2018 Wellspring Leadership winners

MAY 2018 – The Canadian Foundation for Pharmacy is pleased to announce the 2018 recipients of the Wellspring Pharmacy Leadership Awards for personal leadership development: Amy Lamb, of Medi-Center Pharmacy in Saskatoon; Michael Kani, Michael’s Pharmacy in Saskatoon; and Certina Ho, Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) Canada.

Amy Lamb is a compounding pharmacist and wellness consultant at Medi-Center Pharmacy in Saskatoon. She will use her Wellspring grant to help attain certification as a practitioner of functional medicine, offered by the Institute for Functional Medicine based in Washington. Functional medicine seeks to address the underlying causes of disease, rather than just the symptoms, through personalized treatment plans that address genetic, biochemical and lifestyle factors. Lamb will share her learnings with other pharmacists through training videos and podcasts.

“We are pleased to help Amy grow her innovative practice as a Functional Practitioner and to support her mentoring plans for pharmacist education,” says Rita Egan, CFP Board member and a Wellspring judge. “One of her patients said it best, ‘Amy Lamb’s unique and cutting­ edge approach to service delivery has made a tremendous impact on our family’s health’.”

Michael Kani, owner of Michael’s Pharmacy in Saskatoon and outspoken advocate for pharmacy, will use his Wellspring award money to become a podcaster. The podcasts, which will be free, will seek to engage and challenge pharmacists about practice change, as well as share ideas and examples of innovation.

“Michael is an emerging practice and thought leader for the profession of pharmacy. Through the establishment of a dedicated podcast where up-­to-­the-­minute information, data and innovations can be shared, Michael will educate, lead and inspire us,” says Wellspring judge Jane Farnham.

As Project Manager at the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) Canada for more than 10 years, Certina Ho has done much to establish medication safety initiatives in community pharmacy practice. Yet there are still barriers in the reporting of errors, including, to some extent, a “blame and shame” culture. With help from the Wellspring Award, Ho will undertake a one-month study project under the mentorship of Dr. Derek Stewart at Robert Gordan University in Aberdeen, United Kingdom.

Dr. Stewart recently led a large international study on patient/medication safety that explored barriers in reporting, as well as the potential impact of error reporting on professional reputation and career progression. “I will be able to extrapolate his innovative approaches to conduct patient/medication research in Canadian pharmacy practice,” noted Ho in her application. “This type of pharmacy research is very timely, as several Canadian pharmacy regulatory authorities are going forward with mandatory medication incident reporting.”