Me2moro Magazine

Career Bowl
and it’s a lot easier to maneuver around the
educational system, it’s not as rigid as in
Ghana,. It was after I finished school and doing
my service for one year at the Police Hospital
that pharmacy became lucrative to me; I
realized I could do everything in Pharmacy even
related to Medicine in ‘regulatory’, taking into
consideration community practice, clinical,
and patient safety, there and then I knew there
was more to it than just counting drugs behind
a counter.
Q
What are the perception
people have about
pharmacy?
Most people think ‘pharmacy’ is “just a place
to go buy medicine” but it’s more than that.
A doctor listens and gives diagnosis and the
pharmacist finds out which drug is good for
you; they direct you to take the right drug that
best suits your immune system, based on test
results and prescription issued to you at the
hospital. A community pharmacist per say has
all your records and medical history so he/she
can detect if there’s any mishap in your body
and will keep you on course as to the dosage
of drugs to take and a change of prescription
where necessary.
Q
What do you like about
doing pharmacy?
I used to do drug registration, which is before
anyone brings a drug into the country, we check
the conditions of manufacturing but now I do
drug development which is in three (3) phases;
one, we test the drugs on animals before testing
on people, secondly, if it’s safe and ready we
introduce the drug onto the market. Finally,
we look at how the drugs work when it’s used,
that’s assessing the side effect on 20 to 1000
people by carefully monitoring them. What I
love about this is the opportunity to participate
in something that will save lives.
Q
Everything comes, with its
set of challenges, what will
you say are the Challenges
you encounter in your line
of work?
We have pressures from the industry to circulate
drugs and make them readily available, but it’s
my job to make sure the drug is tested first
before it is released onto the market, so that’s
the challenge, if the drug goes wrong we have
to re-draw it, and tell the industry to withhold
circulation because of the effects and reactions
people might have had with it. It usually tends
to be difficult holding them off. Lots of people
also do not know about the importance of our
work and tend to disregard it. However, our
work is important so that they can get the best
out of our services and their health.
Q
Still full of youthful
exuberance - a CEO
and married how do you
combine family and work?
Its only by grace, I have two children, one
in the University and the other about to go
to the University. You have to make time for
everything; you can’t put everything into your
career and neglect your family, I don’t know
how I do it, I believe it all by the grace of
God, He orders my steps. My work involves
a lot of travelling, I have a lot of meetings
with the World Health Organization, doing
presentations on experiences in Ghana, what I
do amongst others, I am barely in Ghana, and
for instance this year since September I have
been in Ghana for just a week. This makes me
strongly believe that it’s all by the grace of God
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