Life as a Pharmacist (LP) Stories
“LP Stories” is a PSN-YPG Lagos series that spotlights unique experiences and views of Young Pharmacists in their areas of practice.
Kindly introduce yourself
My name is Ezinne V.C. Onwuekwe. I’m a trained pharmacist with experience in program management in public health. For the last 4–5 years, I have been involved in public health, first as a supply chain specialist and then as a program manager for emergency preparedness and response.
I currently work with Africa CDC where I coordinate emergency preparedness and response activities in ten countries in southern Africa.
Wow, quite an interesting portfolio. What year did you finish pharmacy school?
I finished from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka pharmacy school in 2014.
What was your induction day like?
Well, I do not remember much about my induction day asides from feeling like “this is done, I’ve managed to do this, I’ve conquered 5 years of pharmacy school, came out in flying colours and I’m ready to get on to the next part of business”. I didn’t have internships lined up; I had to think of looking for where to do my internship. I realized that the career world had started for me, and that day marked the day being a pharmacist started for me. To sum it up, I was feeling expectant, like “I’m done with this part, what’s the next thing?”
What was your idea of pharmacy before getting into school, and how would you say your career choice was influenced by that?
As you’re aware, when we’re about to enter university or we’re about to prepare for JAMB while finishing secondary school, nobody does career mentorships for us. No one really explains what the courses we’re filling in our JAMB forms are all about.
I wasn’t any different. I filled pharmacy on the JAMB form because I had an aunt who trained as a pharmacist, although at the time, I didn’t know she wasn’t practising as a pharmacist. I just knew pharmacy was her first degree. For me, she was doing great in life; therefore, pharmacy must be a pedestal to doing great things. So that was the idea I carried into pharmacy school, that this is a great pedestal for me to do greater things.
Midway into pharmacy, however, I realized I didn’t want to practice traditional pharmacy roles such as being a community or clinical pharmacist, which is why when I graduated, I sought options of practising pharmacy in unique ways, at least slightly different from the traditional roles.
That is why post-internship at first my job, I opted to work as a drug logistician and then moved into core public health, still practising pharmacy.
Interesting! What are some of those job roles you’ve taken up after pharmacy school?
Okay, so I was Chief Drug Logistician for the Comprehensive Community Mental Health Programme (CCMHP) Benue, Nigeria. I also served in a professional and research role as Public Health Officer at the Africa Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (Africa CDC) situated in Lusaka, Zambia.
Currently, I serve as a Public Health Fellow — Emergency Preparedness and Response at the Africa CDC Southern Regional Office, Lusaka, Zambia.
Wow! So in your current role as a public health fellow, what is your typical day-to-day like?
My day-to-day varies +everyday. Typically, I start with checking my emails, which happens to be loads received every day, and in responding to those emails, you tackle the tasks for the day. The tasks vary from requests from member states, requests from head office for something reports from the field officers that you have to collate, etc.
I then proceed to spend the day collating reports from the field officers that I coordinate, updating figures on the covid-19 vaccine dashboard that I also help coordinate with partners, regularly giving analytical presentations on updated information on the rollout of the vaccine in Africa, sending emails, requests to member states concerning planning, execution, monitoring and evaluation of Africa CDC projects in those countries to ensure they are delivered within scope, on time, and within program budgets, requests to headquarters for things I need for them.
I also take part in either organizing or attending loads of training, which count as fieldwork. I haven’t been doing a lot of fieldwork recently because of COVID-19. All training has to be virtual, and work has been reduced to desk work because of the pressure of the pandemic and to help provide support to other countries.
I also consult on issues regarding policies, procedures, quality improvement strategies, public health policy documents, and protocols
In my role, I also coordinate and supervise the activities of responders and Community Health Workers deployed to countries in the southern region of Africa to support COVID-19 surveillance and case management with contact tracing and monitoring.
Lastly, I coordinate best practices and experience sharing sessions amongst member states in the region on international health regulation competencies, public health preparedness, and response activities.
What are the things you like and don’t like about being a public health pharmacist?
The best part of what I do is capacity building. I love facilitating training. That’s one of the best and memorable parts of what I do.
What I don’t like is the report writing. For everything you do, you have to write a report. It’s a lot of reports and can be time-consuming and exhausting, but hey, you have to do it
Any side hustles?
I don’t have a side hustle, but something I’d have loved to do on the side is supply chain management. It’s something I have done before and I still have an interest in it.
If not Pharmacy, what else would you have like to study?
If I hadn’t done pharmacy, what I wanted to do was Engineering, but of course, my parents said “No, you have to do something health-related” and that’s part of why I chose pharmacy.
I don’t know if I’d have practiced as an engineer, but I’d have loved to study it.
Also, if I knew better, I’d have done public health but didn’t because I didn’t know about it.
Lastly, your social media pages so that our readers can connect with you.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ezinnevconwuekwe/
Twitter: @ezinneonwuekwe
Facebook: https://web.facebook.com/vicjoanie
Thank you so much for your time!
Mobolaji Uthman (MU), a member of the Editorial Committee did this…
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