This Profile in Personalized Medicine highlights Noha ElSayed, registered Pharmacist, APA, of Discovery Ridge Compounding Pharmacy & Travel Clinic in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. They have been proud PCCA members since 2015.

What’s your favorite Principle? Why?

Innovate everywhere. The best thing about compounding is that we can be flexible and agile to fit patient needs. It is not one size fits all, so we always must keep learning and trying new things while weighing the risks and benefits of everything we try. Even on a personal level, if I am not innovative and always trying new things with my kids, I cannot teach them anything. The pharmacy and healthcare world have evolved so much in the past 10 years, and we have to be able to add more skills and knowledge to cope. 

 
How do you live these 3 Principles in your practice of compounding or at your pharmacy? 

Invest In Relationships

To help my patients, I need to actively listen to them, to what makes them happy and sad, and to their stories about their kids, while I share my stories too. That is when the patient opens up to me and starts telling me about his health concerns, discusses how I can help him, and becomes willing to try different treatment options. 

Same approach applies to my staff. I invest the time to teach them new skills and strategies, listen to their feedback and their ideas, and discuss pharmacy plans and new ideas — all to get the best out of them and make them feel coming to work is fun, as it’s their own place to innovate.

Take Intelligent Risks

I am always open to trying new treatment options with my patients, based on research. I explain to the patient and their physician the potential risks and benefits of the suggested treatment; show them similar examples and how the suggested treatment helped patients; show them the research; and let them decide. In many cases, the patient has tried the conventional methods of treatment and followed all the first, second and third lines of treatment, but nothing worked for them. My role is to introduce new, innovative options, based on research.

Treasure, Protect and Promote Our Reputation

PCCA retains its reputation for providing high-quality active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), new research and development of existing and new bases and formulas, as well as support and education for members with the highest compounding standards in the market. In return, I use all my compounding skills learned from PCCA to provide consistently high-quality products with the best ingredients to my patients. I also commit to ensuring our highly trained team remains updated in their skills and knowledge. 

 
How did you start compounding? What led you to PCCA? 

When I decided to have my own pharmacy, I did not want it to be just another pharmacy in the neighborhood. I wanted to provide different solutions for my patients. That is when I decided to go into compounding. It is a whole new world and offers innovative solutions for different patients' issues. I looked at different compounding companies in Canada, and PCCA always provided the answers to all of my questions and concerns.

When is the last time a patient thanked you and why?

I had a patient with two little ones, a 9-month-old and a 3-year-old. Both had fevers and there was a big shortage of Advil® and Tylenol® oral suspensions throughout Canada. Mom was in tears not knowing what to do. She was told by other big chain pharmacies that compounding options are going to be ridiculously expensive. Out of desperation, she came out to our pharmacy to see if we could help her and if she could afford the price. She was shocked at how reasonable the price was and, within an hour, she left with one bottle of acetaminophen for infants and another one for kids. A few days later, she came to thank us for being there for her children. With the help of the compounded acetaminophen suspension, their fevers were not as uncomfortable.

What’s your favorite PCCA education program or event and why? 

Marketing education — we never learned about marketing in school. It is a different language for us and I like how PCCA programs and marketing consultants simplify it for us.

How do you keep things fun at your pharmacy? 

We treat patients as family members and, in return, they treat us the same. Patients come to the pharmacy to chat and have coffee with us, not just to pick up their prescriptions or get their shots. Patients come to us first for questions before they seek help from other healthcare professionals. That is such a fun and satisfying feeling to know how much our patients trust and believe in us. 

What has been your most satisfying patient experience or toughest patient problem? 

I had a patient with rosacea. She had a big mark on the right side of her face and looked as if she was recently slapped. She was trying to hide her face with her hair or by looking down and avoiding eye contact. After discussing past treatments, I created a formula for her. After two months, the rosacea got much better, but was not completely gone. After three months, a noticeably confident patient walked into the pharmacy, looked straight into my eyes and said with a big smile, “See what happened to my face?” I did not recognize her at first. She was thrilled with the results. She has used it for the last four years as maintenance therapy. The rosacea might flare up if she drinks alcohol a few days in a row, but otherwise, it has been under control for years now.

As a member of PCCA, what is the biggest “aha” that has come from being curious? 

Learning about the difference in absorption between a base API and its salts and how the route of administration determines which one to use. For example, when to use lidocaine base versus when to use lidocaine hydrochloride salt. 

 
Is there anything else you’d like to share? 

Compounding is a unique and interesting world I have always wanted to explore, but didn’t know where to begin. Thanks to PCCA’s wonderful, experienced consultants, staff and reps for helping me enter this world of “WOW” knowledge to help my patients. I would not have done it without PCCA. I thank you for all your help and support.