In this article, Sue Frankland looks at the global problem of wastage of medications, including causes such as overprescribing and non-adherence. She also presents information from her master’s dissertation on how people understand, and respond to, medication expiration dates
Heading up health policy for the New Zealand armed forces
Heading up health policy for the New Zealand armed forces
From humble beginnings as a retail assistant in her local pharmacy during high school, to receiving a Distinguished Practice Award from the International Pharmaceutical Federation, Jane Dawson’s pharmacy career has been far from ordinary. As a pharmacy student at the University of Otago, she went on to work in Dunedin Hospital before accompanying her husband to the UK, back to Dunedin, and up to Wellington. Facing unemployment after the closure of the Central Institute of Technology School of Pharmacy, where she had taken a teaching position, she took a part-time role with the New Zealand Defence Force while she was “looking for a proper job”. Nearly 30 years on, she’s still there. Janie Cameron spoke to Jane, who is currently the director of health policy for the NZDF, about her extraordinary career