159 - Raising awareness of HRT in the community in Ireland with Pharmacist, Victoria Jones

The Dr Louise Newson Podcast

Dr Louise Newson

Health & Fitness, Mental Health, Medicine

4.8 • 798 Ratings

🗓️ 5 July 2022

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Victoria Jones is a community pharmacist at Bonnybrook Pharmacy in Coolock, Dublin. She received very little education on the menopause when training and became more interested in hormone health after her sister experienced severe symptoms at 40 and began taking HRT. The dramatic return of her sister’s health and wellbeing prompted Victoria to move away from running a chain of pharmacies to set up her own independent pharmacy with a focus on women’s health. When Victoria experienced her own perimenopause and she saw the profound benefits of HRT for herself, her passion escalated and Victoria now takes a very active role in raising awareness in her community with the public and local healthcare professionals, and in educating others through her social media. Victoria’s advice to women: Ask your pharmacist if they’ve done any training on the menopause and if not, mention the resources available such as on balance website and the Confidence in the Menopause course on fourteenfish.com. Find the right pharmacist for you. Don’t be fobbed off by healthcare professionals, if you aren’t listened to the first time, go in more empowered with information the next time. Ask for a specific clinical reason why they will not prescribe HRT, and ask them to write it down for you. Your pharmacist can explain how and when to take your HRT medication if your doctor wasn’t sure, or you didn’t have time to discuss thing fully. Your pharmacist can also help with information on improving health through lifestyle measures such as nutrition and exercise. Victoria’s pharmacy website is www.BonnybrookPharmacy.ie Follow Victoria on Instagram and Facebook @The_menopause_pharmacist

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Dr. Louise Newsome and welcome to my podcast. I'm a GP and menopause specialist and I run the Newsome Health Menopause and Wellbeing Centre here in Stratford-Bron-Avon. I'm also the founder of the Menopause charity and the Menopause support app called Balance.
0:29.9	On the podcast, I will be joined each week by an exciting guest to help provide evidence-based
0:36.5	information and advice about both the perimenopause and the
0:40.9	menopause.
0:45.6	So today on my podcast, I've got an amazing pharmacist from Dublin actually who reached out to me
0:52.3	on social media and is very active on social media,
0:55.5	but also very active on her day-to-day job, spreading the word and helping as many people as
1:00.8	possible. So thanks, Victoria, for coming today. Thank you so much for having me. So tell me a bit
1:06.5	about you then. You're a pharmacist, aren't you? But you're not always been so dedicated to the perimenopause
1:12.6	and menopause have you no no I qualified in 2007 I did science degree first and then did pharmacy
1:19.6	and I think I always wanted to be a pharmacist because I love that idea of helping people and
1:24.3	you're going into a pharmacy they give you a little jar or something and it makes
1:28.4	you feel better you know and I always as a child loved going in so I qualified in 2007 um studied in
1:35.1	their Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin and it was a really new course we were the first year of that
1:40.0	actual pharmacy course they normally just did medicine and so it's a really cutting edge course.
1:45.7	And even when I look back, we had very little on menopause, very little on perimenopause,
1:51.1	very little on HRT. It was kind of just like a slide or two. You probably won't need to be
1:55.1	dispensing this. And actually I've touched base of them recently and they've changing their whole course,
1:59.3	which is fantastic. And they're starting now to integrate more sexual health and female health, which
2:04.2	will be fantastic. So I suppose I then just started community pharmacy. So in Ireland, that would be
2:10.0	working near pharmacies with the local communities. And I went on to run a chain of pharmacies,
2:16.9	but I wasn't patient facing anymore.
	...

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