In my area of study, Pharmacy, most research focuses on driving change in drug development or healthcare – fields I am familiar with in college. I was drawn to the Laidlaw Programme as it afforded scholars the opportunity to leave this comfort zone – I had a chance to expand my area of expertise outside my usual university modules. As soon as I read the aims of the scholarship, one main idea sprang to mind – social change and leading with integrity were at the forefront of the Laidlaw Foundation, and I had one change in mind that I wanted to become reality.
I worked in a community pharmacy the summer after my first year in college, and I was struck by the amount of waste produced daily by nature of the profession, as well as a host of other issues around the environment and sustainability. I did some research and found that there seemed to be a lot of recommendations for environmental sustainability in pharmacies, so why wasn’t the advice taken? Was it inaccessible? Impractical, maybe?
The main aim of my research project was to identify the main barriers to employing environmentally sustainable practices in community pharmacy and to obtain potential solutions and adaptations from community pharmacists to develop a practical guide for pharmacists to integrate environmental sustainability into practice. This project was about finding out what works and what doesn’t, on the ground, within this sector, and provide a solution-based resource to pharmacists, informed by the experience and expertise of others.
I began by conducting a literature review to provide a basis on which I could then conduct interviews and questionnaires. I studied the current guidance on environmental sustainability in healthcare available in Ireland, the EU, and worldwide. This formed the core of my interview guide and questionnaire questions. I also reviewed guidelines from the UK, where a similar pharmacy system exists, as well as recent papers on sustainability measures in pharmacy around the world. There was such a huge range of information available, making it tricky to find the balance between conducting a broad review and heading down a rabbit hole... This did force me to improve my ability to stay focused on my task. I had to return again and again to the main message of my project, and what my research question truly aimed to uncover.
Another challenge I faced was the time required to obtain ethics and data protection approval. Since I wanted to interview pharmacists, I had to apply to the ethics committee in my college, as well as my data source, the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland, who granted me access to contact information of community pharmacists registered in Ireland. I was surprised by the amount of collaboration and effort this took – I had to work with my supervisor to fix mistakes in my application, make sure that all my materials, from recruitment flyer to consent form to questionnaire, were perfectly in order. I sent many emails and waited for responses, sometimes for weeks at a time. This seriously ate into the six-week timeframe of the project. However, I had an unwavering focus on these interviews. In spite of a low recruitment rate, I did not want the guide I produced to be simply a collection of impractical, unhelpful or vague recommendations. The real experiences and knowledge of community pharmacists, currently working in this system, were of paramount importance to me and my project. Therefore, I had to adapt - I became more flexible with my schedule, revisiting my timeline to see where I could switch things around streamlining the different aspects of my project as much as possible. My project management skills developed hugely over this period in order to finish within the timeframe.
The data I collected were two-fold: I distributed questionnaires and conducted interviews over Zoom. I found it tricky to condense the questionnaire questions into a format that was accessible and palatable to participants, but as my excellent supervisor Sheila Ryder pointed out, rich data could be collected from the interviews, whereas broad data was more likely from an easily completed questionnaire, especially one that consisted of 10 questions rather than 100. I managed to use the available guidelines to suggest possible sustainability measures and potential barriers to these in the questionnaire, and the other papers I reviewed gave me some more novel ideas to include for these questions.
I conducted 20-minute semi-structured interviews with the community pharmacists who expressed interest. I had an interview guide to direct each interview, but this grew and changed as I spoke to pharmacists and noticed the themes among them regarding these issues. The small sample of seven pharmacists who responded to the call for interview showcased to me how necessary small projects like this are – whether pharmacists don’t have the time or interest for talking about the environment, I wanted to meet them where they were at and help them be a little more sustainable in the ways they could be.
I struggled with some aspects of working solo. Staying on track, for one, was tough with only me (and my supervisor, I suppose!) to hold me accountable. Timekeeping is a lot harder when you are the one to set the schedule… Once I had figured out how to manage my time each week, what was most difficult for me was working alone. I am a social creature by nature, and in the literature review and write-up phase of this project, I felt overwhelmingly lonely some of the time. I was used to surrounding myself with people, in my part-time job, in college, in my flat, and the isolation of self-directed research was certainly a new experience for me. That being said, when leading a project, you are often alone in that role, and I had to adapt to this new setup. In some ways, this was one of the most crucial learning curves I underwent – learning how to work alone effectively and contentedly as possible without the support of a group but also learning that I find energy and joy in other people. This meant that the interviews were an absolute highlight of the project!
Doing research for the first time, and especially taking a lead on my own project, meant that I had to learn many new skills in a very short space of time. I have to say that learning how to conduct thematic coding, and using software to do so, was a little overwhelming. Similarly, learning how to give number codes to categorical data to analyse my questionnaires… let’s just say it’s a far cry from learning about the side effects of aspirin, and it was even tougher since I am not tech-savvy in the slightest. I will admit that it was exciting and stimulating to be continually moving on to new skills. Improving myself in new areas and new ways was unexpectedly rewarding.
Overall, I truly enjoyed leading my own project. I had a sincere passion for the topic, and looked forward to researching it further, and producing a something tangible for pharmacists to use in the future. I love learning, and over the course of the summer, I learned so much – about how to conduct an interview and qualitative analysis, write questionnaires and recruitment materials, design academic posters, network with experts in a field and most importantly, ask for help. It was an interesting and eye-opening experience to see a project through from a brainstorm on a page to the final write-up. I also loved being responsible for making something to benefit what I cared about. Now, I feel ready to move onto a non-research-based project – I am really excited to be able to get back to being my social self and use the best of my traits to become the kind of leader I would admire.