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About the School of Pharmacy Alumni Network
The UQ Pharmacy Alumni Network was established in 2006, in order to re-connect with alumni and foster mutually beneficial links between graduates of the School, the University and the wider community.
The network allows graduates to stay connected with the university and take an active role in the rich university life of UQ through social, educational and intellectual activities
Some of the benefits offered to UQ Alumni include:
- Maintain valuable links with industry, allied health professionals, community organisations, fellow alumni and UQ
- Networking with past students, staff and industry professionals through invitations to alumni functions, professional seminars and conferences
- Opportunities for professional development through invitations to continuing education courses and lectures
- Stay connected with your graduating class through reunions, social events, school newsletters and Graduate Contact magazine
- Reduced rates for library access
- Email for life
- Continued access to UQ Employment Services
- Reduced rates for internet access via UQ Connect
- Reduced rates for membership of UQ Sport
- Membership of the UQ Staff and Graduates Club
The Alumni network is open to all graduates of The University of Queensland's School of Pharmacy. Associate membership is now being offered to current students as well. Membership is free, and you can request to leave the network at any time. To register for membership, or to update your details, please click on the button to the right. 
Alumni Network Enquiries:
- Ms Stephanie Dunn
UQ Pharmacy Alumni Coordinator
Phone | 07 3346 1926
Email | s.dunn@uq.edu.au
Alumni Spotlight
A Career Determined by Chance - By Bill Kelly
Colonel (Retd) Bill Kelly
Pharmacy Consultant
Member, Pharmacy Board of Australia
UQ Pharmacy Alumnus: 1965-67
 Winning the lottery in the late 1960s or early 70s in Australia had a somewhat different connotation than what it does today. In fact, winning Lotto or Pools today would certainly be something to look forward to. Yet it isn't so long ago that being a winner in a certain lottery was something that most young Australian males could happily do without.
Participation in Australia's last bout of conscription for National Service - used primarily to enable Australia to support the war in Vietnam - was indeed determined by a lottery.
For many 20-year-olds or rather 19-year-olds when the draw actually took place, having the marble, with their birth date listed on it, drawn out of an old hand-tumbled style lottery or raffle barrel (which I saw in the Australian Archives in Canberra many years later and confirmed that my birth date was actually one that had been selected), sealed their fate in one or many ways.
For many, this turned out to be the ultimate sacrifice of their lives in a war that, though far from the minds of many Australians at the time, has now turned out to be a significant watershed in Australia's political and military history and indeed its national conscience. For a 19-year-old early in his final year of pharmacy at the University of Queensland, success in the first quarter National Service lottery of 1967 determined a somewhat unique career path.
My military/pharmacy career started following graduation and registration as a pharmacist and some initial employment in hospital and community pharmacy in Brisbane, Queensland - and after deferring the National Service call-up to enable completion of this pharmacy training.
The military side ended some 32 years later in the rank of Colonel in an Army Reserve posting as the Colonel Consultant Pharmacist to the Surgeon General of the Australian Defence Force. It was indeed a career – albeit a long one - that was determined by chance – but it was one which had a great influence on and enabled a further career in what could loosely be called pharmacy organisation and administration and has lead to a current and continuing role in pharmacy.
The Early Pharmacy Days
My UQ days (1965 to 1967) were divided between the campus at St Lucia and the old George Street location as the B.Pharm course, then part of the Faculty of Science, was still in its early transition phase.
Year 1, day 1 saw 240 very keen students gather in a lecture theatre at St Lucia to be told that though there was no official quota system only half of us would make it through to year 2 (as I was to find out later it was all to do with the number of dispensing bench spaces available).
It also commenced a lifelong friendship with colleagues such as John Chapman, a former UQ Student Union president (and competition pill-swallowing national champion!!) now the CEO of the Australian College of Pharmacy with whom I originally car-pooled in 1965 and is also now in Canberra, the inimitable Dela (James Delahunty) whose passion for pharmacy is matched only by that for rugby union and his beloved Reds as well as fellow national serviceman and military pharmacist Ed Wright who with his wife Alison reside in the ACT and own several pharmacies in the ACT and country NSW and Marg Robinson (though a year ahead) whom I continue to work with on various projects.
Our final year class of 1967, by this stage whittled down to about 65 survivors, contained two future PSA national presidents - Peter Brand and Jay Hooper - who I was to work with in Canberra whilst at PSA and also at AACP later in my career as well as many other friends that I still run into in the pharmacy world today.
But my time at UQ has many memories including:
- The gentle yet firm direction and guidance of Bill Harris in all matters – the true mentor;
- Collecting plant specimens for analysis (and Dr Bill Griffin’s research papers!) in pharmacognosy;
- The unforgettable smell of a six-week formaldehyde-pickled dissected shark specimen in the Zoology prac lab;
- Dr (now Prof) Stella O’Donnell’s salt tablet swallowing challenges in Pharmacology prac;
- Dr Bill Groves with his strong Canadian twang describing putting the ‘warter in the mawtar’ and introducing us to the then new concept of SPF in sun creams;
- The idiosyncrasy of Cec Williams, starting his lectures spot on time to a sometimes empty classroom;
- The stern and piercing look over the top of his glasses of Prof Dare as you knew you’d given the wrong answer to his question;
- Friendly but inevitably boisterous ‘smokos’ in the old common room down by the river at George Street;
- Post lecture and prac ‘analysis’ sessions at Dela’s mum’s Grosvenor Hotel providing you could make it past the colonial-era heritage-listed Bellevue Hotel, sadly demolished under controversial circumstances in 1979;
- The challenges of negotiating the temptations of the Regatta Hotel as the convoy of cars of students regularly traversed between George Street and St Lucia campuses;
- Representing UQ at a high level in my favourite sports – cricket and baseball - both in the local competitions and on numerous interstate trips for annual Intervarsity tournaments.
- Undertaking a final year accounting exam with the assistance of an amanuensis (or writer’s assistant) – as a result of a broken right hand from the previous week’s baseball game;
- Progressive dinner parties which always seemed to start or end at Marg Robinson’s (nee O’Dea) family home in New Farm; and
- Editing, with Warwick Greaves, Draught magazine which started a career-long interest in pharmacy publishing.
The Interest in Pharmacy
 How did I become interested in pharmacy? Oddly enough, some years ago I came across a short essay that I wrote while at primary school which said that when I grew up I wanted to be a chemist but you needed to have strong legs as you had to stand up all the time! My early interest in pharmacy was also stimulated by the antiquated look and mystique of my local chemist shop (Victor Murrell’s) at Newmarket and of a neighbour who had graduated in pharmacy and was working there that I used to pester to show me how to make up prescriptions.
This interest was also fostered indirectly by my father’s close involvement with pharmacy (though not a pharmacist) as the Chief Health Inspector Drugs and Poisons at the Queensland health department in the 1960s and his membership of the equivalent then of the NDPSC which at that stage was working on early versions of the SUSDP – a file-index version of which sat on a table in my room on the verandah of our house. Osmosis was alive and well even then!
My real love for pharmacy came from early University vacations spent working in the BAFS dispensary in George Street under the tutelage of Clarrie Barwick. Sadly, this is now a 7 Eleven store but the BAFS name is still there on the first floor façade of the building.
I later took up a cadetship with the Repatriation Department (now Department of Veterans’ Affairs) and worked both in my final year and following graduation at Greenslopes Repatriation Hospital with Bill Cribb as my preceptor/mentor and with Tom Maguire at the Repat’s outpatients clinic/dispensary located in the Taxation building in Adelaide Street, while also gaining community experience working a second job in the Henry Evans’ After Hours Pharmacy in Roma Street which was open every night from 6pm-10pm.
I was enjoying the life, both professional and social, of a newly registered pharmacist and also continued my extensive sporting involvement with the University baseball and cricket clubs – including a short (fortunately) stint with the infamous Uni C grade side captained by the then Lord Mayor of Brisbane, Clem Jones with a splendid afternoon tea always being served by the man himself out of the boot of his lord mayoral black limo.
However, my national service obligation was not going away and I eventually ran out of reasons to delay the inevitable and in April 1969 reported for duty at the Northern Command Personnel Depot in Fraser’s Paddock adjacent to my old alma mater, Marist College Ashgrove.
The Military Days
Following an initial six-month stint enduring the rigour of basic military and officer training in the wilds of places such as Singleton, Bonegilla and Healesville, my initial posting, after being commissioned into the Royal Australian Army Medical Corps (RAAMC) as a Lieutenant, was as the senior (and only) pharmacist in a 100-bed Military Hospital in Ingleburn Sydney. The 2nd Military Hospital was used mainly to provide medical and hospital treatment for NSW-based soldiers and also as part of the evacuation and treatment chain for those seriously wounded in Vietnam.
In the military the pharmacist in a hospital setting was more than just the ‘hospital pharmacist' with all professional duties that go with such a role. Military hospital pharmacists were also medical quartermasters and responsible for all the medical equipment in the hospital. Stocktaking, auditing, internal checking, writing off damaged and deficient stock along with a crash course in identifying medical equipment and military stores accounting with its emphasis on generic, oblique and obscure names and country-unique NATO-inspired 13 digit identification numbers (skills that by the way came in handy in a later part of my career working with a number of foreign armies) became second nature and a skill that developed by necessity in parallel with an equally quickly gained pharmacy experience.
A military pharmacy career doesn't necessarily always start the way described above but circumstances at the time meant some newly-commissioned officers were given fairly senior and responsible appointments first up. A typical career pattern could involve hospital, medical centre pharmacy, field medical unit, junior and senior medical stores officer, medical logistic management, and administration and senior management with related increases in experience and rank. Depending on circumstances and ability, overseas postings and detachments or even employment in areas outside of your immediate area of expertise (non-corps appointments) awaited - in my case, a final two-year posting in the Regular Army as the Army’s Director of Occupational Health and Safety. And a first real glimpse at the versatility and utility of a pharmacy degree in a non-pharmacy setting and in a strategic and policy-setting environment.
Training and Experience Second to None
The military provides its officers with excellent training, experience and on-the job training second to none. Whether this be in the areas of administration, personnel management, logistics, discipline, leadership, financial management, contract negotiation, industry liaison, policy development and implementation, staff selection and performance assessment or non-pharmacy appointments to vary the role and enhance experience.
Never was this more evident than in an early posting of considerable seniority and responsibility as the Commanding Officer of the mixed military and civilian-staffed organisation responsible for the supply of medical and dental stores to the Army, Navy and Air Force in all overseas deployments - as well as the non-medical company which looked after their foodstuffs, petrol oil and lubricants, and ration packs. Arguably, a long long way from Pharmaceutics 1 prac.
Opportunities Abound
A career of this length was certainly filled with lots of experiences and opportunities that were never imagined at the start.
Whether it be the two years as the pharmacist at the ANZUK Military Hospital in Changi, Singapore or the six years as the Chairman of the international Quadripartite Working Party (United States, United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and Australia) on Health Service Support, meeting 18-monthly in each country in turn, or attending the annual briefing in Washington DC of all the program’s Chairmen, or being involved in numerous Defence Co-operation projects throughout Asia or, as Army’s Chief Pharmacist, representing Army and Defence nationally and internationally at military and pharmacy conferences, or undertaking postgraduate studies in health administration and occupational health and safety, each posting or appointment brought with it wonderful experiences, great memories and long standing friendships.
All in all, a very satisfying career in military pharmacy which was recognised through the awarding in 1986 of the Geoffrey Harkness Medal for outstanding contribution to the Royal Australian Army Medical Corps – the first and only one so far to a pharmacist.
But one really never leaves the military (it’s a bit like there being no such thing as an ex-Queenslander!) and the opportunity, while working with PSA, to serve in a part-time Army Reserve role as the Colonel Consultant Pharmacist to the Army and then also Defence resulted in a further 10 years ‘in uniform’.
The Final Chapters
 These experiences were certainly invaluable in making the switch after 22 years in the Regular Army to the pharmacy organization and administration world (and some intermittent locum work), initially as the Assistant Director Professional Development with PSA in Canberra, then a series of more senior appointment with PSA involving national education (and the development of several products including Essential CPE which remain today), publications, including transforming the Australian Pharmacist from a small newsletter into its current monthly format, and professional development, including as Registrar of the Australian College of Pharmacy Practice.
This culminated in the Deputy CEO role at PSA before moving to, what I believe to be the highlight of my ‘second’ career, six professionally-rewarding years as CEO of the Australian Association of Consultant Pharmacy, a position relinquished some 12 months ago to pursue other interests in pharmacy and additional study in the areas of specialised or advanced practice.
While involved with PSA and AACP in Canberra, an opportunity arose for a Ministerial appointment to the ACT Pharmacy Board leading to over 11 years on the Board, serving the last two as the Board’s President (and a director on the Australian Pharmacy Council) before the Board ceased operation on 30 June this year due to national registration. However, a current appointment on the inaugural Pharmacy Board of Australia has continued the involvement in the important area of pharmacist registration and regulation and protection of the public.
So what did the 32 years ‘in uniform’ mean to me as a pharmacist? It meant being part of a military family and exposure to a camaraderie that’s hard to beat. It meant wonderful experiences, great memories and long standing friendships, and superb training and skills development that complemented my initial UQ pharmacy education and proved invaluable in the pharmacy administrative and managerial roles that followed.
Given my career over again, I'd be happy to have it determined by chance if I could guarantee a similar outcome.
Colonel Bill Kelly retired from the military in 2001 after 32 years Regular and Army Reserve service but continued working in the area of administrative pharmacy. His outstanding contribution to the overall profession was recognised in 2003 with the awarding of the University of Sydney Pharmacy Practice Foundation Merck Sharp and Dohme Medal of Excellence for Pharmacy Practice.
He is currently involved in pharmacy consulting work and is the ACT representative on the new Pharmacy Board of Australia. Though being based in the ACT for 28 years but being Cairns-born and Brisbane-educated, he strongly defends his Queensland (and pharmacy) heritage. He has recently relinquished his original Queensland pharmacist registration with the advent of national registration but has, however, maintained an equally important link with his home state - his longstanding (40 years plus) membership of the Queensland Cricketers Club.
Photos: Courtesy Bill Kelly
50 Years of Pharmacy Reunion
 The School of Pharmacy hosted a cocktail reception to celebrate both the UQ Centenary and the 50th Anniversary of Pharmacy Education at UQ.
The event was held at PACE on Saturday, July 3, and saw many alumni, past and present staff as well as current students come together to honour the special occasion.
One group that took advantage of the occasion to re-connect with their fellow alumni were the graduates of the class of 1962, who were the first to complete a Bachelor of Pharmacy at UQ. The group had earlier attended Centenary celebrations at UQ St Lucia.
The evening was a tremendous success, with attendees enjoying live music, drinks and cocktail-style dinner on the Level 4 terrace at PACE.
Staff accompanied guests on guided tours of the PACE precinct prior to the evenings festivities, many seeing the School of Pharmacy's new home for the first time on that evening.
The School would like to thank all the alumni, students and staff who attended and assisted in the organisation of the event for helping to make this a memorable and enjoyable occasion for all involved.
Special thanks to Mrs Anne Beatty, who played a special role in coordinating the networking of the Class of 1962.
Pictured: Graduates of the Class of 1962 gathered at the reunion
Guild's Support Keeps Alumni in the Network
The School of Pharmacy would like to acknowledge the generous support of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia (QLD Branch), who have supported the initiation of the UQ Pharmacy Alumni Network since its inception in 2006.
Their support continues in 2010, making it possible for the School to continue regular contact with its graduates, update records, produce printed materials and banners to raise awareness of the network.
As the Pharmacy alumni network grows, the School places increased emphasis on contact with its alumni, and thanks the Pharmacy Guild of Australia for assisting with this.
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The UQ School of Pharmacy has joined with three leading Australian schools of pharmacy to form the National Alliance for Pharmacy Education (NAPE).
Planning is well underway for the annual Australasian Pharmaceutical Science Association (APSA) conference to be hosted at PACE. 
UQ Library has recently purchased numerous eBook titles to support the teaching and research being conducted in Pharmacy at UQ. Some of the core titles now available include:
The School of Pharmacy is hosting an Open Day for secondary school students and their parents, on Sunday August 29.
The School of Pharmacy has 5 scholarships on offer as part of UQ's Summer Research Scholarship Program.
UQ Pharmacy Head of School, Professor Nick Shaw (right), has been appointed a Fellow of the 
The School of Pharmacy hosted the 2010 annual awards ceremony on Thursday evening, June 3..
Congratulations go to 4th Year Bachelor of Pharmacy students Joe Monteith, Mary Chuang, Emma Newsome and Rebecca Whalley, who were successful in gaining a position in the semi-finals of the 
PhD student Felicity Davis recently returned to the School of Pharmacy after completing 5 weeks research travel at the University of Sydney. Felicity is completing her PhD in the Calcium Signaling and Cancer Research Laboratory.
Following a recent award of a Graduate School Research Travel Grant, School of Pharmacy PhD candidate Sharon Lin traveled to the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in London, one of the UK's leading research organisations.
School of Pharmacy Phd Candidate, Sarah McLeay, recently attended the 19th PAGE meeting in Berlin on June 8 – 11. She reports:
Ms Tina Wu, a PhD candidate with the School of Pharmacy, recently attended The Society of Biomolecular Sciences Annual Conference in Phoenix, Arizona. She reports:
Groundbreaking translational research conducted over more than 10 years by UQ Pharmacy's 
While the Mater Mothers’ Hospital and the UQ School of Pharmacy led the research program neonatal units in Sydney, Melbourne and Hobart hospitals also contributed to the research which is changing practice in neonatal intensive care medicine.