The Most Important of the 4Ps is Purpose

June 8, 2023

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In this episode of Pharmacy View Podcast’s Full Scope Pharmacy Leadership stream, host, Chantelle Turner, a Pharmacist Leadership and Business Coach at TURN Pharmacy Leadership is joined by Dr Fei Sim, National President of PSA, a Community Pharmacist, and a Senior Lecturer at Curtin University. Listen in as they talk about leadership in the Pharmacy space and the tools that can be used to strengthen the profession and community health as a whole.

Dr. Fei introduces themselves as a Pharmacist and says that all the other roles: in academia, at the university, in society, in the profession, and the Pharmacy—the different roles complement each other. Reminiscing their start in the Pharmacy, Dr. Fei shares how they initially wanted to do medicine but chose Pharmacy instead, intending to return to it later. But as soon as they started their first year in Pharmacy, they knew there was no going back.

Dr. Fei considers themselves very lucky, for they genuinely believe that the Pharmacy profession has given them a lot in terms of career satisfaction, and they find the profession rewarding. Talking about leadership, Dr. Fei calls it a spectrum and a journey. They say that regardless of the profession or the career stage one is in, one can be a leader, mentor, and mentee to others. Only then can we live in a symbiotic relationship and work well as a team. Dr. Fei is a believer in making a positive impact at every opportunity. And while they make a positive impact as a Pharmacist, they wanted to make a more significant impact, and hence they teach students to work together towards sustained positive change.

Pharmacy View Podcast · EP 74 The Most Important of the 4Ps is Purpose

Dr. Fei highlights the importance of having a Purpose when asked about what drives their work. Their advice:

Have a clear purpose by gaining clarity and consolidating your thinking.
Once you have a clear purpose, outline the steps necessary to reach your objective and identify the actions you can take to accomplish it.
Surround yourself with people who can be good mentors to you and build a support network.

So, what helped Dr. Fei become a good leader? They say it takes a village to raise a child and probably the whole universe to make a leader and they are grateful to the people around them who believed in them and were willing to stay around, mentor, coach and work with them. And as Dr. Sim puts it beautifully, “A good leader should always work towards making themselves redundant.”

Talking about the challenges in the Pharmacy, the 60-day-dispensing being one of them, Dr. Fei Sim every single one of the professionals should do something if there is something that they are not happy with. Success can only be achieved by seeing the positive in a challenging situation. The government needs to come to the table and work with Pharmacists to find a pathway forward, which is a meaningful and demand-driven reinvestment into the profession.

Dr. Sim talks about agility and adaptability in the profession. They also highlight how Pharmacists had taken up the challenge during difficult times like COVID-19 and done their very best. Pharmacists can do more, Pharmacists should do more, and patients need Pharmacists to do more, but Pharmacists can’t do more for less. Here is why Dr. Fei says what they say:

Medicine use is rising, and Pharmacist intervention is needed to address the safety concerns.
Australia has an aging population, so Pharmacists are needed to ensure access to affordable health care and medicines.
To strengthen primary health care, doctors and Pharmacists must work together.

When asked about their favorite leadership tool, Dr. Fei talks about the skill of reflecting. Reflection is a powerful leadership skill as it helps one sit back and process the thoughts: this is what happened, this is how I responded, this is what went well, this is what didn’t do so well, this is how I will do better next time. Dr. Sim practices reflection daily and urges everyone to do the same.

And in the end, if Dr. Sim were to add a tool to the leadership toolkit, the tool of choice would be team spirit, not just within one’s working team but also in life.

Topics Covered

Who is Dr. Fei Sim, and what’s their Pharmacy Story?
Leadership lessons learned along the journey
You are both a mentor and a mentee
The importance of having a purpose
What helps you become a good leader?
Challenges in the industry
How Pharmacists play a pivotal role in the healthcare system
One crucial leadership tool is Reflection
Team Spirit is added to the Leadership Toolbox

Key Quotes (Time Stamps)

“Usually when I introduce myself, I just say I’m a Pharmacist because I think that’s who I feel I am. And the many things that I’m doing at the moment—whether in academia, at university or with society, for the profession, or in the Pharmacy, it all comes back to me being a Pharmacist. And I feel like these different roles complement each other in terms of what I can do and what I can’t do. And I just think that the combination is something that keeps me going.” (1:53 – 2:26)

“Long ago, my plan, when I first finished Year 12^th was to do medicine, but because of personal reasons and also financial reasons at that time, I decided to do Pharmacy instead, with a view to doing medicine after I finished Pharmacy. But as soon as I started in my first-year Pharmacy, I just never looked back, never applied to go back to medicine, and never considered doing that. And one thing led to another and led to where I am today.” (2:48 – 3:14)

“I think I’m the lucky one. I really genuinely feel that the Pharmacy profession has given me a lot in terms of career satisfaction and has made me feel very rewarded as well in this career. So, I actually feel like I’m the beneficiary.” (3:40 – 3:56)

“One thing about Pharmacy is that Pharmacy is like a very tight-knit family. And I always say this, one day of Pharmacy, forever Pharmacy in your heart. We may be practicing in various different places, doing various different roles, but it sort of runs in the blood.” (4:07 – 4:23)

“I actually feel strongly that leadership is on a spectrum. Leadership is a journey. There is no one milestone or one track or one line where you go, I’ve reached there, or I have crossed that, and therefore I’m a leader, or that I’m not yet a leader. In my mind, it doesn’t work like that because I feel leadership is a journey. It’s on a spectrum. Doesn’t matter what stage of our career we are.” (4:47 – 5:16)

“I’m a big believer in making a positive impact at every opportunity.” (7:33 – 7:38)

“I used to tell my Pharmacy students of the 4 Ps in Pharmacy. But if I could just draw one of the Ps, then I think, one of the most important ones is Purpose.” (11:40 – 11:51)

“Whatever we do in life, I feel like we have to have a very solid purpose that we genuinely believe in. You genuinely believe in it. Not a purpose that someone has given to you. Not a purpose that your parents have and you want to do, need to do. Not a purpose that your lecturers ask you to do. Not a purpose that you just read about. You can gain information from all these different sources, but you must formulate your own belief in this particular purpose. And if you have that purpose, then every time when you’re exhausted, when you’ve got a setback, you come back to that purpose and you go, This is my goal. This is the purpose; this is why I’m doing this, and that will keep you going.” (12:48 – 13:30)

“It’s my favorite quote from Vincent Van Gogh, and it says, great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together” (18:27 – 18:36)

“To bring up a child takes an entire village. I think to bring up a leader; it takes an entire universe. It really takes a whole team effort to work together. Because if you are one person, the impact that you make is going to be minimal. I think a leader also needs to understand that a leader does not need to be and should not be a person that is good in every single thing. Because the key to being a good leader is having the ability and the acumen to see the strengths and limitations of the people around you and facilitate an environment that creates a very good team dynamic where all these team members feel that they have a level and a sense of accountability, but also responsibility and satisfaction about what they are contributing.” (21:45 – 22:44)

“The essence is that every single one of us in the profession, we have a responsibility. We have an obligation to our profession. And again, if we’re not happy about the things that is happening within externally to our profession or within the profession, then we ought to do something about it instead of sitting back and feeling disheartened. We all have something that we can do to make things better. And again, success is whether someone can actually see the positive from a challenging situation.” (26:01 – 26:28)

But what I do want to point out is that there are ways, and what we need at the moment is for the government to come back on the table and together collaboratively to find a pathway forward. I strongly 100% believe that is what’s going to get us there. And what I mean by pathway forward is that there must be meaningful reinvestment into the profession. You know, yes, I think our profession is very highly agile and highly adaptable. We’ve proven that time and time again during COVID-19, during the time when we had price disclosure, when we had different challenges thrown at us in terms of how we need to pivot and change the way we practice. And yes, this time, there could be a need that we need to change the way we practice. However, it should be demand-driven. It should be driven by what patients need; it should be driven by what our consumers that we service, that we care for need. But it needs to be meaningful reinvestment back to us to enable us to do that.” (27:04 – 28:08)

“We need to make sure that the Pharmacy profession can continue to strengthen and contribute towards strengthening of the primary health care system for a few things, right: Pharmacists can do more; Pharmacists should do more; and the world and the health system and our patients need Pharmacists to do more. But Pharmacists can’t do more for less because if the viability of the Community Pharmacy sector is threatened and is not able to continue to function, how would Pharmacies be able to continue to do that for the community? (28:31 – 29:11)

“I know on the ground, and I can speak on firsthand experience, and all your listeners would agree to this: doctors and pharmacists work very well together on the ground. And we need to work together really well because patients need us to work together really well.” (31:10 – 31:25)

“You can’t have a health system without doctors. You also can’t have a health system without Pharmacists.” (31: 39 – 31:43)

“Sometimes, when we are so into something, when we are so bogged down in a particular topic, when we are so tied up, so busy with our work, we don’t take time to sit down and reflect. There’s no time for us to process the thoughts that are behind our minds. And there’s also no time for us to be able to sit and go, right, this is what has happened, this is how I responded, this is what went well, this is what didn’t do so well, and this is how I’m going to do it better next time. So, the whole reflection and reflective process is a very powerful leadership skill.” (37:08 – 37:49)