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28 PHARMACY PROFILE CAPITAL CHEMIST CALWELL, ACT LBy Marcela Araneda. ooking at the roots of problems is the ethos of Capital Chemist Calwell in the ACT. Whether it’s a staffing issue or a health concern at the front counter, for pharmacist Elise Thornton and her business partner, Kathleen Tran, getting to the bottom of problems is what makes their pharmacy special. “We have a particular drive to look at things holistically,” Ms Thornton said. “So we make an effort to find the cause of health problems and not just Band-Aid them, and I think that probably works well in business as well as health.” Looking after people’s wellbeing and providing the right environment for doing so comes naturally to Ms Thornton, who has been involved in pharmacy since the age of 14 and knew then that this is what she wanted to do in life. “Calwell was opened in 1994 as one of the first shops in the new shopping centre,” she said. “I started working \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\[for my partners\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\] in 1997 and, in 2006, I became their partner and started managing the store.” While Ms Thornton describes the pharmacy as being progressive back then, a lot has changed since. “Ten years ago, we made an effort to move out the giftware and really focus on what we thought our key area was – primary health – so we looked at what gaps in our community we could fill with clinical services and put in an extra consultation room,” she said. “We now have a pretty strong clinical focus. We try offering all our services during opening hours. We usually have five pharmacists on the floor and try to make sure that every customer gets the opportunity to speak to a pharmacist.” Nurturing young interns is at the core of the pharmacy and is something that also comes naturally to the women in charge. As Ms Thornton candidly explained, there’s no such a thing as a structured program for interns, but allowing them to grow and experience pharmacy from every angle is what has worked for them so far. “We’ve been pretty lucky and we’ve had some amazing interns,” she said. “I get really excited when we have an intern apply. We try to just give them as many opportunities as we can. We make sure they’ve got supervision and guidance, but we try to give them as much exposure to a big variety of tasks and all our services. We do have quite a few pharmacists on staff, some of them with specialities such as HMRs or being diabetes educators, so there’s a big pool of knowledge available to them.” The strategy has worked, with Capital Chemist Calwell’s Lucinda Kenny announced earlier this year as the 2019 MIMS/Guild Intern of the Year. When the award was announced, Pharmacy Guild Queensland Branch Education and Training Manager Kathy Knack said Ms Kenny’s level of community awareness and engagement was outstanding, adding that her commitment to collaborative patient care, and strong vision for both career goals and the future of community pharmacy were clearly evident. RETAIL PHARMACY • AUG 2020