my gosh, I'm acting more and more like my mom every day.
Yeah, well, when you get married, don't they say look at the mother of your your partner or whatever because that's what they're going to turn into. There you go, Catherine. I'm going to be my mom in the future.
I have to
Speaker 2 (09:50.574)
Good luck.
Speaker 2 (09:56.066)
that is hilarious. And so Lisa, if I could just maybe start chatting now about your, your career. So we've talked about your childhood and moving into pharmacy as the accidental pharmacist, but I could then, I guess he didn't just go straight into being an academic. What were those early, yeah, career journey years for you? What did that look like?
Yeah, so I was lucky during university to be a rural scholar. So I applied to be one of the bonded students for Queensland Health to go work in rural practice. After I finished uni, I had family connections and kind of grew up around country life and really respect the communities and
nature of those communities and and we've really enjoyed them and I thought well you know I'd really like an opportunity to do that and particularly to work in that context in the hospital sector. really had worked out that maybe community pharmacy wasn't for me as a long term prospect at that point in time and maybe I wanted to try hospital and we didn't get a lot of experience in that during my undergrad year. So following my graduation I had a year.
my internship in a metropolitan hospital. So it's at Redcliffe Hospital, which is just north of Brisbane. So a medium sized hospital, but very comprehensive. But then I went out and worked in the country. So I went out to Charleville in Western Queensland. It's, you know, eight and a half miles drive directly west of Brisbane. It's basically in the middle of nothing. community itself is fairly small, looking after, I think, nine hospitals and 13 health services as a, you know.
newly registered pharmacist was a fairly confronting and fairly steep learning curve. But I think it was a real time when I understood the value that pharmacists in communities could contribute. I worked part time for the local community pharmacist on weekends. And the role that pharmacists played and he played in the community and the pharmacist in that health service was playing was significant. And it was broader than the scope of practice I would
Speaker 1 (12:17.986)
have had if I'd gone into the Royal Brisbane or a metropolitan service, you know, led into working a lot more with allied health and community health services. And I learned how to put in cannulas, take blood, you know, do x-rays.
Wow, this is amazing.
Yeah, so, whole type of different activities because they kind of said anybody that's here that's got two hands and is somewhat competent will use them when we need different things to happen. And that was an amazing learning experience. think personally it was challenging as a rainbow person in a remote rural community in the 90s, not necessarily flush with lots of people from the community around.
That's SideStream.
and a lot of biases and homophobia as well, which made some of my life more challenging because at that point in time I determined that I wasn't going to be in a closet trying to pretend I wasn't who I was. I went out fully functionally a rainbow.
Speaker 2 (13:24.076)
Yeah, well, especially in that time too, like as you said, yeah, it was very different to what it is now.
Very different. And you know, I had aspirations to continue to do education, you know, do some post-grad work and others. And I embarked on some of that and it was very, very hard. I tried to do some research stuff too that the university was connecting with us to do and it was very, very hard. I just didn't have any real peers around me. The nearest sort pharmacist was, you know, Tulba, which is, you know, frankly from a hospital point of view, you know, really long way away. And so I eventually decided to come back.
that I need to come back to a metropolitan community for a number of reasons, ended up at the children's hospital. And I think that in itself was really a great experience for sort of casting me on my future trajectory. When I arrived, the director said, if you're here, you need to be involved in SHPA at the time. It was sort of a history of the department being engaged in SHPA.
Okay, interesting.
Speaker 1 (14:29.582)
I think my first role was as a minute secretary or something. So you come on the committee and you're going to get involved in doing these activities. I was like, yeah, okay, that sounds fair. You know, if I'm working in this space, I need to be involved in this kind of stuff. And I eventually went on to be the president of the state branch over a few years and was in that role for a while. But I think also it exposed me to clinical teaching and we had students, all sorts of students, not just
pharmacy students that we were engaged with. And that sort of made me think that one, pharmacists weren't being used as well as they could be, because I knew I knew a lot, but you know, I spent a lot of time sort of doing stuff, you know, depression before, you know, that was a time when you could change the prescription and say, just called the doctor, but I felt really frustrated that pharmacists weren't being used very well. But I also was reflecting on what I learned at uni and I
thought, oh, hang on, these people that are coming from university to the hospital on their visit or their placement, or they don't understand what pharmacists can do and how exciting the role can be and how much they can contribute to the system. So that was the real game changer for me about wanting to go back to teach in the university. I thought, you know, I can go back and I can tell them my story. I can tell them the things that I've been able to
to be involved in and what I've seen and how pharmacists really can be used in healthcare and it's very patient-facing and it's working with other people in the clinical team and you you can make a huge impact. But the university said, I'm only be a teacher here if you've got a PhD.
Yes, okay. It's not something you can just tick off really quickly and easily.
Speaker 1 (16:16.878)
Yeah, so they didn't have conjoint appointments with the children's hospital. They really had conjoint appointments at all at that point in life. But I thought, okay, well, that's really sucky because I really would like to, and I tried lots of different ways, how can I contribute, give some guest lectures, I'm happy to help with tutorials, I'll do whatever I need to do to help out. then it's like, no, you have to have the H.D. to be here, which I found really a bit challenging.
and at the same time then I decided to sit the GAMSAT exam. The graduate program was new at that time, so the graduate entry pathway, was about the second year of GAMSAT. Sat the GAMSAT exam and did an interview, had an offer to get into program, but you know at the same time one of the academics that I really respected from when I was at university, Marie Smith, came to me with a project.
that she thought I would be interested in, which was in the area of pain, which I was already quite interested in from working in oncology and palliative care. And so I had this dilemma in front of me. It's like, you, you know, cause I'm pissed with the system and I feel like, you know, I'm not able to influence it enough. you know, so in my mind, I'm like, okay, well I need to be at the top of that food chain.
It's got the power and the control, right? Which is an obvious thing. If you can't influence, you can't get a difference from him and you need to go to the spot where you can. And then I thought, well, I could do that. But actually I could help to tell generations of pharmacists and pharmacy students about the thing that they can do and change the system that way. So rather than one by one when they come and I chew their ear off while they're on base, man.
Yes.
Speaker 1 (18:05.45)
run away or just get stuck inside a hospital as a doctor trying to change the system and saying, hey, why don't you work with all these other people and pharmacists can do stuff. And what about these people? I had to have a more pervasive opportunity to influence. so hence, I decided to a PhD, which set me off on the trajectory that I've kind of ended up in now.
And how was that experience of doing a PhD? I obviously have not done one and it's funny, it actually terrifies me the thought of actually having to do one. But then I've studied continuously since I finished uni, even though I said when I finished uni, oh great, now I don't have to do any more study. And I've continued it every single year since. But yeah, maybe for those that are listening, a PhD, maybe what was that like in a few sentences?
Yeah, I mean, the PhD journey was really good because for me, it taught me a lot of skills that I didn't already have and didn't possess. I've been a practitioner for a while, so it wasn't about learning new clinic things as such. It was learning project management in a way that is a completely different scale. I learned whole-colic things about different ways to think about.
thinking strategically about problems and processes and outcomes and framing things in the appropriate way. I was really aware that I was developing tools that I could use somewhere else and for other things. That I wasn't necessarily going to be a pain specialist for the rest of my life, although it was an area that I really enjoyed.
as part of my PhD, I also do a lot of work with pharmacists as care coordinators in rural areas. I won't explain how that happened, but that was part of some funding out of some of the early Guild agreements. And it just showed how adaptable those skills and techniques are across different projects. that's then I've just gone on to do that forever. So I think what it gives you is a discrete period of time to spend going fairly deeply and richly into that area of
Speaker 1 (20:21.486)
thinking more about thinking, which we don't get to do always when we're clinicians. think, you know, we're working clinically at the cold face. You don't get to go and do a systematic review and look at how other people have approached that. You just, you have to make a decision and you're just responding really quickly all of the time. And you're doing the best thing with the best information that you have available at that time. Whereas this gives you a chance to kind of step back and say, okay, what are all of the options?
that I could use and how could I think about maybe approaching it differently than I would have if I just wanted my first instinct. And I've really appreciated that as I've gone my journey forward doing different types of research.
today.
Speaker 2 (21:05.418)
Yeah, that's very interesting. And yeah, you're right when you are in on the call phase, you do just make these instinctual decisions. And sometimes your instinct is right. And sometimes it's completely wrong as well. By those things happening and busy and stressful and
Yeah. Yeah. And you've got to, can only go with what's in front of you, you know, it's my, one of my favourite sayings is roughly right, not precisely wrong. So, you know, it's kind of, you've got to get it as as you possibly can, given what you know at that, that time and just try to put in contingencies and make sure that it's as safe as possible.
Absolutely. There's definitely been a common theme throughout our discussion so far, I think of utilising pharmacists or just healthcare professionals in particular to their full skill set. And you've been very heavily involved in this from, I guess, the beginning of expanding scope. Well, even if there is a definite timeline as to when the scope started expanding, but I remember my very first.
APP conference. I was an intern, so that was 10 years ago. And I remember, I can't remember who was the one that was speaking, but they said, we are at a crossroads and that was, you've got to get on board with the changing scope. It was the first year that pharmacists were allowed to vaccinate that year that I was at APP. So it really opened my eyes as to what pharmacists could do. And so from your perspective, I think the everyday pharmacist,
Like especially when I was an intern and I was seeing all this at APP and people talking about it. What does it actually take to make these changes happen? And I'm sure we probably can't even talk about everything in today's podcast. But if there's a couple of standout things that you think that every everyday pharmacist should have some insights into.
Speaker 1 (23:02.094)
Yeah, I think that's a really good question because I think sometimes the profession thinks these things just appear from nowhere. You know, somebody's trying to get pharmacists prescribing for 30 years now. If it only just appeared, I'd be really happy. know, we might get there before I retire, right? But I think, for example, with vaccination, that's a really good way of looking at
at what kind of happens with some of these things. Sometimes it's accidental and it just happens for some reason, but the professional organisations, you know, not just in Queensland, but nationally, variously have been talking to the Department of Health and anybody that would listen to say, pharmacists should be able to be used more. Vaccination is a really good place that we can help you. There's international examples of that. There's different models, et cetera, et cetera. And so the Guild, you know, the PSA,
particularly had had very similar speaking points and talking to points for years before we even got to the starting line. And then I think what we benefited from, and this is when we're going to talk about sliding doors and policy windows, we benefited from at that point, SARS had happened. So 2002, SARS had happened. And then we had ADN, Swine Flu, sorry, had come through.
Yes,
Speaker 1 (24:23.438)
And so what governments had seen was that they needed to think about vaccinating and they needed to think about like antiviral treatments and others and they'd engage pharmacists but they mostly engaged us from a supply point of view. Like we're going to get antivirals out to people or you know we want everybody to have Cipro or...
about, you know, can you help us with the supply stuff and the pharmacist is sitting around those tables going, we could probably do some other stuff too. Like if you're saying that we're, you know, in this position and when they had to vaccinate people on mass, particularly from a Queensland government point of view for swine flu, they started to really reflect on the conversations about having pharmacists participate because we weren't able to be part of that from a
vaccination point of view, or they didn't enable pharmacists at that point to do it. so Jeanette Young was public health physician, public health background, very proactive about pharmacists and pharmacist contributions, medical person by background. One of her key visions for Queensland was her state immunisation policy.
And part of that immunisation policy was about prevention and increasing the numbers of people who were vaccinated. And she knew that if she continued to use the current workforce to do that, which was the immunisation providers and the doctors, that they would not be able to achieve it. And so that's where the windows started to open and all of those conversations started to come home to roost. And then, you know, we got an opportunity to do a pilot that then
you know, started a domino effect for that, service. But I think there's even with UTI, lots of conversations. So behind the scenes, professional organizations like the Guild and PSA putting up proposals for election commitments. UTI came out of an election commitment and then that window opens. And again, roughly right, not precisely wrong. Randomized control trials and all sorts of things. They're beautiful, but not practical when a window is opened and you sort of dive through.
Speaker 1 (26:34.112)
And I think there's some of the things that have really helped the change to happen has been those conversations that have happened combined, you know, the similar talking points about pharmacists being able to do things and similar activities and similar opportunities, then partnered with how it could help the need for ministers who want to get re-elected, public health people who want to meet objectives and taking it not from the position of the profession wants this because we want to
It's because we can help you and we can help patients. And that's then opened up these, these windows. But the challenge I think is what you reflected on it just appears to the profession to a copter. And then it sometimes happens in a rush. There's pilot and then suddenly it's business as usual. And then suddenly we're expecting everybody to have picked up a new service and people are still catching up with what's UTI or QTIP or UTIP. What even is that? And you know,
It's one.
Speaker 1 (27:32.846)
Queensland did it, but why isn't it in Tasmania? And I think that ability to help the profession through the change process and engaging all the stakeholders, including the educators, the indemnity providers, which we do in some respects during the trials, but I think the educators, particularly in the wider profession, as you're coming through the process, kind of makes it easier when you get out the end and you say, well, now we want to scale this up. How can we do that outside of a,
pilot environment where we've paid people to do stuff or we've had people collecting data or we've had funding or we've had other kinds of things. So I think being able to bring the profession along a little bit more on some of those things would be really helpful, particularly as we're going forward, because this is going be more and more.
Mark.
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Do you think it's almost, and I think the professional organizations are getting better at even just marketing to their members and non-members what they're doing. I remember when I sat on the branch for
PSA a number of years ago. And this was when we were still trying to get vaccinations expanded beyond influenza, which like to those listening and probably thinking, what? was this? It wasn't that long ago. But I think that's a whole lot that gets done behind the scenes that yet when you're a pharmacist, whether in a hospital or in a pharmacy, you're just worrying about what's in front of you.
Speaker 2 (29:14.198)
And then you get home and you've got family life and you just maybe want to chill out and watch Netflix.
Yeah. I'm not saying... Work is life but it can't be all of your life and you know only got a certain aliquot of time that you can contribute to all the things that you need to do and you're 100 % right but you know the underground people I just you know we've looked at this a lot lately in some of our work is...
in the way.
getting through the day and the cognitive load of the day as well as the other things that they might have been going on in their life is significant and then you come and say look this great thing it's called expanded scope you just have to do this extra training and then you're have these other people that coming in the pharmacy and they're gonna watch you to come and sit and talk to them it's like mind-exciting yeah it's like you know it's a whole lot of these ones right like they this like I don't want to do that
Like even with the best intention and in their hearts knowing that it would contribute to patient care, I 100 % get that people are like, no, no, no, can't do it, don't want to do it, shouldn't be doing it. And it's, it's, yeah, there's a whole pile of things in the workforce and how we manage work that we, need to bring along on this journey as well.
Speaker 2 (30:32.878)
Absolutely. That's right. I think for my, the next topic that I want to chat to you about, you mentioned earlier on in the chat about being a rainbow pharmacist and you're, you've always, as you said, you've always been someone that's passionate about social justice and being who you are. And, and I think even, even now, not everyone always feels confident in being able to express who they are, no matter what that is and what.
what that means for them. But maybe you can talk about what your experience has been like and maybe relate that to some advice that you might have for people that are maybe navigating challenges in their identity, whether it's relating to being a rainbow pharmacist or queer person, or even maybe just trying to figure out who the hell you are anyway.
And what does being yourself even mean? It doesn't always have to be related to identity and gender. But maybe if you could comment on your experiences and some advice, that would be great.
Yeah, thanks for bringing it up as a topic because I think it's really important and interesting for the profession to consider more broadly and a challenge for people individually. And you're right, it's not just about whether you're a rainbow person or a queer person or whether you come from a culturally or linguistically diverse group or any other thing related to you as an individual. It's how I think we've traditionally
looked at what a profession is and what the profession is. And we have created in a sense, and this is my experience of it anyway, we've created in a sense that this is a profession and it is, if you are a professional, it is all of you and it is separate. Being these professionals is separate to being part of the community of people. And it's like, well, actually the professionals are the community of people.
Speaker 1 (32:37.07)
and 20 % of pharmacy might be rainbow and a certain percentage are called and another percentage are First Nations people. And the profession is the community and as it is for other professions too. And so we have an identity as a professional or an attachment as a pharmacist to being a pharmacist and being part of a profession. But where we've traditionally said, well, that is this thing and it looks like
this and it is in exclusion or in contrast to what your life or your community life is like. That's created antibodies for people and difficulty to work. And we've traditionally had a profession that was more male dominated, had certain ethnic backgrounds that were more predominant than they maybe are now. didn't look, it was very traditional, it's a very conservative background. I think that then creates a view of what the profession
is or isn't. And if you're in the profession, you have to be that. And it's a very contrasting view to saying that the profession is the community and you know, people who are in that profession are in the community and that they're not somehow outside of what that is and that we're inclusive of that. And I think that's where the challenge is. think I gave a talk at PSA and I've talked at a few of the ATUs talking about my experience when I was at university.
kinda cun-
Speaker 1 (34:05.032)
and in second year, professional practice tutes or what do you call them, we were doing code conduct and practice standards and all those kind of things. And first time I was chair of the pharmacy board at the time and come in as our luminous presenter, but used in that context, you know, examples of things that would be conduct on becoming the profession. One of those was being gay. gosh. And so, I mean, if that's
be.
Speaker 1 (34:34.52)
That's taking the view that the profession isn't the community and saying, well, we don't include these things in what we view the profession is, which is really hard when you're sitting in the room listening to that going, maybe I've made a bad choice.
Yeah, that would be a lot to hear, right?
Yeah, and I think, you know, we need to take that view that the profession is the community. We are made up of people who are in the community and are from the big community of people. So we get all different walks of life, all different backgrounds, cultural groups, experiences, and that makes us better than
Thanks.
Speaker 1 (35:18.19)
the sum of our parts because we get the richness of all of those experiences contribute to making the profession good and better and able to contribute with the skills that we bring as pharmacists to the care to the people rather than saying that we are in exclusion and outside of what the community looks like. So yes, I think some of my experiences have probably been of the traditional model of professions. know, this is what it has to look like if you're going to be in this
it's
Speaker 2 (35:41.674)
I think so, yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:47.746)
Profession versus not and it's not just pharmacy I think you know a lot of well I think most professions kind of have cast a few of who they what their identities or what they think their identities Institutions have particular views about what they think you know This is what leader looks like or these are the people that we're happy have sit around you know a board or or a table or a leadership group and they look like that and you don't look like that so maybe
You know, even if you've got skills and capabilities, we don't think that you look like what it should be. And that's when you take a view that, you know, you're somehow outside of the group of people that you're to be with.
I just thinking that I'm going to call it a quote now from you that the profession is a community. And as you were talking about what, I guess, what pharmacy is and maybe what society thinks what a pharmacist is and what it should look like. remember I was working in a pharmacy in a small town and one.
of my staff members was experiencing domestic violence. And I found out about this great training called DV Alert. I think it still exists. And I thought, this is so great. Like we should. And I found out that it was free for pharmacy staff. And so I, this was my first time being a manager as well. So I was very going at it with like a
bullet a gate. And so I was like, yes, I've got this great idea. I really want to get the DV alert team out here and train the staff, all pharmacists all the way down to pharmacy assistance, domestic violence. And I didn't want to share my reason why was that person, they didn't want people to know that and that's fair. And then there's the other issue as well when you're at a menagerie, all of a sudden, I was 18, 19 at the time. And then it's like, oh, I'm now a counsellor and a psychologist as well. But
Speaker 2 (37:49.588)
I met some resistance and one of the feedback I got was, we don't want that type of training done in our pharmacy because we don't want to have those type of people in our pharmacy. And I just remember being so upset and I just thought, if only you knew we do have them in our pharmacy, they work for you. And no wonder they don't feel safe talking to you about this.
So that really frustrated me. then, but then it made me more determined to do it anyway. And I said, okay, well, am I allowed to do it? And they said, yeah, if you want to do it, but it's off your own budget. So I did, because we had to do it outside of work hours and like first year pharmacist out, like you've got no money. So I paid everyone and yet everyone to do the training. like that, you talk about like sliding door moments in your life and.
Yeah, even just the pharmacy assistant juniors that were like 15, like said to me afterwards, that was so interesting because now I've been to friends houses and their dad does that or their mum does this all and like now they've got the education forever. But it always stuck with me when it was, don't want those people. like, what? But we're healthcare. We have everyone here. Like what do you think these people look like? And who knows, maybe they came from their own.
experiences and maybe there's something that they don't want to share and something that bad experiences. But yeah, I just thought, hang on a minute. No, these are our communities. So I really liked what you said is the profession is the community.
think it is. Then we've got all of the people that work with us but also the people that come to us. Our community and you know they're our neighbours. They're our colleagues. They're our you know our friends. You know they're people in our social environment in the neighbourhoods that we live in. You know it's it's impossible to say that we're not we're not in the community or that people that would be in pharmacy would not be in the community.
Speaker 1 (39:53.526)
I think most effective when we are viewed that way and I've seen as some pariahs or ivory-towed people who are different.
Yes, absolutely. Now, Lisa, I think with one thing that I see in you, especially as someone I've looked up to in the pharmacy, you're probably going to be embarrassed when people say that to you. You're like, you're just being you, not anyone special. But the thing though, like that you still have the same determination, grit and passion. And I hope that, yeah, I can maintain this passion about what I'm wanting to do in my pharmacy career. And so
What fills you to keep going? Or maybe you do why we had a little chat about this before we started the recording and maybe the question is why do you keep going?
And I think it's interesting. You're right, we kind of talked a little bit about this beforehand and I've had some challenging experiences with some of the Scropiopractice reform. Not everybody's loved it. I know you're shocked by that, but some of our colleagues in health have not been particularly kind to pharmacy, but also not particularly personally kind.
Yeah, probably they knew that it just made me more pissed off and more determined. They may, they only toilet back a little bit. But I think for me, it maybe does, you know, come back to the fact that I think, you know, I'm quite patient as a person. I'm prepared to play a long game. That's probably why I love golf. It challenges me and it is a long game and you know, you're probably never going to master it. Like that's probably why it resonates with me as a sport. But.
Speaker 1 (41:37.422)
In my other life, I'm a hockey goalkeeper. I'm also really determined, like mongroaling me, to keep the people and the ball out of the goal is pretty significant. So I think part of it is that I really struggle watching when people don't do things. But I know that they have power, or they have influence, or they have means or mechanisms to do things, and they don't do it.
And variously, that's been individuals and organisations who, for whatever reason, have not actioned things or done things to help the greater good of what needs to be achieved. And I think I'm prepared to try and push through that because I can see a vision of a greater good, and not just for pharmacy, but for health around having
know skilled and competent and trained people that you trust helping you and yeah I think that's really even in my you know manager life you know if if there are people that have power and influence and whatever and are not doing things I'm just as mental in my university leadership life as I am outside because I I think you know and it's hard like I've been privileged to have you know supporting family and
you know, a partner who's really supportive in, you know, having that each our life. And I've got, you know, the gift of time sometimes to do the travel and the contributions. Not everybody has that. I appreciate that. And I don't, I don't, so I take a piece of that responsibility for people that I know are passionate and determined, but don't have the time or the capacity or the capability. And I think, you know, these are the people that I have to do this for. If I've got the time and I've got
platform. If I've got the means, I've got the resources, then you know I need to do this and see it through. So that's that's kind of you can't I think it comes from way back you know that if you're going to commit to doing stuff you need to go all in you you need to you know if you tell people that you're going to help them you help them and if somebody said you know we want to do this thing I need your help and if I said yes then I have to follow that through even if it's you know five ten year journey.
Speaker 2 (43:58.946)
Yes, absolutely. I can definitely see now why you enjoy golf. It sure is a long game when you're doing the whole game. Although I am a fan of mini golf.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mini golf is okay. Big golf is better.
I actually live next to a golf course, I've been saying to my hubby that I want to learn how to play golf, but he's much better at it than me, so I think I'm like, draining the chain.
I aspire to live next to a golf course.
Well next time you're in Sydney you can come and visit.
Speaker 1 (44:33.134)
It's a date.
Well, thank you Lisa for joining me on the podcast today. It's been really, really insightful getting to know you more personally. And I know our listeners will have appreciated your honesty and transparency as well. Is there any final thoughts or anything else you'd like to share before we sign off?
I'm going to steal something from some of your pre-list. I think I would put a call out to people that are in the early parts of their career. And this was advice I got given really early on as well by a wise mentor, Su Tet, basically say yes and work out the detail later. That you will have lots of opportunities come up in the profession to contribute.
and make changes and be involved. And if people give you opportunities and invite you, know, say yes, if you can. Don't doubt yourself. Don't think that you have to have a PhD or I'm not smart enough or I didn't do any education or I haven't done that before. Say yes and work out the detail because profession needs people to commit to the profession moving forward. Can't kind of rely on a few people to continue to move it forward. need
massive people who want the profession to move forward to sort of lean in. And I think to our point around pharmacists are the community and communities are pharmacists. I think if I went back to being a young person and I think this is exactly where I should have been. I should have been a pharmacist. Were in health, I absolutely should have been, so that's subconscious.
Speaker 1 (46:17.774)
I think this led me here. I think it's worked out okay. But I think also, just be yourself because we have as a profession evolved and the society evolved, we're less about widgets that all look the same, that have to be the same. I think being yourself and being okay with that is half of the battle. If you feel okay with that, then mostly I found other people are okay with it as well.
great way to end a podcast. Thank you so much, Lisa. Thanks for tuning in to Your Pharmacy Career Podcast.
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Final Thoughts
Professor Nissen’s story is a reminder that pharmacy careers are not linear - they’re lived. Her advocacy, academic rigour, and unwavering authenticity show us that leadership can come from deeply personal places. Most of all, she leaves us with a call to action: say yes, even when you’re unsure - and trust that your impact will grow from there.
“The profession is the community - not separate from it.”
What opportunities are you saying yes to this year?
