Monica Verma

Monica Verma is a community pharmacist working in an independent group of pharmacies in downtown Toronto, that specialize in Methadone Maintenance Treatment. She provides patient focussed services including MedsChecks and flu shots, patient counseling,, patient health education,, active collaboration with other healthcare professionals, and much more.

"I constantly strive to improve the quality of life for patients by reviewing prescriptions, managing patient profiles, providing drug information, identifying drug therapeutic problems, etc., with the constant goal of strengthening the circle of care for all patients. and improving their quality of life. In order to achieve this, I try to keep myself updated with new medications, related global news, continuous education and active collaboration with other healthcare members.

After stepping foot in my practise, I realized the essentiality of speculating every single detail in patients’ profiles, because if we fail to do this as pharmacists, our patients are likely to suffer the health consequences or reap lesser benefits of otherwise effective medications. The first incident was in my early days as a pharmacist when I counseled a patient on a simple medication that he was taking for the last 10 years with breakfast. That particular medication was meant to be taken first thing in the morning, on an empty stomach for effective absorption, meaning that for the last decade, the patient had not felt the full effects of his medication due to lack of communication sometime along the way when it was initially prescribed/counseled.

One incident that had a very prominent impact on me, was further into my career, when a 4 year old child came to the pharmacy with his parents and siblings, all with the intention of receiving the annual flu shots. On recommendation by other patients and their past experience, they waited specifically for me to be present at the pharmacy because word went around that I provided painless vaccination. As per the provincial regulations, I was able to provide the shot to all his family members (between ages 6 to 65 years); however, I was not allowed to administer the shot to the 4 year old child (anyone less than 5 years of age), which deeply saddened him and he was scared to go to the doctor or hospital as he would feel pain by the needle.

As per National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI), every year an average of 12,200 hospitalizations occur related to influenza, leading to approximately 3,500 deaths nationwide, and the main cause is non-compliance to the vaccine. While the child in my scenario remained disappointed and had to get his flu shot from elsewhere, the event reiterated that I was doing something right, and great satisfaction came from knowing that I was administering the shots in the right manner, causing minimum stress to patients and ensure constant adherence to medication.

I sincerely work and wish for good health and optimal quality of life for all my patients at all times and if I had the power to implement one change in the Canadian Healthcare System, I would definitely recommend integration/ unification of of all healthcare databases in the entire healthcare spectrum so that all healthcare professionals could complete, update and retrieve detailed/complete health related information for the patients, as needed. I believe that this would greatly help all healthcare workers involved in the patient’s active care, to be able to make better and informed decisions."