UWA School of Health and Clinical Sciences

Thank Your Pharmacist Day 💊

Pharmacists play a vital role in healthcare, ensuring medicines are used safely, effectively, and appropriately.

From hospital wards to community pharmacies, GP Practices and education, their expertise improves outcomes every day.

We’re proud to support and train the next generation of pharmacists.

📣 Pharmacists: your voice matters... help shape the future of our profession!

The National Competency Standards Framework for Pharmacists is currently under review, and pharmacists across Australia are invited to contribute through a national survey.

These standards underpin safe, ethical and effective pharmacist practice and guide how pharmacists develop across their careers.

With pharmacy practice rapidly evolving through:
💊 Expanded scope of practice
💻 Digital health and telehealth
🌏 Sustainable healthcare
Your input is essential to ensure the updated framework reflects contemporary practice across all settings.

Complete the survey and help shape the future of pharmacy practice in Australia. Please follow this link to access the survey: https://www.psa.org.au/national-competancy-standards-framework/

⏳ Survey closes Friday 17 April 2026

🎉 Celebrating Excellence at the 2025 UWA Vice-Chancellor's Research Awards! 🎉

We are thrilled to congratulate Professor Rhonda Clifford, recipient of the Vice-Chancellor's Award for Research Mentorship, and Professor Allison McKendrick, recipient of the Vice-Chancellor's Senior Research Award.

These prestigious awards, announced at a ceremony on December 9, recognise outstanding contributions to research and mentorship. They reflect many years of dedication, innovation, and leadership that continue to shape the future of knowledge and inspire the next generation of researchers.

Please join us in congratulating Rhonda and Allison on their incredible achievements!

Congratulations to our new graduates!

Last night we graduated the 2025 cohort from the Doctor of Pharmacy. Dr Patricia Sitorus and Dr James Ocay graduated with the cohort and represented their peers by leading the swearing of the FIP Oath of a Pharmacist.

The FIP Oath of Pharmacists was adopted by the International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP) to establish a universal standard for ethical practice among pharmacists. It emphasizes the pharmacist's role in promoting health, well-being, and ethical conduct in their professional duties. The oath serves as a guiding principle for pharmacists worldwide, reinforcing their commitment to patient care and professional integrity.

The Pharmacy profession was represented by Mr Richard Smirk, Chair of the Pharmaceutical Society of Western Australia and Associate Professor Liza Seubert, Head of Pharmacy at UWA represented academia.

We wish our graduating students a rewarding career in pharmacy!

🎉 Celebrating Our Amazing Team! 🎉
We’re thrilled to share some fantastic news from our school!

Congratulations to our colleagues who received their awards as Fellows of the Higher Education Academy. Some received their Fellowships, and some received awards as Associate or Senior Fellows:

Rania El-Desoky
Deena Ashoorian
Okhee Yoo
Reena Torabi
Khairul Islam

These awards recognize their commitment to excellence in teaching and learning and their dedication to creating outstanding experiences for our students.

🌟 Special Shout-Out to Sandra Salter!

Sandie has received the Excellence in Teaching Award – one of only four awarded each year across the entire university! This prestigious recognition celebrates her incredible dedication and impact in education.

We couldn’t be prouder of all our colleagues for their hard work and passion. Please join us in congratulating them in the comments below! 👏👏

🌟 Celebrating AJP 2025 Pharmacy Ambassador Nominations: Amanda Quek & Tiernan McDonough! 🌟

We’re proud to share that two of our PhD candidates, Amanda Quek (Hui Wen Quek) and Tiernan McDonough, both supervised by Associate Professor Amy Page, have been nominated as AJP Pharmacy Ambassadors for 2025!

✅ Tiernan McDonough – recognised for his work on The Aged Care Pharmacist Podcast, creating engaging, interprofessional conversations that inspire and inform.

✅ Amanda Quek – acknowledged for her incredible advocacy on deprescribing and medication management. From national TV and radio community service announcements to writing for Australian Pharmacist, AJP, and The Conversation, Amanda is a true leader in promoting pharmacy. She also co-hosts the aged care podcast with Tiernan!

Both Amanda and Tiernan are passionate about showcasing pharmacy’s role in aged care and beyond, and their work is helping shape the future of person-centred care. 👏

💬 “We’re excited about the growing recognition of pharmacists as integral members of interdisciplinary healthcare teams. Through collaboration, we can improve outcomes and quality of life for individuals.”

Congratulations Amanda and Tiernan for your incredible contributions! 🎉

🎉 Celebrating Excellence in Pharmacy Education! 🎉

We are thrilled to announce that Joon Soo (Alex) Park from our SHCS is one of four outstanding pharmacists recognised at the 2025 Emeritus Lloyd Sansom AO Distinguished Lecture Series in Canberra!

Alex has been awarded the Dr Erica Sainsbury Early Career Pharmacy Educator Award, which honours individuals who demonstrate innovation, passion, and a student-first approach in pharmacy education. 👏

Congratulations, Alex, on this incredible achievement and for inspiring the next generation of pharmacists!

We had such an interesting and informative day at the SHCS Research Retreat yesterday! Huge thanks to everyone involved for making the day run so smoothly and packing it with so much to learn.

And a big congratulations to all the SHCS research prize winners – so well deserved!

Looking forward to seeing everyone again today at the Teaching Retreat for another great day of learning.

We are looking forwards to listening to this podcast to find out more about the new Clinical Guidelines for Deprescribing from Amanda Quek and Dr Xisco Reus. We are sure to hear lots of tips and tricks about how to use the new guidelines for people living with diabetes.

Join our upcoming webinar with Amanda Quek and Xisco Reus to explore evidence-based deprescribing guidelines. They'll unpack common medication challenges in diabetes care and share practical, real-world strategies for implementing deprescribing. You'll see case examples, collaborative approaches and tools to support confident, person-centred decision-making. Register now: https://ow.ly/Zmj450Xvety

Now in our sixth year of delivering Dare to Lead™ to staff in the School of Health and Clinical Sciences at UWA we are lucky to have a Certified Facilitator in our School; our very own Julie Loveny. We are also lucky to have Liza Seubert contributing to the delivery.

Based on the research and book by Dr Brené Brown, the SHCS provides everyone with the opportunity to build their leadership skills and we receive wonderful feedback from participants attending the training.

Here are some quotes from attendees at last week’s workshop:

"Everyone felt safe to be vulnerable and share their experiences, even when it was tough."

"Julie was an absolutely amazing facilitator. She walked us through the content with so much kindness and patience. She made sure everyone had an opportunity to share their voices and thoughts. It was really the reflections from the group that made this workshop so engaging."

"The facilitation by Julie was kindness, trust and safety personified. I think Julie demonstrated every aspect of the Dare to Lead approach. I felt safe to explore my own challenges as a leader, with Julie creating an environment where I was able to be vulnerable and still safe. I am deeply appreciative of the opportunity I was given to undertake this training and even more appreciative that Julie was the person to guide me."

"Julie and Liza created a very safe space for sharing stories and perspectives. It was the perfect balance of discussions, small group work, videos, etc. The time went very fast."

If you would like to participate in Dare to Lead in 2026, look out for the call for expressions of interest in the first few months of 2026, or contact Rhonda ([email protected]) via email and submit an EOI. The course is usually run each November, in the Curnow building on the Crawley campus.

On Monday 3rd of November we hosted a fantastic Symposium on High Performance Thin Layer Chromatography (HPTLC). The event brought together academics from different WA universities and various industry representatives who shared some of their recent research on Herbals/Botanical in the Pharmaceutical, Cosmetics, Environmental, Forensics, Food and Feed industries using this increasingly popular instrumental technique.

We also enjoyed a number of really interesting presentations from Dr Tien Do, who is the Chief Scientific Officer and Head of Laboratory of CAMAG, the world leader in the manufacture of planar chromatography instrumentations. Dr Do also serves as Secretary General of the International HPTLC Association, is a member of the Forum of Harmonization of Herbal Products (FHH) in Asia, a member of the USP and PhEur Expert Committee and co-author of the African Herbal Pharmacopeia. We sincerely thank Chromatech Scientific for organising this great networking event!

Photo left to right: Dr Md Khairul Islam (UWA and Y-Trace), Tom Sostaric (Chromatech Scientific and UWA Adjunct), Dr Tien Do (CAMAG, Switzerland), Lara Gutscher (Offenbach University, Germany), A/Prof Connie Locher (UWA), Monika Sostaric (Chromatech Scientific)