Name: Fiona Nash

Course: MSc Clinical Pharmacy (now Pharmacy Practice)

I studied Pharmacy (MPharm) and an MSc in Clinical Pharmacy (now MSc Pharmacy Practice) at Portsmouth. I am now a Clinical Pharmacist based on the Neonatal Unit at St Mary’s Hospital, Portsmouth.

You could say that my career in pharmacy began when I was 15 and I had a Saturday job in Boots’ dispensary. I completed the Healthcare Assistants course and then went onto qualify as a Pharmacy Assistant but mainly because it paid an extra pound an hour!

Ten years later I’m a qualified Pharmacist with a clinical role on an intensive care ward for premature babies. My work involves ordering nutritional fluids for them and calculating the ingredients to be added to the bag to ensure they receive the optimum requirements to develop and become strong.

It was never an area I previously considered working in but I love it. We sustain life here and seeing healthy babies leave hospital with their parents is very rewarding. I feel that my work actually makes a difference and that is really why I got involved in pharmacy.

The postgraduate MSc in Clinical Pharmacy has consolidated my undergraduate qualification with practice-based study. Most of the work was assessed on real case studies and patient profiles, which put all the theory I’d learned into practice and showed me the impact of the role of a clinical pharmacist in the real world. With the postgraduate Diploma qualification under my belt I can interpret situations better and I’m a more competent working pharmacist.

The traditional view of what a pharmacist does is counting pills behind a counter. But while that’s certainly part of our job, the breadth of work within pharmacy is huge. I’ve never been attracted to industrial pharmacy because I prefer the interaction with patients. It’s hard work here – you have to want to do it, but you’re never on your own in a hospital pharmacy. It’s a brilliant team to work with and the support you get is fantastic.

I’m very proud of what I’ve achieved. It’s been well worth the seven years training to get here.