Meet Cathy Johnson, Governance Lead Pharmacist in our Medicines Optimisation Team.
Early days
“I really stumbled across a career in pharmacy almost by accident, I read an article in a daily paper on careers in pharmacy, which sounded interesting, and arranged a visit to the local hospital pharmacy department. The hospital was a large district general and provided a wide range of services including both sterile manufacturing (large volume intravenous fluids) and non-sterile manufacturing (lotions and ointments). The hospital also had medical information service, a quality control department to support its manufacturing units and both an inpatient and outpatient dispensary servicing a large variety of clinics and ward. I found it totally captivating and from the point onwards didn’t want to be anything else apart from a pharmacist and a hospital pharmacist at that.”
Training
“I completed the pharmacy degree in early 1980’s and then the course was a 3-year BSc course, and there was much more of an emphasis on dispensing and the manufacture of products than there is now, so we were taught how to make a wide range of mixtures/ suspensions, creams and ointments, powders, and suppositories. One practical test I remember is making copper sulphate suppositories which had to have an even blue colour throughout.
After the completion of the degree, I completed the pre-registration year, becoming a qualified pharmacist and moved into Lincolnshire.”
Career path
“I worked for the next 20 years as a hospital pharmacist. The service was very different in those days, there was no general pharmacy computer systems, all labels had to be hand typed and eye drop labels were handwritten. As a junior pharmacist, I used to dread the outpatient “skin clinic days”, due to the vast amounts of creams and ointments needed to be manufactured from raw ingredients or diluted to the required strength, using only a palate knife and working on large slab of marble. Medicines were very different too, for example insulin were of animal origin porcine (pork) or bovine (beef).
Over those 20 years in hospital, I initially worked in the main hospital dispensary, rotating through various specialist services such as medical information, aseptic manufacturing, radiopharmaceutical supply service, and then moved into a role a providing clinical pharmacy service to a few community hospitals. I later specialised in services to care of the elderly wards and completed a certificate in psychiatric pharmacy from Aston University to enable me to provide services to mental health units and wards.
After 20 years working in an acute hospital, I decided to have a change in career taking up the role of practice pharmaceutical advisor working for a small Primary Care Trust (PCT) within Lincolnshire. When the smaller PCTs merged to form one I then took on an interface role within the PCT with the emphasis on supporting the role of the new Prescribing and Clinical Effectiveness committee (PACEF) and have largely worked in a similar role within commissioning and commissioning support units for the last 15 years.”