Fifty Years in Pharmacy Has Made My Life Fifty Shades Brighter

               PRESENTATION AT 33rd SAAHIP CONFERENCE 2019

 

SUSAN BUEKES

                                                                            

When I was a delegate to the First SAAHIP Conference in 1987, I did not dream that I would still be alive and kicking and talking to an audience at the 33rd Conference thirty-two years later.

The theme of this conference, “Fifty Shades Brighter” appealed to me, now living in Atlanta 8 months out of 12, because I had spent well over fifty years practicing as a pharmacist mostly in South Africa. I emailed a letter to the Conference Convenor who accepted my suggestion for a presentation entitled “Fifty Years in Pharmacy has Made My Life 50 Shades Brighter”.

This is what I wrote:

M y choice of profession has provided me with opportunities that I never
dreamt possible when I left school. During my career, I experienced:-

A Pharmacy Board that occupied a few offices in a building on Church Square in Pretoria where I could knock on a door and obtain information about the pharmacy course from the Registrar's secretary, Mr Myburg, who followed my progress throughout my years of study ending December 1961.

I did a two year apprenticeship during which I had to record in a book provided by the Pharmacy Board a certain number of mixtures, ointments and other compounded medicines, as well as the formulae, and which my "master" had to sign off.

 

I worked at the pharmacy school in Durban and in hospitals earning less than my male counterparts.

I worked at the London Hospital in the UK.
 

I worked in Zambia in a small mine hospital and was there during the UDI in Rhodesia, and had a narrow escape when I ventured into the Congo one Sunday afternoon.

I managed an entire year doing locums in retail without a break.

I started in a small country hospital and retired while acting as head of pharmaceutical services.

I was involved in the constitutional change and the effective government takeover of health services in the country in the 1990s.

I retired and did locums in the UK and in KZN

Then there was my after-hours work that comprises my interest in SAAHIP and the PSSA

 

 In this regard too, there have been many changes.

 There is so much I would like to talk about, but time is limited.

 

During my career, there have been vast changes in hospital pharmacy practice. These include technological advances such as the introduction of computers, the internet, email, and cell phones, to name a fraction of them. New diseases such as HIV and Ebola have emerged, and the anti-retroviral drugs for treating the former.

 

 

                       Key West Memorial dedicated in 1997 to those who  died                                                  of aids.  1000 names thus far

In the 1950s the most common career choices for white women were:

Nursing

Teaching

Banking and

Secretarial work.

 

 

I chose to study pharmacy because

I could earn money while doing my apprenticeship and then I would be able to fund my tuition while working part time as an “unqualified” in retail. My family did not have the means to support me while I studied.

it  offered a variety of work environments

it offered opportunities to travel while working

 important to me, should I get married and raise a family there would be opportunities to work part time and  do locums.

and I considered it to be relatively well paid

 

It was an unusual a profession for a woman in those days. Die Nataller, a daily newspaper published a photo and a short account about how more and more women were embarking on this difficult career.

 I completed my two year apprenticeship in a retail pharmacy in Pretoria.

A page listing some of the prescriptions dispensed
1958

 

A prescription copied from my book

Those days all prescriptions were transcribed by hand into large prescription books and labels were also handwritten.

 After completing my apprenticeship I left Pretoria to study at the Durban pharmacy school, one of four in the country.  The other three were in Cape Town, Johannesburg, and Port Elizabeth

There were   TWO  Universities:

 Potchefstroom and Rhodes

The Pharmacy Board appointed external examiners who set the exam papers every year for all the students at the four pharmacy schools who all wrote the same examination in each subject. We had to know everything .No clues from lecturers.

Therefore, there was no need for a preregistration exam.

 In South Africa I have worked in hospitals large and small, private and government. They have been located in cities, small towns, and in remote areas.

The three-month locum in Chibuluma Mine Hospital in Kalulushi on the Zambian copper belt is particularly memorable for the adventures I experienced.

                          My single quarters flat at Chibuluma mine in Kalulushi

To get there in September 1965 I was offered a first class air ticket, but I opted for the cash so that I could drive there in my newly acquired Mini Cooper S.

                                      From Durban to the Copper belt and back by Mini
                                                                     Cooper S 1965

Having the vehicle enabled me to see, inter alia, the local countryside, the newly completed Kariba Dam, and the Victoria Falls.

                                                      Victoria Falls December 1965

Kariba dam 1965

 In addition, on the Sunday before returning home, I decided to drive to the Congo border. That little adventure could have turned nasty if I had not had a French-speaking friend accompanying me. The French-speaking border official allowed us in but we had to agree to have a soldier with his rifle accompany us in the Mini.

Mokambo border post between Congo and Zambia 1965

The derelict-looking town was so small it was not a long drive. After a stop at a beer hall for Coca-Cola, we returned to the border post and were allowed to cross the border back into Zambia, all this without our passports.

A street in MOKAMBO

 

 

PMSC quality control laboratory  circa 1984

With Rob Knox

 

For  twenty-three years I was in the employ of the Natal Provincial Administration.

My most interesting work was in the Quality Control laboratory at the Provincial Medical Supply Centre. I was also a member of the Tender Advisory committee. It broadened my knowledge on Good Manufacturing Practice, Quality Assurance,  and the tender system.  

While there, I managed to successfully study part time for, and obtained, a Diploma in Public Administration. I was grateful to the Department for the bursary they  

granted me.

   

My eight years at head office included experiencing the changes involved when the National Drug Policy was introduced in the 1990s. I represented KZN at many meetings in the offices of the Department of Health. I was on the committee compiling the first Essential Drugs List. It comprised only about 145 pages. The latest on-line version comprises about 500 pages.
 

In 1998 a few months before I was eligible for retirement I was offered work in the United Kingdom as a relief pharmacist for a company that had pharmacies scattered around Cheshire and Wales. During my 5 months there I worked in 26 different shops, of varying sizes.

 

 

                                                         Hatton  Lodge, Cheshire 1998

                     Where I lived while employed as relief pharmacist by L  Rowland    &    Co

 

I returned to South Africa and promptly contacted a locum agency that specialised in hospital placements in the UK. Hospital pharmacy was still my first choice.

So during the next six years I regularly flew to the UK to do hospital locums.

                              Gerald Durrell’s Memorial Jersey 2002

One weekend, during a locum in Plymouth, I did the short flight to Jersey, one of the Channel islands, to fulfil my dream of visiting the zoo established by the author Gerald Durrell. Except for one locum in Chelmsford, the rest of my stints were at the Western Infirmary in Glasgow which I regarded as a second home until I stopped doing locums in 2006. Now I visit the UK to see friends and house and pet sit for a family.

                                     With colleagues at the Western Infirmary 2005

Meanwhile I had completed the Assessors’ course run by Health Science Academy and in between locums I assessed pharmacy assistants and nurses who had undertaken the dispensing course

 

The very first conference I attended was the SAPSF conference held in Cape Town in 1961. We were three delegates from Natal and we travelled by train to Cape Town. The journey took two nights on the train there and two nights when we returned.

 

My First Conference
SAPSF 1961 Cape Town

There were only two female delegates. Also in the photo are two other regular conference attendees, Natie Finkelstein and Dave Sieff. Over the years the three of us have often met up with each other at various pharmacy conferences.

 

Reunion 25 years later at PSSA conference in Pretoria 1985

                          

Another memorable conference was that first SAAHIP conference I mentioned earlier.

It took place at the Riviera Hotel near Vereeniging. Joe Cohen, the SAAHIP Honorary Secretary was the competent organiser of the conference, Ian Moore, was the president, The swimming galas became a popular tradition.

                                        Swimming Team at the First Conference 1987

I believe that being a professional is not a 9 to 5 job.

I cannot envisage being a member of a profession and not being a member of its professional association.

Natal Pharmaceutical Students’ Association Badge

 In retrospect, it is my membership of the student bodies, the PSSA, and SAAHIP, that has largely contributed to making my life brighter. As a student I served on the committees, and I have served on the committees, in various capacities, of the KZN Inland and the KZN Coastal branches.

 

 But the time I spent as editor of Forum was especially rewarding. When I think back on those six to seven years, I am amazed at how much was achieved using a typewriter and the postal service.  I am proud to say that FORUM kept members abreast of all SAAHIP activities and developments and I believe that the members have never been better informed as they were then, despite Facebook, an expensive website, and email. FORUM frequently received favourable mentions in minutes and presidential reports throughout the years it was printed.

Original  and the second FORUM covers

1976 - 1977

  

 
Dec 1977 – July 1981

 

 

Third FORUM cover and the eventual glossy format

 

 

Oct 1981 to Oct 1985

 Jan 1986 - 1992

 

Mike Timms started FORUM in 1976 as a newsletter for the Coastal Branch. It was such a success that other branches wanted to be included.

At Mike’s request I took over as Editor in September 1980.

The July 1987 issue was the last issue I edited.  Corry v d Walt of the Eastern Cape Branch took over until the last issue was published in 1992. Thereafter it was incorporated into the South African Pharmacy Journal.

 

Despite being retired from paid employment I maintain an interest in my profession.

Throughout my life I have made it my business to submit comments on draft legislation affecting pharmacy or me as a citizen and I still comment on proposed legislation. I still write opinion pieces and letters when I feel strongly about events that affect the profession or me. .

Content of 2 PowerPoint slides:
____________________________________________________

S Afr Pharm J 44 2015 Vol 82 No 7

Nibbles

Facebook exposes rudderless

pharmacists and pharmacist’s assistants

Susan Buekes

Susan Buekes has been a loyal member of SAAHIP for many years.

She currently lives in Peachtree City, Georgia.

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 ________________________________________________________

S Afr Pharm J 51 2016 Vol 83 No 3

 

Nibbles

 

Is the tail wagging the dog?

 

Susan Buekes

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I have also commented on the SAPC annual and the financial reports, much to their surprise

 

Do you want to know what the Council does with your hard-earned money? I strongly recommend that you study their annual reports. These are printed in the Pharmaciae on the Council’s website.

It has not been lost on me that those articles of mine that the South African Pharmaceutical Journal (SAPJ) has seen fit to publish, only reach a limited audience. This prompted me to learn about blogs and websites and I have started a pharmacy-related blog and I have also started one in which I write about my road trips in the USA.  I have thus far managed to visit 45 of the 50 states.

 

I find it most disturbing that pharmacists use Facebook pages to complain about aspects of pharmacy, doctors’ prescriptions, the SAPC, and their fees. I have learnt that a letter that clearly outlines one’s complaint and offers a solution, carries more weight than public comments.

 

 I am an avid student of the history of PSSA and SAAHIP. I have read through years’ of minutes and presidents’ reports dating back to 1957 and I know how hard those committees have worked and what they have achieved.

They worked tirelessly at setting standards for hospital pharmacy, for improved salaries, fighting discrimination, and they worked at getting the sector of Institutional pharmacy recognized in the first place. As pharmacists today, you are reaping those benefits.

 

I am proud to have known many of those dedicated pharmacists, members of SAAHIP, who are no longer with us.  I learnt so much from them.  It is my observation that not much mentorship takes place these days, and sometimes the finer details of what keeps an organization running effectively is lost along the way.

I have achieved what I set out to do. I have travelled as planned. I think that I have made a success of my career, and I believe that I have behaved professionally at all times. When obstacles appeared, my perseverance helped me overcome them.





Viewed and touched live manatees in Florida 1994

Throughout my career I have met colleagues at work and socially, and numerous people in the pharmaceutical industry, who have been helpful and some became lifelong friends. They all have made my life brighter.

If it were not for my passion for pharmacy, I would not be here today.

I hope I have inspired you and thank you for listening.

 

I also thank my long-suffering friends who endured sitting through ever decreasing lengths of this presentation over the past months.