Despite pharmacy’s highly feminised workforce, pregnancy and maternity status remain a significant barrier to working in the profession, British pharmacist Amandeep Doll says
AJP Podcast presenter Carlene McMaugh talks with Amandeep Doll the head of professional belonging and engagement at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society about the challenges pharmacists face when it comes to starting a family while maintaining a career.
Topics covered include:
- Pharmacy needs policies to protect women and men who are starting families, so they are not discriminated against (1 min 13)
- A survey conducted by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society found that pregnancy and maternity status was recognised as one of the top three barriers to working in pharmacy (2:19)
- The lack of flexible working options in pharmacy settings makes working in pharmacy difficult for pregnant women and new parents (4:50)
- “Once you’re pregnant people kind of write you off… their attitudes towards pregnancy are ‘if you want to start a family, then therefore you must not care about your career'” (6:17)
- Pharmacies need to support women from when they start wanting to have children all the way through to returning to work and reintegrating into teams (7:11)
- Providing greater flexibility will help attract more diverse candidates to senior roles (8:50)
- Work policies need to be family-friendly, “sometimes dads get forgotten about” (10:50)
- Pharmacists need to challenge negative views on parenting (11:46)
- Employee pharmacists need to empower themselves by knowing their rights and engaging with their employer (17:54)
- Pharmacists need to be realistic about their return to work and not over-commit, while also being reasonable in their “asks” (19:48)
- Redundancies during and after pregnancy (22:27)
You can access the full transcript of this podcast here. While we endeavour to ensure all important words and phrases are correct, please note there may be some minor inaccuracies in the transcription.
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Carlene McMaugh
