Professionalism Award Winner 2024
Congratulations to Laura Miskimins, our 2024 Professionalism Award Winner!
The PTSA Professionalism Award recognizes technicians’ contributions to pharmacy practice. PTSA encourages nominations of your peers or even yourself for a job well done. Every year, we receive several outstanding nominees, each very deserving of the award. The awards committee reviews each nomination and judges the letters of support against predetermined selection criteria. We’d like to share one of the nomination letters that was submitted in support of Laura as it is a great outline of her successes and endeavors that have earned her this recognition.
“It is my great pleasure to nominate Laura Miskimins for consideration for the Pharmacy Technician Society of Alberta (PTSA) Professionalism Award for 2024 in recognition of her tireless efforts and outstanding leadership for the Pharmacy Technician profession. Laura has been involved with many volunteering opportunities over the years for the Pharmacy Technician profession; she served as a PTSA board member, as PTSA President, as Past President, and as Communication Editor. When not volunteering officially with the PTSA board Laura was involved in creating and acquiring content, such as blogs, for the PTSA social media platforms in hopes they would engage and potentially increase membership. She was also involved in planning the 2015 and 2017 PTSA conferences, and managed the 2019 conference, ensuring these events provided high-quality education opportunities for all technicians across our province.
Over the years, Laura has been an advocate for the expanding role of Pharmacy Technicians and expressed her thoughts on the topic by publishing an Op-Ed piece in 2014 for the University Of British Columbia Pharmaceutical Services Student Journal. This published work highlighted the steps that technicians had to take to become regulated, why technician regulation was important, and most importantly the positive impacts it would have on patients. It spoke to how technicians and pharmacists can work together, both to full scope, to ensure our patients have the best care and how that contributes to their overall well-being. At the time this would be a great resource for Pharmacists to understand the education and outcome technician regulation would have on the profession.
In 2018 Laura was approached about participating in an Alberta Health Services (AHS) Pride Event and jumped at the opportunity for technicians to educate the public on the need and proper use of naloxone kits. She quickly assembled a team of 6 technicians and secured naloxone kits and education material to be handed out at the event which was held at the Royal Alexandra Hospital. This event highlighted how effective pharmacy technicians could be in device training and the positive impact it could have on our communities; 30 kits were put into the hands of individuals who wanted to help vulnerable populations. This one initiative sparked interest and other volunteer opportunities for technicians in other parts of our province. One example is
when technicians in Calgary volunteered for Pride events there and had similar success in educating and providing naloxone kits to the public. The following year when Laura was approached to participate in the event, she eagerly agreed and assembled another team. This time the interest from technicians was overwhelming and a location change meant a larger public crowd would be participating in the event. By the end of the event over 140 naloxone kits were handed out, again all the education was supplied by Pharmacy Technicians and overseen by Laura. Public participants thanked the technicians for providing the educational material and naloxone kits and expressed that they had no idea how to obtain the naloxone kits, but recognized the opioid epidemic was a growing concern and they wanted to be prepared to help if necessary. Feedback from technicians providing the education was that they felt like they were contributing to their communities, and they appreciated that these kits could save lives. Allowing technicians to participate in an event like this also allowed them to learn or develop a skill they don’t typically use in hospital or institutional pharmacy. Another benefit to the event is that technicians would be able to document the newly acquired skills as an implementation for their annual continuing competency program.
Laura realizes that technicians are the leaders in medication distribution; pharmacy technicians are the experts and should be taking responsibility and accountability for distribution activities in our departments. She is quoted in a 2019 Alberta Health Services article: “We are leaders — particularly in medication distribution — at our sites across the province. In recent years, we have fully
embraced ownership and accountability for ensuring that patients receive the medication they need by managing distribution activities such as compounding, repackaging, ordering, and inventory management.”
This philosophy was also highlighted in the RxA 2019 Fall/Winter publication; in the article titled “We Are Indispensable,” Laura shared the personal story of her father’s
heart attack and the impact of not having a pharmacist assigned to his hospital unit and how this impacted not only her father’s care but also the level of information she and her mother received from his healthcare team. She states that she had her “a-ha moment” and realized that if technicians took responsibility for the technical duties related to dispensing, pharmacists could be dealing
with clinical issues and helping patients where they are needed, on the patient care unit.
For the PTSA conference in 2019, the planning committee felt it was important for technicians to present and deliver educational content; one speaker was new and had not spoken in front of a group before the conference, 1 hour before her session she felt that she was unable to fulfill her commitment. Rather than replacing the speaker or eliminating the session, Laura offered to work with her, to modify her presentation into an “interview style” session rather than a lecture. This quick thinking allowed the presenter to experience the success of speaking at the conference
and allowed participants to earn full continuing education units for the session. This is just one of many examples I have of Laura lending a hand and offering support to increase a technician’s success.
Most recently Laura was elected to the Alberta College of Pharmacy council as the technician representative for Alberta North, this is another way that she advocates for the pharmacy profession, patient care, and the involvement of pharmacy technicians. Laura feels that it is important for technicians to be involved in creating our best practices, setting priority goals for the College of Pharmacy, and our ever-evolving practice. Who better to drive the change in scope of practice or set priorities for us than technicians?
In her current day-to-day job, Laura is the Manager of Technical Practice with Alberta Health Services; the technical practice team provides research and support for standardization of technical practice with the goal of the best possible patient safety outcomes. The team supports an expanded scope of practice for both pharmacy technicians and pharmacy assistants. Pharmacy assistants practicing to their full scope creates room for the practice of technicians and pharmacists to advance as well. Technical Practice Leaders (TPLs) serve as a bridge between provincial initiatives and frontline operations and bring valuable provincial perspectives to their liaison sites. The Technical Practice team also supports pharmacy technicians by encouraging professional growth and
fostering our profession.
Laura is always looking for ways to advocate for our profession such as being involved with the creation of the “Scope of Practice of Pharmacy Technicians and Clarification of Non-Regulated Pharmacy Employee Role” to ensure that our patients and their needs are being met by our profession. Laura wants to ensure that there are no gaps in patient care and that all the patient’s needs are being met by pharmacy professionals.
I believe that all these examples highlight Laura’s support of the profession, her dedication to patient care, as well as her progressive thinking. In closing, because of the efforts I have listed (and many more), Laura has not only earned this nomination for the 2024 Professionalism Award but also my respect and gratitude. As one of those peers who Laura has inspired and motivated to volunteer and serve, I encourage you to award the PTSA Professionalism Award to her.”
Do you know a Pharmacy Technician and PTSA Member who is going above and beyond to demonstrate their professionalism and dedication to Pharmacy Practice? Keep your eyes on the PTSA website and social media for the opening of nominations for 2025!