Sarah Mann is a pharmacist at Save-on-Foods in Edmonton, Alberta. She has her additional prescribing authorization and a special interest in diabetes, cardiology, and travel medicine.
Where They're Working
As a Waterloo Pharmacy student, Sarah had never practiced out of province. But that didn’t stop the Rx2017 grad, a native of Grimsby, Ontario in the Niagara region, from moving out west after her graduation. Her fiancée, a fellow University of Waterloo alumni, is originally from Calgary, and she moved to Alberta to join him after finishing pharmacy school.
Sarah landed a job at a community pharmacy in Drayton Valley, a small town in central Alberta with a population of just over 7,000. Though she works in Edmonton now, she’s grateful to have had the experience in the rural community.
I highly recommend to everyone to practice in a rural setting at one point in their career. It pushes you out of your comfort zone and really makes you embrace the expanded scope of practice!
In Drayton Valley, not only was Sarah practicing in a rural environment for the first time, but she was practicing in a completely different pharmacy system with a much wider scope of practice.
“The scope of practice here in Alberta is incredible,” she reflects. “The Waterloo curriculum prepared me to a certain extent to deal with prescribing and adapting but I was still terrified - yet excited - the first time I therapeutically interchanged a medication without calling the doctor!”
But with time and experience, Sarah has become a big fan of the broader scope which includes prescribing any schedule one medication except controlled substances and narcotics, injecting any medication, ordering and interpreting lab tests, and more. What first made her nervous – prescribing, adapting, and therapeutically interchanging – is now a regular part of her days at Save-on-Foods. There, she dedicates her time to processing and checking prescriptions, completing care plans, following up with patients and, of course, prescribing, adapting, and interchanging prescriptions as need be.
Transitioning from a small town to Edmonton, one of Alberta’s biggest cities, was also an eye-opening experience for Sarah.
With fewer major cities than Ontario, many patients living in rural communities in Alberta face the challenge of driving hours to see specialists in either Edmonton or Calgary. This reality puts more strain on local health care providers, compelling everyone to practice to their full scope. Since access to care in rural environments is limited patients rely heavily on prescribing pharmacists.
Sarah, who hopes to manage a community pharmacy in a few years, is eager to make full use of her scope regardless of the size of the city she’s living in. In some ways, the challenging IPFC case studies of fourth-year pharmacy school were the perfect preparation:
“In those Friday case studies we were adjusting therapies and deciding which medications should be added or stopped. This is what I’m able to do every day at work through care plans, and I can prescribe or adjust doses of medications either independently or in collaboration with a physician.”
Alumni Answers
UW: How did you go about getting registered with Alberta’s College of Pharmacy?
SM: I contacted the College of Pharmacists in Alberta and they guided me through the process. I had to fill in a paper application, police check, proof of PEBC registration and provide two letters from character references. I had to complete the jurisprudence exam after completing an online module and then I also had to complete 100 hours of structured practical training which I completed over the course of one month as an intern before I was licensed by PEBC.
UW: What advice do you have for pharmacists thinking of exploring practice in another province?
SM: If you have the opportunity to work in another province, I highly recommend it! I’ve grown so much as a pharmacist practicing with a more enhanced scope of practice, and it’s interesting to see how healthcare is set up in different provinces. It’s also important to find a good mentor. It is always a good idea to get a second opinion if you are unsure and this also helps with having their thought process on something since they have been practicing with this scope of practice for a significant amount of time. I can honestly say that my boss in Drayton Valley taught me so much about the scope of practice in Alberta and when they draw the line and contact the physician versus practicing independently.
Non-Pharm Fun
Sarah and her fiancée play in a softball league in Edmonton, and she makes lots of time for barre classes and workouts at the gym.
“I also have two cats and a dog who keep me very busy. And I love to shop, and with the West Edmonton Mall just twenty minutes away, it gets kind of dangerous!”
