 These are just a few of the beautiful faces you'll find in the world of pharmacy. What is a pharmacist? The role of a pharmacist is forever evolving but I can show you better than I can tell you. So let's take a look. Amy is a clinical pharmacist and mental health at Auckland Hospital and she's also a research pharmacist at the University of Auckland. Now Amy, what is the best part about being a pharmacist? I think the best part is definitely the versatility of my job. I can't think of any other job where you get to where like 10 different hats in one day. You can be involved in teaching other colleagues. Sometimes I'm an artist because I'm drawing different pictures with patients to help explain about their medications and just the people that come through that we end up caring for and they're also different and so unique. Right now we're heading out to the country to see how pharmacy works in a rural setting. Hey, what's up man? Hey. I need you to tell me what makes a rural pharmacist different. I think the difference is that we work in such a small community and that allows us to build really good relationships with our patients. It also allows us to work really closely with the patient's GP. We've been really fortunate to work really closely with the local Māori Health Organization, Rōkūro Hōrō Tōni. So us the GPs and the nurses work really closely together to do the best that we can for our patients. Now we're going to talk to Penny whose role as a pharmacist prescriber is one of the new and innovative services offered in pharmacy. Well for me it's just a continuation of my role here at the Medical Center working as a clinical pharmacist. So working collaboratively with the doctors and nurses. The doctors are doing the diagnosing and I'm working on the treatment side. It means that I can write the prescriptions or to the blood tests, follow them up myself. More autonomy that's still in a team environment. We're here to see Marie who's been instrumental in expanding the role of pharmacists in a community setting. Well things have changed a lot in community pharmacy over the past few years. So we're now doing things like vaccinating patients for things like flu and whooping cough. So blood testing, we're helping people quit smoking, we're helping them with their weight. We're working a lot more closely with them with their medicines and helping them take them better and keep on track. If you enjoy being constantly on the go you can be a local pharmacist like Apo. I work as an addictions pharmacist that's quite involved with patient care. Then I work as a community pharmacist and the other role is a council member for the Pharmacy Council which is around regulation and the law. When I started we didn't have computers. We used to type everything manually, put things through with labels. I think IT is going to have a huge impact because it's going to give us a lot more access to patient information that is going to open up what the pharmacist can do for their patients. It'll be immense. As you can see pharmacists have multiple roles in a variety of settings like Helen who can come to you in the comfort of your own home. How are you Helen? How's it going? Good. Why do we need mobile pharmacists? When people come to you on a medical practice or on a pharmacy you don't get a good picture of what they're actually doing with their medicines and we know that most people don't take their medicines as prescribed. So coming to their home you actually get a true picture of what they're doing and also they'll share with you stuff that they wouldn't share with you and so you can find out why they're doing what they're doing. Finally let me introduce you to Dr. Jeff Harrison head of the School of Pharmacy at the University of Auckland now. Dr. Harrison really enjoyed my time here and I've learned so much, there's so much more to pharmacy than you might think right? Yeah absolutely there's heaps more. You can take a look around our website the University of Auckland we've got a brand new curriculum and you can learn more about that on the website as well. Hopefully you'll get the information you need but if you don't just drop us an email give us a call. Hey that was just a little insight into the world of pharmacy. We hope you've learned a lot but if you need any more information make sure you check out our website or talk to some of our friendly stuff. Kia ora. There are scholarships available for Māori and Pacific students to study pharmacy. Check out the website for more information.