Amidst an ongoing shortage of healthcare professionals, one young pharmacist has made the leap across the ditch from Dunedin to Dubbo.
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Uzair Qamar, who just graduated from his pharmacy studies at Otago University in New Zealand, will spend the next 12 months completing his internship at the Orana Mall Pharmacy in Dubbo.
For Mr Qamar, working in a pharmacy is all about creating relationships with the community.
"I didn't really know what I wanted to do in uni, but I remember around that time I was working in a pharmacy and I was the medication delivery person... I would deliver medications to a lot of the elderly," he said.
"I had quite an insight into their lives and what they got up to day to day and I noticed a lot of them didn't have anyone that took care of them... So I spent a lot of my time talking to them, which I got in trouble for, because I came back to the pharmacy pretty late.
"That kind of inspired me to take the healthcare route at university and pursue that."
![Uzair Qamar is one of the newest faces at Orana Mall Pharmacy in Dubbo where he is completing an internship. Picture by Belinda Soole Uzair Qamar is one of the newest faces at Orana Mall Pharmacy in Dubbo where he is completing an internship. Picture by Belinda Soole](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/137578502/458c7b82-1168-4f7a-a710-855575eb2f92.jpg/r0_0_7453_4969_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Mr Qamar arrived in Dubbo in January 2024 after completing his studies at the end of 2023.
He is one of two pharmacy students from New Zealand who are working on the frontline in the central west as part of a new initiative aimed at encouraging the next generation of pharmacists to complete their internship in rural Australia.
It follows Life Pharmacy Group's inaugural placement program last year, which gave students from the University of Otago experience working in an Australian pharmacy.
Mr Qamar wasn't one of the students who completed the placement, but he still jumped on the opportunity to come to Dubbo.
"From a very young age, I've kind of always shifted from spot to spot... I've never really had the opportunity to really be in one place for a really long time," he said.
"If I made friends in one place, I would eventually have to leave them and go to one another. But I realised through those experiences, I've grown the most.
"So when it came to the end of university, I had a choice to do my internship in New Zealand or Australia, I chose Australian because I've been in New Zealand my entire life and I feel like I could grow a lot more and learn a lot more than if I'd just stayed back home."
Filling a gap in an in-demand industry
Life Pharmacy Group hopes bringing in young pharmacists from overseas could help fill some gaps in the local workforce, if they decide to stick around.
According to research by the Pharmacy Guild of Australia, in 2023 there was a shortage of approximately 2,400 full time equivalent pharmacists across Australia.
In 2022, a large pharmacy on Macquarie Street in Dubbo was forced to close when the only qualified pharmacist on staff quit and the company that owned it was unable to find a replacement.
While Mr Qamar hasn't decided if he'll stick around in Dubbo after his internship is over, he's loving living here for the time being. When he's not working, he's on his bike enjoying the trails around Dubbo.
"There's a lot of big aged care units and there's a lot of people in the higher age bracket that come into this pharmacy... so I get to communicate with a lot of them, which is very pleasant," he said.
"I feel like a lot of people miss out on that experience that you get from being in rural places... you get exposure to a lot of different people and you get to take care of a lot of different types of people.
"You're not only doing the community a favour but in the long run it's going to benefit you as well as a person."