When pharmacist and pharmacy owner Jamie Flynn was deciding what he wanted to study in university he found he was drawn in two directions: health care and business.   With this in mind, Jamie decided to study pharmacy with the ultimate goal of working for a pharmaceutical company.

“I wanted to become a CEO and then become a gazillionaire,” says Jamie says with a laugh.

Upon graduation, Jamie found employment in a pharmaceutical company but, like any career choice, there were pros and cons. He remembers a former manager giving him some valuable insight into the industry.

“The increase in reimbursement is never as the big as the increase in responsibility as you move up,” Jamie was told.

 After working a few years for the company, Jamie wanted to take a year off to travel. Jamie came home from his travels after eight months and began to look for another job.  His brother, also a pharmacist, lived in Halifax and put Jamie in touch with a recruiter in the area. He was able to obtain employment as a community pharmacist. This experience changed him.

“What I wanted had changed,” he said. “I liked being a pharmacist because I liked the variety and having to know about a lot of different things. I felt I could help more people and have a greater impact as a pharmacist."

Nine years after graduation, Jamie had the opportunity to become the owner of the Medicine Shoppe Fairview/Clayton Park. He discovered that this was the opportunity he was looking for.  He was able to combine his two interests, health care and business, under one roof.

“I like being an owner,” Jamie says. “I like being my own boss.”

Like pretty much everything in life, there are good and bad things about being your own boss.

“If I am not practicing the way I want, it’s my fault,” he says. “If I am practicing the way I want, it’s my fault.”

There are some other challenges that Jamie has had to face that have had nothing to do with it "being his fault."  Just two years after the purchase of his pharmacy, the Province of Nova Scotia passed its “Fair Drug Pricing Act” which greatly reduced the income that was coming into Jamie’s pharmacy. It really hurt his young business.

Medicine  Shoppes have a bit of a different model that most other pharmacies in the province of Nova Scotia.  Everything in the store is health related. There are no convenience items, such as pop, chips, giftware, or personal hygiene products, available for purchase at a Medicine Shoppe Pharmacy. The Fair Drug Pricing Act meant that Jamie would have to have many more patients just to make ends meet.

Fortunately, there have been other opportunities to help patients and grow his business.  Pharmacists can now provide injections (such as the flu shot and travel vaccines) and assess and prescribe for minor ailments (such as seasonal allergies, skin conditions, and cold sores).  There is a bit of a balancing act involved in owing a small business and trying to grow it under these circumstances.  Trying to provide new services (with reduced funds making it hard to hire new staff) is proving to be a challenge. With hard work and determination, Jamie is pulling it off.

He has grown his patient base and now has other pharmacists who join him on a part-time basis. He also has a pharmacy assistant and part-time pharmacy students who help him out on more technical and administrative duties. 

Jamie is focusing more and more on clinical services, such as medication reviews. These private consultations are a great way for Jamie to help his patients – often learning things he might not otherwise have known.  He has one patient who had stomach stapling surgery and he learned through this process that the patient was vomiting after every meal. Jamie and a pharmacy student were able to make a couple of recommendations and the patient has more pleasant mealtimes.

Another program Jamie offers, and which he is very proud of, is Methadone Maintenance Therapy. He sees these patients every day as they come in for their medication and sees the remarkable results and positive changes his patients.

Jamie is no longer seeking a CEO role in a large company and his ultimate goal is no longer to become a gazillionaire (although it might be nice, he says). His goal is to run a successful local business that helps the most patients he can.

“My wish for the future of the profession is that we can be as helpful to the health care system as we are trained to be and can help patients to the full extent of our skills and knowledge in a way that makes financial sense for large and small pharmacies,” he says. “I want pharmacy to thrive.”