Dr Luke Bereznicki has a long history with the School of Pharmacy, beginning as a Bachelor of Pharmacy student in the late 90's, going on to complete a PhD in 2004 and later taking up a position as Senior Lecturer in Pharmacy Practice in 2007.
He has achieved great things during this time, as his staff profile indicates.
During the NAPSA Congress which was held in Hobart in January of this year, we sat down with Luke to find out more about his interests in pharmacy and research.
Hi Luke, thanks for catching up with us today. What is your position at the School of Pharmacy?
LB: I am the Senior Lecturer in Pharmacy Practice and the Deputy Head of School
So, why did you choose pharmacy?
LB: I originally chose pharmacy because I was interested in medications and felt that a career in community pharmacy would be a good fit for me. However, once I got started with our Integrated Honours Program as a 3rd year student, I developed a passion for applied clinical research. I did my internship in a hospital pharmacy department and I spent a lot of time working part-time as a community pharmacist before and during my PhD, so I was able to sample a range of pharmacy practice settings before eventually settling on a career in academia.
What are your research interests?
LB: My major research interests at the moment are in improving the management of anticoagulant medications, particularly in atrial fibrillation, and the prevention of adverse drug reactions. I'm also interested in identifying areas of clinical practice where pharmacist-conducted medication reviews can have the most impact, and improving the quality of pain management and respiratory disease through pharmacist intervention.
What are you working on at the moment?
LB: At the moment, I am working with colleagues and students on a broad range of research projects in areas such as adverse drug reactions, anticoagulation, atrial fibrillation, asthma, depression, acute coronary syndrome and pain management. We are also in the process of developing a new course focussed on complementary medicines for health professionals, which is really exciting.
I am also involved in teaching our pharmacy practice units and coordinating our Integrated Honours Program.
What do you like about research?
LB: What I enjoy most about my research is the opportunity to work with others to improve the quality of health care in our local area and across the country. Over the past few years our group have been able to develop, test and implement a range of new services, and see some of them implemented more widely in the health care system for example, clinical interventions and post-discharge medication reviews.
Locally, we have also been able to see changes occur as a result of our work, for example in the number of admissions to Tasmanian hospitals due to complications with warfarin treatment, which is really rewarding.
That's great! Is there anything else you'd like to add?
LB: Get involved in pharmacy research!
It isn't just about academics - we always try and bring together researchers, consumers, and a range of practitioners and other stakeholders into our projects so that we can produce an outcome that will potentially lead to implementation into practice. We greatly appreciate the time and energy that participants (often pharmacists) put into our projects.