National body prescribes top honour for pharmacist

A pharmacist and biostatistician from The University of Western Australia has been recognised with the top honour for pharmacy in Australia.

Dr Amy Page, from UWA’s School of Allied Health, was awarded the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia’s Pharmacist of the Year for 2024 in Sydney.

“I had trouble believing it when I got the phone call, it’s just such an honour,” Dr Page said.

“I thought there would be so many worthy applicants, particularly looking at previous winners who are people I really admire.”

Image: Dr Amy Page

Dr Page said she was incredibly grateful to the people who nominated her for the award, which included a former PhD student and a postdoctoral student she has been mentoring.

“It is a privilege to have people I’ve mentored think I am worthy of this award, and then to take the time to nominate me,” she said.

Dr Page’s research aims to reduce medicines-related harm while balancing symptom control to align with individualised treatment goals for older people to improve wellbeing.

“We’ve been looking at trying to quantify the problem – work out exactly how many people are affected and in what way, so we have a benchmark to measure the effect of any changes,” Dr Page said.

“We’re also looking at interventions to be able to improve medication treatment and optimal prescribing and it’s very important these are happening in every setting.”

Dr Page has been involved in investigating strategies in hospitals, general practice, community and aged care facilities to optimise medicine use.

“This award recognises of all the amazing work our team at UWA have been doing, not just me,” she said.

“It’s an honour to have the profession recognise the importance of our work we are doing here along with our collaborators both nationally and internationally.”

In 2015, Dr Page was awarded the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia’s Young Pharmacist of the Year. Since 2017, she has consistently been recognised by the Australian Journal of Pharmacy as one of the most influential people in pharmacy. In 2022, she received the Vice-Chancellor's Early Career Researcher award, and in 2023 the School Research Impact and Innovation award.