IPN 2022 November

Laura Scoops Pharmacist of the Year Title

Laura Dowling – winner of the Precision Biotics Community Pharmacist of the Year Award 2022

The Fabulous Pharmacist by name and nature, Laura Dowling was crowned the PrecisionBiotics Community Pharmacist of the Year 2022.

Laura Dowling pictured with Gerard Murphy, National Sales Manager, Pamex Limited

honour for meto receive thisAward, all thefinalists in thiscategory areoutstandingpharmacists”One nominee describes Laura as an outstanding, inspirational leader. She is an incredible ambassador for the pharmacy profession in Ireland. Throughout her 20 years in the profession, Laura has bravely sought to progress her career in so many ways, above and beyond the simple ‘day job’ duties as a pharmacist manager.

A pharmacist and scientist by training, Laura graduated from the School of Pharmacy, Trinity College Dublin in 2002 and for over twenty years, she has been on a mission to optimise wellness by educating and empowering people to achieve sustainable, healthy lifestyles.

“I have always aimed to put the customer first. My dedication to the role was recently recognised -

I was delighted to be awarded the prestigious 2022 Pharmacist of the Year Award.”

Online, Laura is well-known as “The Fabulous Pharmacist”. Her Instagram channel @fabulouspharmacist is dedicated to sharing relatable and passionate advice about health, family, self-care and wellbeing. She continues, “I strive to give my 52k+ followers the tools to live a balanced, sustainable, and healthy lifestyle without resorting to short-term crazes or fads. Whether talking about skin concerns, constipation, female incontinence or mental health, I aim to educate my followers and shine a light on topics that others often tend to shy away from.”

Of note, Laura’s social media following grew exponentially (doubled) over the time of the covid pandemic, as she sought to reassure and inform the public about covid and other pressing healthcare concerns. Laura did not just ‘stay in her lane’ by restricting herself to pharmacy store work. She actively ramped up her social media content, and went above and beyond her day job duties by giving sound advice to tens of thousands of Irish people on a daily basis.

Many people were afraid to come into the pharmacy or visit their GP for fear of picking up infection. She witnessed first-hand many people (young and old) that were worried and frightened. Laura used her high visibility on social

media to give them comfort remotely. Her advice is always up-to-date and evidenced-based using the latest WHO, CDC, HPSC, HSE guidelines. She conveys information in an upbeat, engaging and straightforward manner. She is not afraid to shy away from topics that others may be embarrassed to talk about such as vaginal dryness in menopause and urinary incontinence.

Laura has also appeared on national and local radio and in national and local newspapers. Topics addressed include covid vaccine safety, pharmacists administering covid vaccines, pharmacy services, antigen tests, flu vaccines, covid vaccine in adults in children, pain relief for hangovers and healthy living

during covid. She has appeared on RTE, Newstalk, Cork FM, WLR FM, LMFM Drogheda and was quoted extensively in The Irish Times, the Irish Independent and online publications such as, RSVP magazine.

The Fabulous Pharmacist, Laura Dowling

Working in the pharmacy every day helps Laura see what peoples’ real-time concerns are. She uses this knowledge to address issues and perform demos on her social media channels which resulted in these posts going viral. Some examples of these health campaigns are:

How to do an antigen test - 146K views

Difference between antigen and PCR tests - 120K views

Hayfever/ allergy/ congestion - 80K views

Thanks to Laura’s high level of public profile, Laura has been in a unique position to provide educational and informative material to tens of thousands of people on a daily basis. One of the challenges with social media nowadays is the high level

of ‘misinformation’ available online. Laura has provided comfort and reassurance to many by providing a strong, levelheaded counter balance to various misinformation movements.

Laura has been described as an outstanding, inspirational leader. “She is an incredible ambassador for the pharmacy profession in Ireland. She is not your typical pharmacist. Throughout her 20 years in the profession, Laura has bravely sought to progress her career in so many ways, above and beyond the simple ‘day job’ duties as a pharmacist manager,” says her nominee.

“Laura shines a light on topics that others shy away from. She has consistently spoken out about the shortage of HRT products and how this affects women in menopause who experience a myriad of problems as a result of not being able to obtain their medications. This type of issue is usually not publicised by mainstream media, which is why Laura feels that it is so important to speak out about it.

“Her engagement throughout with the local community has been exemplary. Laura personally administered over 580 flu vaccines in her local community between October and December 2022. Incredibly, she runs one of the busiest vaccine services in her company (Lloydspharmacy Ireland), despite her store being one of the smaller pharmacies in

the company. The high-quality training that she provided to her floor staff enabled Laura as pharmacist manager to focus on the most important aspect of her role – administering vaccinations and checking prescriptions.

“Public fear and covid fatigue often meant that many people quite unhappy and stressed when they came into the pharmacy, but Laura always tried to keep their spirits up and offer them as much help as needed.

“There were issues with her elderly and vulnerable patients not having the support that they were used to due to family staying away. She personally offered delivery of medicines, blister packing of medicines and visited the homes of these patients. She even did the lotto for them but only if they agreed to split the winnings! Regular phone-calls to patients who could no longer come into her for the weekly chats helped them to feel less isolated.

“It was a huge challenge to deliver a meaningful and impactful flu and covid vaccine program, being the only pharmacist in a very busy pharmacy. However, Laura could see that these programs were hugely beneficial to the public health of her community and trained all her staff in receiving patients, preparing the care room and input of data so that Laura was free to just vaccinate and check prescriptions.”

Laura said after receiving her Award, “This is a huge honour for me to receive this Award, all the finalists in this category are outstanding pharmacists. The Irish Pharmacy Awards are so important to the industry, as it’s vital community pharmacist are recognised for all that they do and the help they can give, from dispensing medicines, offering medicines advice and just being that ear to listen to problems and issues when customers come in and out of the pharmacy. It is amazing to be part of something that highlights the crucial role pharmacy plays to the general public in Ireland.”

Gerard Murphy, National Sales Manager, Pamex Limited said, “Never more so than over the past two years, have Community Pharmacists shown their relentless commitment, and dedication to our local communities. PrecisionBiotics Group are honoured to recognise the effort, and contribution they have made towards people’s health and quality of life and most importantly honoured to present this Award to Laura tonight.