Finding the Right Career

FINDING THE RIGHT CAREER

WITH ZARRINE, PHARMACIST

I started following Zarrine @zarrine_beautyjunkie over 3 years ago when I lived in France. I love that Zarrine is unapologetically herself and that she gives to the point reviews. I love tuning in to her Insta stories for a daily dose of humour which has just a hint of sarcasm. She has influenced me on many beauty and non-beauty purchases and when I think of her, the hashtag #zarrinemademedoit comes to mind. I got snippets of Zarrine’s career as a pharmacist through Instagram so, I thought she would be the best person to give an uncensored insight into the healthcare profession.

1. WHAT DO YOU WORK AS AND WAS THIS A CAREER YOU KNEW YOU WANTED TO PURSUE?

I currently work as a community pharmacist and funnily enough it’s not something I had always wanted to do. When I was much younger, I had always expressed my love for babies and children and I told everyone that I wanted to be a paediatrician. Unfortunately that wasn’t meant to be as I didn’t get into medicine, I wasn’t clever enough haha!

2. DID YOU HAVE A SET PLAN FOR YOUR CAREER OR WAS IT SOMETHING THAT YOU DISCOVERED ALONG THE WAY?

I had chosen pharmacy as my two ‘non-medical’ options on my university application, I’m not sure if this is a still common practice now as we’re talking nearly 20 years ago, *GASP*, but this turned out to be the path chosen for me (by my A level grades) and I ended up really enjoying it!

3. WHAT ONE PIECE OF ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE YOUR TEENAGE SELF IN TERMS OF CHOOSING A CAREER PATH?

Think of a subject or something that you love to learn about now and apply it to your adult life. My parents had always drummed into me the importance of having a profession in terms of job security, so that has stuck with me and I will probably take the same approach with my kids, when I have them!

4. WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST JOB AND HOW DID YOU APPLY FOR IT?

Once again, my mother was very instrumental in getting me my first proper job, aged 18, at Boots, I’m sure the South Asian readers can relate to this! Back then, it was very easy to get a weekend job with them and it served me very well in terms of gaining experience for my subsequent career.

5. WHAT HAS BEEN MORE VALUABLE IN YOUR CAREER, YOUR EDUCATION OR YOUR EXPERIENCE?

I think these are both equivalent when it comes to a career in healthcare, your education provides the valuable knowledge that you need to apply in practice. For pharmacy, I completed a 4 year long Master’s degree with one year of pre-registration training which is vital in helping to prepare you for the ‘real world’. Of course, the years I spent working weekends and during summer holidays at Boots really put me at advantage when it came to pharmacy practice once I qualified

6. WHAT HAS BEEN YOUR WORST CAREER EXPERIENCE?

Community pharmacy is fraught with horrible experiences as you deal with the general public on daily basis but I struggle to think of one as the ‘worst’. You get used to dealing with these situations in time!

7.  WHAT HAS BEEN THE BEST LEARNING EXPERIENCE IN YOUR CAREER?

Straight after I qualified, I went to work in a pharmacy where the owner was a superintendent pharmacist and I learnt so much from her about the efficient day to day running of a business. I left after a couple of years as I thought I was becoming complacent but when you realise somewhere is like home you go back and 13 years later, I’m still there! Working in a large pharmacy that offers a large variety of services (including COVID vaccinations) and has adequate support staff plus two pharmacists at any one time is such a luxury these days, as I’m sure my pharmacist colleagues would agree.

8. HOW DO YOU KEEP YOURSELF MOTIVATED?

Frankly, this has been very hard to do since the start of the pandemic! Pharmacies are frontline healthcare and it has been an extremely challenging and stressful environment to work in. The only thing that keeps me motivated is the thought of a holiday at the end of it all! At a time of national and global hardship, it is also a very grounding thought to still be busy working whilst many people have been made redundant or have lost their jobs.

9. WHAT WAS THE BEST JOB DECISION YOU EVER MADE?

Becoming a locum (self-employed)! You can choose your own hours and you don’t have to work weekends if you don’t want to.  The only downfalls are no sick pay or holiday pay.

10. WHAT DOES JOB SATISFACTION MEAN TO YOU?

When you work in a local independent pharmacy for a long time, you build a rapport with patients and regular customers and of course I have my favourites. To be able to help them with their medications is very satisfying for me and I love chatting to them, especially if they are elderly or lonely. We have one patient who calls us every day simply to tell us a joke and make us laugh, it’s people like him who really make our jobs rewarding and brighten up our days, especially during soul-destroying lockdowns.

11. IF YOU COULD CHOOSE ANOTHER CAREER PATH, WHAT WOULD IT BE?

This is easy, I would definitely pursue something in beauty because it’s such a lifelong passion of mine, which is why I started an Instagram page dedicated to this subject. In fact, lots of pharmacists I know share this same love and have taken it one step further, completed a prescribing course and now dabble in aesthetics. I’m not sure I’m brave enough to do that yet but it’s always an option.