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The Emeritus Professor Lloyd Sansom AO Distinguished Lecture Series serves as a premiere platform for renown and respected leaders in pharmacy to share their deep expertise, insights, and experiences with members and stakeholders.
The annual Sansom Lecture is named after Emeritus Professor Lloyd Sansom AO, whose profound impact on pharmacy education in Australia spans over four decades.
Speaker: Associate Professor Sue Kirsa
Monday 24 November
National Museum of Australia, Canberra
As pharmacists move into expanded scopes of practice, the pharmacy profession must embrace workplace-based assessments to demonstrate capability in new areas of practice.
Drawing on APC and Monash University’s work, A/Prof Kirsa will describe how Monash Health has led the development of workplace support, training, and assessments across a range of practice areas to ensure that the pharmacy workforce has the skills and capability to provide consistent, high-quality care. This program has fast-tracked transitions into hospital pharmacy, reducing time to independent practice from months to days and the work also found that staff also benefited through sharpening their skills to practice at the top of their scope of work.
In 2022, the APC introduced workplace-based assessments for Intern Training Programs and several Pharmacy degree programs have since adopted the assessment of practice-based tasks during experiential placements. This has encouraged supervisors to let students “do” rather than just observing. Increasingly, universities and course providers are using EPAs to define and assess discrete tasks, using a scale of “entrustment” to determine supervision levels.
In Prof Kirsa’s lecture, she will answer the questions, ‘How can pharmacists be trusted by their employers and the public to provide care at top of scope? Is CPD enough, or should capabilities be demonstrated in the workplace?’
Prof Kirsa has helped shape Pharmacy practice over four decades, contributing to the creation and review of many standards, guidelines, frameworks, and the introduction of tools like SHPA’s ClinCAT; the Intern Year Blueprint; and subsequent workplace-based assessments. She asserts that these profession-wide documents are not worth the paper they are written on if they are not implemented at the workforce and workplace level.
Join us in November to explore how Prof. Kirsa’s involvement with various organisations and projects has helped to inform this workplace approach.
Associate Professor Sue Kirsa is the immediate past Chair of the Board of the APC. Stepping down from the Board in May 2025, Sue served 9 years as Board member and 6 as Chair. Sue is the Director of Pharmacy at Monash Health where she is in her 10th year of leading the Pharmacy service.
Sue has an Adjunct Associate Professor appointment at the Centre for Medicine Use and Safety, Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Monash University, where she serves as Chairs for the Stakeholder Advisory Committee for the Bachelor of Pharmacy degree. She has recently taken up a Board position for Healthshare Victoria, and has served on a number of Pharmacy organisation Boards and Committees including as President of the Society of Hospital Pharmacists (now trading as AdPhA).
Sue has over 40 years’ experience as a pharmacist and has practised in both Community and Hospital Pharmacy. Sue was awarded a distinguished alumni award from Monash University for 2015 and is the recipient of the Fred J Boyd award from SHPA (now trading as AdPhA). Sue is married to David and has two adult children, Jeremy and Jess.
The event is also a special home to the Dr Erica Sainsbury awards, where we announce the winners of each year. The awards have been established to recognise and reward leaders in pharmacy education and practice.
Emeritus Professor Lloyd Sansom AO, an academic, policy advisor and researcher is a founding member of the Australian Pharmacy Examining Council (APEC), since its inception in 1982 - now known as APC! He has served as both a Board member and Chair of the APC Examining Committee, as well as chairing the Australian Pharmaceutical Advisory Council and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee.
"Only the future can be moulded to one which is the preferred future. If you want to do that, then you'll have to commit to excellence, to boldness of leadership, preparedness to change, and reinforcement of the fundamental principles of human rights and dignity. APC has shown itself and continues to show itself to be ready for that challenge for the future." - Emeritus Professor Lloyd Sansom AO
In 2024, Professor Tina Brock explored how health professionals can work across disciplines to address the challenges of planetary health. Drawing attention to the scale at which healthcare is contributing to climate issues, Prof Brock emphasised the importance of working together to tackle this issue - particularly by listening to the next generation. Professor Brock showcased initiatives like Rx for Climate and the Planetary Health Report Card to inspire sustainable change led by future health professionals.
Read Collaboration is key to planetary health - 2024 Sansom Lecture
Listen to our podcast: APC CEO Bronwyn Clark in conversation with Prof. Tina Brock.
In 2023, Paul Sinclair AM, President of the International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP) spoke on navigating the evolving landscape of regulation and education within pharmacy practice.
Drawing on his international experience within community practice, Mr Sinclair focussed on what his vision for the future of pharmacy education and regulation looks like.
APC also announced the winners of the 2023 Dr Erica Sainsbury Awards.
Read Pharmacy practice: Navigating the evolving landscape of regulation and education
The 2022 Sansom Lecture celebrated 40 years of the APC. The room heard from Emeritus Professor Lloyd Sansom AO, Professor Debra Rowett, Professor Kirstie Galbraith, and Alex Burke, Wiradjuri man and PhD candidate, and was facilitated by our leader and Chair Associate Professor Sue Kirsa.
The panellists, each having influenced APC's evolution, spoke about the many innovations and projects that have impacted the pharmacy profession and public health at large.
To this day, Emeritus Professor Sansom still contributes to the development of APC's exams.
Read From knitting needles to outcome-based standards - 40 years of APC | Australian Pharmacy Council
In 2021, the event focussed on the conclusion of our 4-part series on embedding cultural safety into pharmacy education. Panellists explored our journey so far, the importance of creating safe spaces, the value of respectful listening, and humanising the pharmacy profession.
APC also launched their Reflect Reconciliation Action Plan.
In 2019, Professor Faye McMillan AM, Wiradjuri yinaa, spoke at the event about creating a health profession where First Nations peoples feel valued. "Yindyamarra (respect) your Narrative" provided a message of understanding who you are determines the relationships you build.
Faye was appointed as APC's first Indigenous Board Director in 2019, and currently leads our Indigenous Health Strategy Group and the Leaders in Indigenous Pharmacy Professions Education (LIPPE) Network. Faye has been awarded the Medal (AM) in the General Division of the Order of Australia for “significant service to Indigenous mental health, and to tertiary education”.
The event welcomed Professor Debra Rowett PSM as its speaker in 2018. Former APC President and Accreditation Committee Chair, Debra was instrumental APC's strategic direction as it stands today. In 2018, Debra spoke on the significance of interprofessional communication and practice.
Read Influencing Interprofessional Communication and Practice lecture series
2017 marked the beginning of the lecture series with Emeritus Professor Lloyd Sansom as the speaker, reflecting on his journey and the pharmacy sector's evolution over time.
Read Professor Lloyd Sansom leaves legacy at Australian Pharmacy Council
