Interviewer: Mahmoud Mansi
Edited by: Engy Bahnas
“As a Pharmacist, try to use your studies in patient counseling, don’t be that robot that gets the medicine out of the drawer only, use what you’ve learnt to add something to your patients’ knowledge; they may use it throughout their lives…”
Ayat El Halawany
THE INTERVIEW
1- HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: Why are you so keen to work while you haven’t graduated yet?
Ayat El Halawany: It’s true that I’m really keen on working while I’m still studying, as I always believe that being a working student is more important than working after you finish your studies. Being in direct contact with the outer world at a young age gives you a good experience that you’ll need when you get older. Being a working student is also of great benefit in building a multi-tasking, responsible person who can work under stress, as you may need to work during your exams too. This stress will teach you how to be able to schedule your life and set your priorities. In addition to the fact that most of the companies may not accept a student to join them, which made me work in many different fields not only mine. Each job I’ve worked at changed me and taught me a lot, which is different from working after you finish your studies, as then you’ll be specialized and qualified to join a company in your field only. You won’t have the same chance, as undergraduates, to try other fields; you won’t know enough about the outer world and you won’t have that plenty of time to practice all of this even if you wanted to.
2- HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: What is your message (personal or social) behind having your own pharmacy?
Ayat El Halawany: I have a number of mini messages behind having my own pharmacy. First, you have to teach yourself how to be responsible for anything and everything. You have to know that you can manage the whole thing, if you really want to and you are never too young or too old to dream or to make your dreams come true. Having your own project and your own business, even if you are doing this only for a short time will make you a mature employee. Having your own thing teaches you how to be a manager, a leader and an employee at the same time. I think it is really important for everyone to have his/her own thing even for a while; it will change and teach him/her a lot and make him/her a totally different person. Second, it is a message for my colleagues not to settle down, be ambitious; you should plant your own land, and work for yourself. Stability is good but being adventurous is better, while routine is fatal.
My words don’t mean to be selfish, materialistic, money monster. I think I was really lucky to be a pharmacist and have my own pharmacy at a young age. It was important to get financial benefits from my project, but it also taught me how to be a human being dealing with medicine, as healing others’ wounds and killing their pain has always been my passion, and having my own pharmacy made me balance between my passion and my personal benefits. In my point of view, this was the real success and the highest degree of maturity and education life will allow you to learn.
3- HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: What was your first practical step after deciding to have your own pharmacy?
Ayat El Halawany: After I decided to have my own pharmacy, I had to take steps to make this decision come to life, and I started this by searching for a good place to start my project in, companies I would deal with and more experienced pharmacists who may help me with this. Then I rescheduled my life, as when I made this decision I was still a school teacher as well as a pharmacy student, and I had to balance between them all and that was very difficult that made me take one of the hardest decisions ever, which was to resign from my work as a teacher to launch this pharmacy.
4- HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: How do you recruit employees in your pharmacy and how do you train them?
Ayat El Halawany: In my pharmacy there was no need to recruit pharmacists and train them, as some of my colleagues already helped and worked with me and they were well-experienced in working at pharmacies. I used to take shifts in it and work by myself, as at the beginning of any launched project you have to reduce the number of employees as much as you can to improve your financial state. However, if I had to recruit and train pharmacists, I would be good at it; as I used to be responsible for training the newcomers in the pharmacies that I used to work in. The first thing I used to tell them was: “There is no need to keep reading the pamphlets of all drugs in the pharmacy; you have to pass your training through two parallel straight lines. The first one is to know how to deal with all types of patients from different educational backgrounds, be familiar with the OTC- over the counter- drugs that you may sell with no prescriptions as well as the supplements, and how to read prescriptions. The second line is to know the active constituent of most drugs and their mechanism of action inside your body; as the Egyptian market does not have all medicines available, there may be shortage in some of them at any time, so you could get the typical alternative if you needed to.”
5- HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: What were the challenges you faced while launching the pharmacy and how did you overcome them?
Ayat El Halawany: The first challenge was that my partners changed their mind and chose to quit the idea, may be they were afraid of launching our own business while studying. I chose to take the risk, so I had to work on it all by myself, although they helped me later on, but being the only one responsible for the whole thing was really hard. By changing their mind, I was forced to face another challenge in funding the project that made me look for investors, until I found someone who helped me with the financial issue and solved this problem. Another interesting challenge was dealing directly with companies for the first time and how to schedule our payments and put strategies on working with each other, but that was easily solved and for me, it was the first time to experience such a thing.
6- HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: You have worked a lot in civil work; does this have any influence on your management style after you have your own project now?
Ayat El Halawany: Sure, it helped me a lot in managing my project, and dealing with companies; that’s why I previously mentioned that dealing with companies was an interesting challenge that I could easily overcome. I used all the skills I learnt in the civil society and being a volunteer in more than one project taught me that I should work with high quality even without a reward. You do it because you can do it and love doing it; that helped me to fulfill my passion.
7- HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: What are the negative points you see in pharmacies in Egypt?
Ayat El Halawany: Actually the negative points I see don’t concern the Egyptian pharmacies only; I think that the whole medical field isn’t on the right track in Egypt. Regarding pharmacies, some pharmacists diagnose diseases and prescribe treatments in their pharmacies, which isn’t right; it is OK to use alternatives, some OTC drugs but we mustn’t diagnose diseases in pharmacies. The pharmacist is the first one to be asked for the suitable medicine but not to diagnose, as this may be harmful to the patients and may risk his/her life. The second major negative point is that most of those who work in pharmacies aren’t pharmacists. They are from different educational levels, which I know is done for financial reasons, as pharmacists prefer working in companies rather than pharmacies. That’s in addition to the fact that pharmacy owners find it better and less expensive to have employees of other educational levels and backgrounds, but this really harms the patients’ health at the end.
8- HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: What is your advice to pharmacy students?
Ayat El Halawany: My advice to them is to start their training and work while studying; this will help them a lot in their studies. If there is no opportunity to start your work as a pharmacist, start your practical life anyway in any field you like; this will add a lot to you. Try to use your studies in patient counseling, don’t be that robot that gets the medicine out of the drawer only, use what you’ve learnt to add something to your patients’ knowledge; they may use it throughout their lives. If you choose to work in companies, as medical representatives, clinical pharmacist or any other job pharmacists could practice, try as much as you can to add values to those you’re dealing with and be remarkable in their lives.
9- HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: You spent a big part of your life working as a school teacher. What do you like the most about teaching?
Ayat El Halawany: I love everything about being a teacher. Children’s mind is a white sheet of paper where you can draw whatever you want. I liked drawing the right concepts that may guide them along their lives. Teaching isn’t about explaining few words in books; it is about explaining what is beyond these words. Changing things in their personal lives was a great pleasure. I spent the most adorable two years of my practical life with my kids.
10- HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: Does teaching have any impact on your current work as pharmacy owner?
Ayat El Halawany: Being a pharmacy owner made me use everything I learnt in life and my previous jobs, so I think teaching had a great impact on the pharmacy owner I become now.
11- HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: From a personal perspective, what are the qualities of a professional pharmacist working in a pharmacy store?
Ayat El Halawany: I think the jobs that require direct contact with clients need different skills from those jobs that require you to work with machines. That’s why anyone who wants to work in a pharmacy should know how to deal with different kinds of people from various social and educational backgrounds. A pharmacist in a pharmacy should also be aware of almost all alternatives in the market and should follow up with the market updates. Patient counseling is another important thing that makes one pharmacist more qualified than the other besides his/her ability to translate the medical and pharmacological information s/he learnt into simple words that patients can understand.
12- HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: You should be graduated by the end of this year, but technically you are still a student. What qualifies you as a student to own and take the responsibility of owning and managing a pharmacy?
Ayat El Halawany: I started my training and worked for pharmacies during my first years at college, that made me experienced somehow in this field, and I was responsible for almost 90% of the work at the last pharmacy I worked for. That made me think it’s not difficult to launch my own pharmacy and I always believe that if you don’t take the risk of doing something new and difficult, you’ll never know how it is done and you’ll never achieve it.
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