5 Things I learned in 2017 and the 1 word of 2018

Wednesday, 20 December 2017

5 Things I learned in 2017 and the 1 word of 2018

‘Tis the season for lists! So here is my top 5 things I learnt during our year at Roslyn Pharmacy!

1) Food is Medicine. Most of you know that our family have stopped eating Sugar - the impact on our health has been huge - particularly on my Asthma and eczema - inflammatory conditions. So this year I decided I needed to know why - I’ve been doing a little digging and it turns out the key to this is insulin. Insulin is the hormone in your body that is released when you eat Carbohydrates. Very simply It’s job is to package up the sugar from your blood and deliver it to your liver for processing. Insulin is becoming a very important hormone in not only blood sugar control, but also inflammation, weight control AND even aging! (There is a lot of research into the medicine Metformin and its effect on aging at the moment - Metformin is an anti-diabetic medicine.). Also Type -2 diabetes occurs later in life due to your body getting used to too much insulin in your body - your body effectively gets used to all the insulin floating around in your body and doesn’t respond as well to it.

So my conclusion from all this is - to keep weight down, to stop inflammation occurring, to age well and not have problems with diabetes - Stop eating foods that trigger insulin release. Just not right now because it’s Christmas and you know you will be tempted and we don’t want to set you up to fail - 2018 Will be a HUGE year for us and we will return back to this subject early next year - promise!!

2) Tumeric is our product of the year - particularly Solgars Curcumin (the active component of Tumeric). It’s 185 times more bioavailable so it makes you better faster. My family and I every year attempt to do the Air NZ queenstown 10k run and this year (40 years old now!) the body just felt like it got by a truck every morning after a training run.  I wasnt functioning until after my morning Panadol and Nurofen - Amy suggested i give the Solgar Curcumin a try instead - and i was really impressed with the results!   As such i have been reccomending this one alot and we have had so much positive feedback on this and it’s the one supplement I need every morning - it really is that good. (Click here to buy now through our online store )

3) When you hurl encouragement from the sidelines at the Highlanders games towards an opposition goal kicker ( see Biggar, Dan from the British and Irish Lions) your customers can't tell if you’re actually hurling abuse or said encouragement. Would I boo an opposition goal kicker??! Realllllly??

4) Happiness comes from being yourself. Being yourself comes from being confident in who you are. I turned 40 this year. 2017 was my 21st year (!) learning Pharmacy. This year i finally feel like we have cracked the formula. And its so neat when you finally comfortable and confident in what you are doing.  And from this you are able to lead your team and get them going in the right direction.  The staff we have now are fantastic.  Pharmacy is changing faster now than every before.  Technology and new larger players are entering the market - its like what Graeme Hart said recently at the University of Otago graduation -

''Disruption is coming on like a freight train. You're either on the train or on the tracks."

My crew are upskilling themselves at a  pace we have never done before.  Our Pharmacists can now sell Antibiotics, Oral contraceptives and administer Flu Vaccines without seeing a Dr.  Its a really exciting to a part of this - we are on board!

 There is a real difference to getting advice from other places and coming to see us. The difference is the people - Our experience and our experiences - In our little Pharmacy we have laughed with our customers.  We have cried with our customers.  

5) The internet is full of fake health news. I mean FULL OF IT. My job is becoming more of a B.S filterer than ever before.

And very briefly - the word of 2018? - FOCUS. We are back 100% focused on an exciting new direction for our Pharmacy in 2018. (We are closing our little gift store in the hospital - 40% off all stock right now! ) We love being a Pharmacy and it is an exciting industry to be in - we want to be the hub of Healthcare in our community and we look forward to sharing more with you in the near future.

So to close - we are thinking of all our wonderful customers, patients and all the great people we deal with - The staff at doctors surgeries, our suppliers, the reps we see and the couriers (shout out to Thomas from NZC!) that run in and drop off stuff every day that make our finely tuned engine hum and we sincerely hope that you were better off from meeting with us and that we made you at least smile once this year.

So here’s to many more smiles in 2018!!
Merry Christmas from Andrew and the team @ Roslyn Pharmacy