Welcome to the AJP podcast, a podcast for pharmacists by pharmacists where we discuss current events, relevant topics, and emerging issues. I'm your host, Carlene McMaugh, and together with the AJP, I'm bringing you the opinions and expertise of different pharmacists to discuss their views and insights on topics relevant to pharmacists. Please like and rate each episode and subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss an episode.
Is it okay to introduce yourself first, please?
Hi Carlene. My name's Brooke Shelley. I'm a pharmacist in rural Victoria in Mildura, and I wear lots of hats. One, the most predominant one is as a mum of three young kids and a wife, and I'm a pharmacist in lots of different areas, so GP pharmacist is probably my most common role these days. The consultant pharmacist doing HMRs and RMRs and I do a lot of work in pharmacy governance these days. So thank you for having me today.
Thank you for sharing your time. I thought I'd ask you some questions to celebrate International Women's Day. There are a lot of amazing women doing work in pharmacy, and thank you for spending your time to share some of your insights and some of your experiences as being one of the leaders of the females in pharmacy. So can I please ask you, have you ever felt that being a woman has impacted your career progression positively or negatively?
Yeah, I mean there's a lot of positives about being a female in pharmacy in terms of your ability to connect with half of the population, particularly those with regards to being mums. I definitely think becoming a mother has changed the way I pharmacy and I think I'm much better for it. So definitely being a woman in that regard is a positive in pharmacy,
obviously. Yeah, there's negatives, there's lots of 'em, unfortunately still in 2025, but the biggest one I would say is that if all was equal, then I would be entering back into my career at 37 on an equal footing to the men at 37. And so I can really see now when I'm applying for various governance positions or whatever the case might be, in terms of what I've been able to put into my career over the last 10 years, comparative to men of my age,
like being a woman in leadership and in pharmacy leadership. Yeah, you absolutely start on a lower footing, I suppose. Certainly not an even one anyway. But yeah, I probably think that positively from spending a significant chunk of my time as a mum, I've had to think outside the box in terms of how I can be in pharmacy and be a mum, and that made me work my way into different areas.
So that's why I ended up, I suppose, in consultant pharmacy because of its flexibility and that led me to GP pharmacy, and those kinds of roles are typically never full time, especially at the start. So I think I've been lucky in that regard, and that's probably because I was a mum. So yeah, positives and negatives Carlene.
Thank you. Can you share a challenge that you've experienced as a female in the workplace and how you overcame it?
Yeah, this one was a fair while ago, but it really does stand out to me. I remember being in the boardroom with obviously more men than women as it typically is, and I was having a relatively robust discussion with another male colleague, and we were arguing our point in very similar ways. And the more senior male in the room made commentary around the discussion from my perspective being emotional and the discussion from the
male's perspective being passionate. And I think a bit of a turning point for me is me recognising that it is different to be a woman in potentially a position of power as an example. And you do have to choose your words carefully, and you do have to consider your delivery. And I wish we didn't have to because certainly it feels like men don't have to. So I think at that time there were other women in the room too at that time.
And I think now looking back, because I didn't do anything about it at that time, quite young and perhaps just not recognising, but now, absolutely I would've said something and I feel like if I had that time again, I would've loved to have called it out. And now if I ever do see it with any woman, I feel like I have the confidence now to call it out, and I hope more women do. Yeah, definitely. That was a bit of a turning point in my experience with men in workplaces. Absolutely.
Thank you for sharing. Have you had a female mentor in pharmacy and how did she influence your career?
Yeah, I've had lots of mentors over the journey, and I probably do gravitate more to women in that respect. I think predominantly because you expect that women have seen the same challenges or more similar challenges to you. So I think I've been so lucky to have come across and been mentored by Debbie Rigby, and I mean, she's an incredible female in this profession, and she's taught me so much about leaning in and not waiting for the perfect moment to jump at things.
She certainly, she doesn't like that term work-life balance, and she told me that multiple times. The whole concept really indicates that there's a right answer to it and there isn't work-life balance looks different to every woman and frankly to every man. So what you might think is acceptable might be completely different to me. So yeah, Debbie's been a great mentor and I think she's certainly been a leader and a female leader during a time that was far more challenging than it is now.
And I certainly still feel in 2025 that it's not easy. So she, she's cracked the glass ceiling and you can see Fei's being able to smash through it, and I think that's pretty incredible in pharmacy leadership and we have a lot to thank women like Debbie Rigby for sort of paving the way.
Thank you. Who is a female figure inside or outside pharmacy that inspires you?
A good couple. I mean, I really love listening to some of the quotes and have read the books of Cheryl Sandberg, the CEO of Facebook or first CEO of Facebook. Her book Lean In is really great, and I really do suggest that women that are interested in trying to figure out this whole working mum life thing have a good read. But she, if you go back to the mentorship question, she sort of talks about the fact that we say, if you get a good mentor, you'll excel.
But I think what she says is excel and you'll get a good mentor because now I suppose I'm in a phase in my career where I would be considered a mentor to some people in my life, and I think they're already great in and of themselves, and I feel so privileged to be in their world, but I think that's because, yeah, you really do have to put the work in before someone's willing to put the work into you. So yeah, Cheryl Sandberg, she's,
she's pretty great. Fei is another one, and I think we're pretty privileged to know that she's going to be speaking on this podcast as well. I distinctly remember her first presidential address at PSA 23, and anyone that was in that room, I'd be surprised if they've forgotten it. We had a female in her thirties in a minority group, representation matters. And at that point in my career, it mattered to me to see a young woman standing up in front of
our profession. And although I don't have the challenges that she might've faced and speaks to sometimes with regards to her ethnicity, I feel like I certainly fit within a minority, particularly in pharmacy leadership in my rurality. And so it is just nice to see people that might not fit the normal mould, be there and are smashing it. So to me it was like, oh, maybe I can or could or should do more. Maybe it's time for me to jump in. And so yeah, Fei's pretty incredible in that regard for me.
And I would say lastly, if you're talking about people that inspire me, it wasn't until I became a mother that I realised that every working mother inspires me. It really doesn't matter what you do if you are doing that juggle, it's bloody hard. So yeah, it definitely wasn't until I became a mum that I recognised that when I was overseeing a team of 50/50, significant number of those were women early in my career.
And then I went into an operational role where there was hundreds of people underneath me, and most of them were women. And I definitely approached my interactions with them. That work was the most important thing because work was the most important thing to me at the time. And yeah, now that I've got kids, it completely changes how I interact with people. And you have to recognise that at any one time they are thinking about
work and their family at all times. It doesn't matter what it is, it never escapes you rightly or wrongly. It is who you are. Yeah, yeah, working women absolutely inspire me every day.
Thank you. You have had a great career with recognised impact. So what barriers do you still experience as a woman in pharmacy despite this?
I think it's, it's not so much a woman in pharmacy, but it is just a woman that is the barrier. I mean, at the end of the day, we're never going to change the fact that say in my marriage that I'm the one with the womb, right? We're never going to change that. So when we talk about equality, you're never going to get there. It's equity, isn't it?
It's not the whole make sure there's more seats at the table for women, it's redesign the table so that we can all sit there in the comfort of our own skills and abilities and be able to do all of the things that we want to do. I dunno that it's certainly not a pharmacy centric problem being a leader as a female. I mean, one day, hopefully Carlene, we say there are leaders, not female leaders, but yeah, we're a long way off it and looking pharmacy,
I think PSA have done a great job. If you look at our board representation and the demographics there, certainly on the Victorian board, there are actually a significant number of women over and above the number of men. So perhaps we are in the right direction, but I mean, should it be equal? Maybe not. I mean, there's a lot more women in pharmacy, so maybe it should be more close to representing who we are as a profession. So yeah, I don't necessarily think the goal should be 50/50.
It should probably just be reflective of representing who your members are, and that should be across the board in leadership. The world as it stands, should be 50% of our countries and companies led by women and 50% of our households are led by men. That is the dream. But yeah, like I said, we're never going to change the fact that women have the wombs. So it's about figuring out how we can do that whilst not changing what we are.
So how do you balance work, family, personal life as a pharmacist? How do you balance work, family, and personal life as a pharmacist?
That would indicate that I actually balance it. Carlene, I'm not sure really. I think I do do a lot of early mornings. I get up before the world rises. By the world, I mean my world in my children, my husband gets up not a whole lot later than me, and he exercises in that time and I typically work. So it's one of those things that if you think about why there are more women in pharmacy than men, is it because it is a relatively flexible role?
Is that why is it chicken and egg? I'm really not sure in the sense that we often purport pharmacy to be quite a female friendly career path, and I think that really is mostly to do with the fact that 70% of our registered pharmacists work in community pharmacy and lots of community pharmacies are open seven days a week and nights. And so
then that becomes a flexible way to work. And really, it actually pains me to consider the fact that women have to consistently be the ones who are the flexible ones. So I've just spent 11 years being flexible carleen, and it's my youngest one has just started school this year. And yeah, I think the expectation is that I'll continue to be flexible in my work and because I can be right, and the challenge is that that is actually not my husband's issue.
He is in an industry that almost forces that on him in the sense that it is not flexible. So I think it's not a pharmacy thing, it's not a women thing. It's actually a societal thing that male dominated professions or areas that men typically go into need to be more flexible.
We need to allow men to do more of the caregiving role. So it's not just the fallback position because I will tell you right now, my husband would have loved to have gone part-time and me go part-time, and we do that equally. He's a very hands-on father and he does everything in his power to make his work as flexible within its realm. I suppose to try not to miss sporting events and try not to miss times
where he can go to school. But it's definitely easier for me, realistically in my role, it is easier for me to be flexible, and I think that is what's holding women back is the fact that you go, oh, well, he can't do it. He can't do it. He might want to do it, but he can't do it. So it is not a pharmacy issue, it's not a women issue, it's a societal issue.
Thank you. Can you discuss how being a female pharmacist has impacted on your approach to patient care and the unique perspectives you bring to the role and your leadership roles?
Yeah, I definitely remember the very first time after I'd had children that a woman spoke to me about formula feeding, and it was just such a different conversation having breastfed a child, and it didn't start with, oh, do you want lactose free? Do you want this, that, and the other. It started with, how are you going? How are you going? She hasn't rocked up to the formula section of the pharmacy because that was an easy pathway for her. That's not what's happened.
She's rocked up because potentially what she's wanted to do hasn't happened or because she's had to make a choice to be flexible. Again, there's so many layers to why women end up in the aisle of a formula section of a pharmacy, and frankly, some women rock up because that's where they want to be. It is what it is. But my approach was completely different as a mother as a
pharmacist than what it was just as a pharmacist. And I think we probably don't utilise that intrinsic life education as well as we should. So definitely being a woman does change your perspective and it changes your perspective about health. As you get a bit older, the discussions around perimenopause, all of those sorts of things change and you just approach things in a completely different manner.
But I think in terms of being a leader and a female, I think perhaps we do because we have to think about family and it perhaps is more at the forefront of our minds. Sometimes we make different or have different observations, and so when you're in governance and you're having a discussion, I do find that particularly on boards where they are male dominated, I do find my voice is quite different and not intentionally,
it just seemingly is. Again, that might also come down to my age as well, because typically women that are in governance positions and leadership positions are a bit older, and so they've got a different level of experience, but I'm relatively new in the scheme of all of that. So yeah, do tend to have different perspectives and I hope they're welcomed.
What advice would you give to young female pharmacists who are struggling with the term but also the aspiration of work-life balance?
I think that life rarely hands you perfection. It rarely hands you the perfect moment, and I think you just have to step into the mess and make things happen. All of the best things happen when you least expect them. And if you are waiting for your life to be perfect before you jump in to do something, it will never happen. As a mother. You've just got to do it when it feels perhaps mostly right.
And I think I've really learned that it is much better to say yes and then figure out the details later because there are so many times where I think women let really great opportunities pass them by because the stars haven't aligned. Exactly right. So I think my advice to particularly younger women in the workplace when they're sort of thinking about having children and how it'll affect their career and all that sort of stuff, you're quite literally never going to get it right all of the time.
So just do what feels right for the most part and figure it out as you go along.
Do you think that workplaces are doing enough to support women in pharmacy, especially mothers?
I think they've unfortunately a lot of conversation around women feeling torn when their children are unwell. As an example, I think pharmacy is a tricky one because if the pharmacist is not there, the business closes, and that might not be such a big challenge metropolitan-ly, but it is hugely problematic rurally, there are a lot of single pharmacist pharmacies, rurally, and it's probably one of the major reasons why I haven't remained in community pharmacy because when I moved home to Mildura,
some of the pharmacies and one of the pharmacies I was working in was a single pharmacist pharmacy, and just that pressure to always be there and to have to put the business first. I like the concept of the glass balls. So it's like you're always juggling balls, and some of them will bounce if you drop them, but some of them are glass and they'll smash, and it's really hard if your child is unwell and you're the only pharmacist in the pharmacy, which one is the glass ball?
Realistically, especially in rural areas, you are closing a pharmacy, you are closing a health service for hundreds of people potentially to go and pick up your child. Who is the centre of your universe? Which one is the glass ball? So I think, no, we are not doing enough. I don't know what the solution is, particularly in pharmacy in rural areas, but for me, the solution has been to go into a different era of pharmacy and practise in a
different way. So I suppose the answer is no, we're not doing enough for women in pharmacy, particularly mothers, and I mean, I'm disgusted by some of the commentary that you see online about mothers not being able to pull up a stool when they're dispensing in a community pharmacy when they're pregnant. Those should be the absolute rights for women to be safe. It's a right for anyone to be safe in their workplace and to have to be putting a pregnancy at risk because
an owner is not happy for you to have a stool dispensing. Yeah, we're a long way from where we need to be in 2025 if that's still commentary online. So single answer, no, I don't think we're doing enough or do I know what all the solutions are? I don't. But yeah, I think the solution for now is to keep the commentary open and listen to women and especially listen to mothers and find out what they need. Because yeah,
the answer's going to be different for all of them. Yeah, equity not equality, it's going to be different for all Women don't expect that you've got it right just because you've got it right the last time.
Very true. How can we encourage more women to take on leadership roles in healthcare and pharmacy?
Look, I think Covid may have helped that in a way because more leadership discussions do happen online in terms of your roles and responsibilities within leadership. A lot of it is meetings. You're having a lot of meetings and meetings that mean, say from Mildura, that mean that I need to be in Melbourne. That really does change your appetite for leadership when you're needing to be away from your family all of the time. So I do think we have moved in the right direction.
I don't think we did it intentionally, but it has happened, which is great. That's one of the good things that has come out of Covid is flexibility. So yeah, I certainly think that there are ways to improve the numbers of women in leadership, and I'll go back to saying representation matters.
So if your board doesn't represent who you are representing, have a good hard look at your board, and the people on the board need to actively go and find the women and tap them on the shoulder and say, Hey,
you can do this and I'll support you to do this. So often women, unfortunately, rightly or wrongly wait to be asked rather than ask themselves, and I think that's just millennia of not thinking that they're fit for purpose for these kinds of roles, but we absolutely need more women at the top. We absolutely need more women at the top so that younger women,
girls can see that that's a role for them. So yeah, I think people that are in those positions have a big role to play in ensuring that they lift others up.
What policies or changes would you like to see to better support women in the field?
I think that goes back to not the field, not pharmacy, not women. As a society, we need to do better and ensuring that men can do the caregiving roles equally to women so that this is just not a conversation anymore. It would just be lovely if we didn't need to have International Women's Day. We didn't need to have to have conversations around why we need International Women's Day.
It is actually one of my favourite things to do on International Women's Day is to rebut the 'when is international men's day?' commentary, but it's important that we have these conversations. It's important that we keep talking and keep calling out the fact that we are not there yet, because there are women in their seventies and eighties that have really fought the good fight, and they obviously see that things are improving,
but I'm it. I'm living it and breathing it right now, and we are not there yet. So taking the time like you and I are right now to talk about it, I think that's the role that we play is just to keep the conversation going.
What steps do you think we made to better achieve equality and equity in the profession?
I think, like I said, I just don't think this is profession specific, but perhaps we go back to the fact that making sure that the workplace is fit for a woman in a mothering role, as an example, as it is for a man. So if you employ someone, they need to be able to have the flexibility to take their personal leave and not have to justify it. So I don't know what we need to change there in terms of legislation because the legislation's there.
So it's really about changing the attitudes because there's a lot of undercurrent around us, I suppose, using the legislation that's there to keep us safe. So if something's needed to be written down on paper and approved by a whole heap of important people in parliament, then maybe we might need to abide by it. And I think that the challenge is that whilst there might be legislation to protect us on the ground, adoption of that perhaps has a long way to go.
What keeps you motivated as a female pharmacist in your profession?
Oh, well, I love pharmacy. I mean, pharmacy is a great profession. It's a great profession for women and men. I think we have a great role to play in keeping Australia healthy, and I think the profession is maturing, and we are at just such an exciting time where the writing's on the wall for us to do more and not more for less. I think we're really starting to be valued for what we can bring, and I think that's only just beginning.
And so when I think about the career that's yet to come, I am so excited for it. I just cannot wait to see what pharmacy looks like in five years, 10 years, but I really can't wait to listen back to some of these podcasts and things that I've done earlier in my career and go, yeah, Brooke, go girlfriend. You were saying all of that, and look where we've got to. So that keeps me motivated because I know we've got so much more to give. I know I've got so much more to give, and absolutely.
One of the other things that motivates me is that the cool things I'm doing, my kids think it's cool being on a podcast. That's cool. So of course that motivates me. I love to be a role model for my children, and I love that they're proud of their mum. So yeah, that motivates me for sure.
And just in line with what you just mentioned, what are your hopes for the future of the pharmacy profession, especially for women?
Yeah, I just hope that every pharmacist reaches their potential. I hope that there is no pharmacist, male or female, but especially women, that there is no female pharmacist that is not meeting their potential, not getting out what they want from the profession. We all study so hard, we all go into it. I hope for the right reasons, and so I hope that there's not barriers in place in the future for people to just enjoy being in pharmacy and
do it well. So that's my hope for the profession, that we do it well, that we keep contributing to a healthier Australia.
To the last question, you've almost made it look at that.
Yay. That's pretty good. That's pretty good for me.
If you could change one thing for women in pharmacy, what would it be?
Oh, geez, Carlene. I don't know. Like I said, I really struggle to see, when I talk to this, I really struggle to see that there really is pharmacy specific challenges. I think the one thing that I want to change for women is that they don't feel like they have to make an all or nothing choice. I really hope in the future women can say yes to opportunities as quickly as men do. They don't have to think as hard.
That's the one change I want to see for women is that they can jump at opportunities that are afforded to them because of all the great, wonderful things that they're doing that they can just say yes if they want to. That's what I want to say.
Is there anything that you'd like to share that I haven't asked you?
I don't think so. I think we've done a good job.
Thank you.
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