Michael Kani (BSc ’07, MSc ’09, BScPhm ’14) is the 2019 recipient of the School of Pharmacy Alumni Achievement Award. Michael is a community pharmacist who is owner of Michael’s Pharmacy in Saskatoon and co-owner of Idylwyld Pharmacy in Saskatoon and Langham Pharmacy in Langham, Saskatchewan, a small community located about a fifteen-minute drive from Saskatoon.
Hear Michael's reflections on the award:
Michael will also be a speaker at the upcoming CE Saturday Reunion event on September 26 where he will discuss community pharmacy ownership.
Early in his career, Michael realized that few health-care providers were talking to patients about medical cannabis. There was a need in his community so he established consultation and referral services. The service was a hit with patients, many of whom had questions and were interested in evidence-based answers from an expert. Since then Michael spearheaded the education of the health-care community on medical cannabis in pharmacy. He’s a regularly featured speaker at health-care conferences on the topic and is the author of Canada’s first accredited program for medical cannabis.
Sharing the lessons he’s learned as a pharmacy owner is always a priority for Michael:
“I'm working on an article for Pharmacy Practice Magazine on pharmacy owners and what anyone needs to know as they explore this route,” he says. “I'm looking to share a lot of things I've learned over the years that no one teaches you about pharmacy ownership. Look out for it in the next couple of months.”
Michael’s professional career has had a profound impact on patients and fellow health-care providers. In his community, he’s advocated passionately for expanded scope of practice, providing services like point-of-care-testing, pharmacogenomics, and pet medicine, which are readily embraced by his patients.
At the Langham pharmacy which is located outside of Saskatoon, Michael has seen a steep increase in traffic since COVID-19 struck in Canada.
“With COVID and everyone staying home, we saw a significant jump in our script volumes which have since plateaued,” he says. “As well, with COVID the government introduced virtual medicine which we're looking to harness to bring physician services into our community, which otherwise has difficulty attracting a prescriber.”
In 2019, Michael was recognized nationally by the Canadian Pharmacists Association with their New Practitioner of the Year Award. He’s also a consultant to the Community Pharmacy Professionals Advancing Safety in Saskatchewan program and the former Medical Advisor for ZYUS Life Sciences. While wearing all these hats, he continues to make time to explore adopting new services. Working with a business partner, he’s exploring bringing a private MRI clinic to Saskatoon, where the government has a program to allow for private parties to fill the gap.
“There's a lot to be learned as we communicate with the provincial government on this,” he says.
Michael is the third recipient of the annual School of Pharmacy Alumni Achievement Award. Read more about previous winners and nominate an alumnus for the 2020 award today!