Emi Gosling - On pharmacy, regulation, and building an advertising consultancy

Sit down with Emi Gosling - former community pharmacy proprietor, ex-TGA delegate, and founder of e-MAS Medicine Advertising Services - to explore the often misunderstood world of pharmacy advertising compliance. 

Her three rules of thumb for anyone posting about their services on social media:

• Education, advertising or content? Know the difference. Promoting healthcare products and services is regulated, and that includes content someone else created for you.
• Running a full-scope clinic? Promote the service, not the product. Talk about the consultation or the condition you're treating, not the medicine used to treat it.
• Launching something new? Understand what can actually be advertised. The rules for health claims differ across foods, cosmetics and therapeutic goods.

 “Any media is advertising. A poster on your wall, a post on your Facebook page, the same rules apply to both.”

Emi also shares the career story behind the expertise: from community pharmacy ownership, to being made redundant when her TGA delegate role was legislated away, to building an independent consultancy from nothing.

If you post about your pharmacy on social media, even occasionally, this episode is worth your time.

You can find Emi Gosling on LinkedIn.

About Your Pharmacy Career Podcast

Welcome to Your Pharmacy Career Podcast, proudly produced by Raven’s Recruitment - the experts in pharmacy career and locum services for over 30 years!

Hosted by Pharmacist, Krysti-Lee Patterson, every episode is your gateway to new opportunities in the pharmacy profession. From expert advice to inspiring success stories, we’re here to spark ideas, guide your career, and help you achieve your goals. Whether you're a student, an early-career pharmacist, or a seasoned professional, this podcast is designed to keep you informed and inspired.

Proudly brought to you by the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia. The PSA is committed to empowering pharmacists through advocacy, innovation, and industry-leading professional development. To become a member or learn more about how the PSA can support your career, visit www.psa.org.au.

Pharmacy Daily is a proud supporter of Your Pharmacy Career Podcast. If you're in the pharmacy world, it's a great resource to stay up to date with the latest industry news. To subscribe, just head to pharmacydaily.com.au to get the newsletter delivered straight to your inbox.

Transcript

Narrator (00:01)
Welcome to Your Pharmacy Career Podcast, proudly produced by Raven’s Recruitment, the experts in pharmacy career and locum services for over 30 years. Every episode is your gateway to new opportunities in the pharmacy profession. From expert advice to inspiring success stories, we're here to spark ideas, guide your career, and help you achieve your goals. Stay tuned. The next step in your pharmacy journey starts here.

Krysti-Lee Patterson (00:26)
Welcome back to Your Pharmacy Career Podcast. I am Krysti-Lee Patterson, your host as usual. Today’s guest has generally seen pharmacy from every angle. Emi has been a community pharmacy owner, has worked across hospital and international pharmacy, and has even made a move into industry and TGA regulatory work. She now runs her own medicine advertising services and consultancy and helps pharmacy businesses and pharmacists build advertising strategies that are compliant and effective.

I think that’s very relevant in today’s world. Emi, welcome to the podcast.

Emi Gosling (01:07)
Thank you so much for having me, Krysti-Lee.

Krysti-Lee Patterson (01:09)
So, Emi, I always start the podcast by asking my guests what got them into pharmacy in the first place. Could you shed a little bit of light on how that journey happened for you?

Emi Gosling (01:23)
When I registered or chose to do pharmacy at Sydney University, it was actually because I’d finished high school very young. I had only just turned 17 by the time I had to decide what degree I was going to do.

So I’m glad that I chose pharmacy, but it was a rushed decision. I think it came from an interest in health and science based on my subject choices, as well as languages. So communication and health, I suppose.

Krysti-Lee Patterson (01:53)
Mm, absolutely.

Emi Gosling (01:54)
That said, in my first year of pharmacy, I wasn’t sure I was enjoying it. I didn’t like the statistics and maths subjects at all, but I persevered, and it turned out for the best.

Krysti-Lee Patterson (02:06)
Yeah, absolutely. I think so. And gosh, 16 or 17 seems so young to decide what you want to do for the rest of your life. I mean, I’ve changed what I wanted to do so many times throughout my career already.

So I’m glad it worked out for you.

Now, Emi, I feel like in the pharmacy industry there’s a bit of a feeling that once you become a pharmacy owner, you’ve “made it”. You were a community pharmacy owner for some time, so maybe you could share a little bit about your experience as a community pharmacy owner and then touch on what led you to move out of being a community pharmacy owner.

Because I know when I first decided I wanted to do pharmacy, my goal was to move back to Mudgee. I grew up in Mudgee and started working in a pharmacy there. My goal was, “I can’t wait to get back to Mudgee and buy this pharmacy off the pharmacist.”

Then I never went back to Mudgee and I never bought a pharmacy. So, tell me about that period of your life.

Emi Gosling (03:10)
Well, community pharmacy — I do love community pharmacy. I loved the years that I worked in that area.

I started my internship in community pharmacy. I had a great preceptor, and my early years were in community pharmacy with a group. I started in Sydney, but then heartbreak happened and I decided to travel Australia and take a role up in the Northern Territory.

I was lucky enough, within that same banner group, to get some exposure to hospital pharmacy as well. So I got to dip my toe into that.

Then I did a little bit more travel around Australia, working in different pharmacies, and then overseas. When I eventually came back to Australia, I again returned to community pharmacy and loved that.

Then I had the opportunity to buy into a business, but in the end I bought the whole thing. Then I bought one business, then another one, and another one.

It was very heavily reliant on wholesalers at that point, but it was a great opportunity for me to get started and work through those businesses. Obviously, I was multitasking the whole time. I bought a house, built my family, had three children — so it was a very, very busy period.

Krysti-Lee Patterson (04:25)
Not just one pharmacy, but multiple pharmacies as well. Goodness me.

Emi Gosling (04:29)
And then I suppose I really don’t know why I ultimately got out of pharmacy ownership. It just seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

The competition was changing. The model that we had been working with — which was really service-oriented — was being eroded by competition in the area.

There were a lot of pressures, and it would have meant changing a lot of the ways that we had been working: staffing numbers, the amount of service that we could provide, and things like that.

I couldn’t see that it was going to continue being exactly what I wanted for much longer. So I sold those businesses and then had some time off.

Once my youngest child started school, I decided I did need to get back into doing something with my time. I was really fortunate to get a role within an organisation that has since been renamed. They are now called Consumer Health Products Australia.

There’s the Medicines Australia group, and then there was a consumer health products group. They had a delegated role from the TGA — the Therapeutic Goods Administration — to assess healthcare promotions and ensure they were compliant with the legislation and regulations.

That was a mandatory step for anyone who wanted to put an advertisement on TV, in a magazine, on radio, or anything like that. It had to be pre-checked by myself and a colleague before it could go out.

Krysti-Lee Patterson (06:03)
That sounds really interesting. It seems so obvious now that a pharmacist should be doing that type of role, but I guess at the time, how did you even get into it?

It’s something that I’ve known you for a while, and it just seems to be your bread and butter. But I almost feel like it’s a little bit random, to be honest.

Emi Gosling (06:22)
No, truly. I was interested in the role because, working in community pharmacy, you see a lot of people come in asking questions about advertisements they’ve seen.

Each person might see the same information on A Current Affair, for example, and they’ll come in with a different interpretation of what that product or service was about.

I could see there was a real gap between what people take away from an advertisement and what the intended message actually is.

That’s what the legislation is there to protect — to help ensure that the same message is received by all people.

But even with those regulations in place, people can still take something slightly different from each advertisement they see.

I wanted to be there to support industry, but also support the government and consumers in ensuring the right messages were being communicated through advertising.

So, yeah, I really enjoyed it, and I’m so pleased to be able to continue doing that type of work.

Krysti-Lee Patterson (07:21)
I almost had to laugh when you mentioned A Current Affair. I’m just reflecting on — I’m sure you remember the TV shows like Today Tonight and those types of programs.

Emi Gosling (07:37)
Absolutely.

Krysti-Lee Patterson (07:38)
There would always be some sort of new product or something happening, and you could guarantee that the next day customers or patients would come in asking about it.

I actually remember the first pharmacy I ever worked in, and one of the staff members — I don’t think she was one of the pharmacists, I think she was one of the pharmacy assistants — said, “Yes, I watch Today Tonight or A Current Affairevery night just in case patients come in, because otherwise I have no idea what they’re talking about.”

Emi Gosling (08:07)
Yeah. I do remember reps coming in and saying, “This is going to be on Today Tonight next week. Are you sure you don’t want to buy six or something like that just to have them on your shelf to answer those requests?”

Krysti-Lee Patterson (08:18)
Yes, it really was.

I feel like now, rather than companies utilising those channels on TV — yes, TV advertising is still something that is done — but I feel like now it’s all the internet, right? Social media.

Emi Gosling (08:36)
Absolutely. Yeah. It’s very much an area that’s being explored by a lot of people at the moment.

Krysti-Lee Patterson (08:42)
Absolutely. And I really want to dig into that area, but I might just hold that thought for now because I want to understand — you were working in that role and then now you have your own business.

How did that happen? Was it something that, at that time — obviously you had your own businesses before with the pharmacies, so being an entrepreneur and being a business owner is clearly something that’s a part of you.

Did you see instantly when you first took that role that this was something you could actually make into something? Or was it, again, something random that happened?

How did you make that transition from working in that role to deciding, “Okay, I actually think there’s an opportunity here to go out on my own”?

Emi Gosling (09:30)
Yeah, no, that’s a great question.

When I took the role, it was obviously a massive learning experience for me to learn acres and folders of legislation and interpret and understand all of that. I put a lot of effort into being excellent at what I did.

Krysti-Lee Patterson (09:47)
There was no AI when you started in that role, I assume.

Emi Gosling (09:50)
No. So I was fully immersed. I put my heart and soul into it.

But then there was a legislative change that made the role redundant. I found out that — and I wasn’t aware of this when I took the job — but I don’t think it would have changed my decision.

Ultimately, the writing was on the wall that the role was going to become redundant, and it was made redundant. That’s when I had to make the decision: “Well, what am I going to do now?”

Having worked in that space and as a TGA delegate, you are very restricted with how much support you can provide to an advertiser.

The role was to say whether the material presented was compliant or not compliant — whether it could be published, whether it could go to TV or not.

I had a stamp, and I would say “approved”, sign it, and then the person would be able to put that on TV or into a catalogue.

If I couldn’t put the stamp on it, I wasn’t able to give advice as to why it wasn’t compliant. I could suggest that there were areas they could look into amending, but I couldn’t say, “All you need to do is change that word,” or “take that off,” or “let’s reframe that,” or “change the imagery.”

I couldn’t be involved in business decisions as a government delegate.

Krysti-Lee Patterson (11:15)
Wow, that’s really interesting.

Emi Gosling (11:17)
Yeah. So as soon as that realisation struck me, I thought, “Look, why don’t I use this expertise for businesses, but be able to provide a lot more consulting advice and support?”

Essentially, they could get their advertising compliant without having to go through so many hoops.

So that was good.

Krysti-Lee Patterson (11:41)
Yeah, wow. And having to go through a redundancy, that’s also a little bit scary too, right? Because it’s like, “What do I do now?” as you said.

Emi Gosling (11:50)
Yeah. I think I had so much going on in the rest of my life though that it was another one of those things — three kids, businesses still going on, lots of things in my mind.

That was another thing to deal with. I just had to make that decision: if I’m going to do this, I’m going to go for it wholeheartedly.

I remember being up late at night, still trying to work, building my website, writing content, doing all of that sort of thing, making connections, reaching out to people that I thought might be supportive.

Something I’m incredibly grateful for is the people who gave me a go — my early clients who saw the value in what I could do and trusted me.

Also, other people within pharmacy who said, “I know this person, or this skill set could help.”

That was really helpful as well.

I started out from a base of nothing, and it went really well for the first six months or so. But I was doing locum work in hospitals, doing locum work in retail, staying up late, doing my website, doing work, meeting and greeting, going to conferences, telling people what I did, and getting as much traction as I possibly could.

It was a pretty exhausting time.

But then I did get an opportunity with a friend — someone I’d worked with in the past — who suggested me for a contract role within a pharmaceutical company.

I took that job as well. It was a three-month contract that extended out to six months.

When they asked if I would like to stay on, I said, “Look, I’d love to, but I really want to give this business a go — a red-hot go.”

So I said no to that, put my foot down a little bit harder, and focused on building the business.

I got some really great opportunities: speaking at the APP conference, doing other conferences here and there, and talking about the rules around advertising that a lot of pharmacists might know exist, but navigating them can be a challenge.

Then, after I had my systems in place, the pharmaceutical company approached me again and said, “Would you like to try again?”

I said, “You know what? I reckon I can do this. I reckon I can do everything.”

So I still work with that company now part-time, and I do my consulting part-time as well.

But some mornings I still need to be up at 5:00 am, 4:30 am, to get everything done for both roles.

But we’re all like that, right? Everyone has to be pushed.

Krysti-Lee Patterson (14:28)
Gosh, yeah, I can totally relate with everything that you were saying. Even when you mentioned starting to build the business, doing locum work, and working on your website at night time — yes, I’ve been there, done that, still doing it.

But I think the great thing with our industry and being a pharmacist is that we have that fallback option. We can do that and have the flexibility.

I feel like, personally, if I was in a different role where I couldn’t just locum or pick up shifts here and there and do these different things to help supplement my income while trying to build a business, I don’t know if I would have gone in and started a business.

I think people listening should realise that we’re really lucky that we have the ability to do that.

Emi Gosling (15:23)
Yeah, and the backup plan is a really good backup plan. It’s a very rewarding backup and an enjoyable one.

Like you said, you can do them both at the same time. You can still have your business or side hustle, or whatever level of effort you want to put into it, while also working in community pharmacy, hospital pharmacy, or doing locum shifts.

Krysti-Lee Patterson (15:49)
Mm.

Yeah, well, even when you mentioned that you’re doing locum work in hospital pharmacy, that was a little bit surprising to me, only because I’ve never worked in hospital pharmacy and I didn’t realise there were hospital pharmacy locums.

Emi Gosling (16:13)
Yeah, absolutely. They’ve all got their bank of locums that they call on.

Krysti-Lee Patterson (16:19)
The other thing that has stuck out to me, I guess, is that if you look at what you’re doing now, someone who doesn’t know you or your background might look at it and think that you’ve left pharmacy to go into the pharmaceutical industry.

It’s funny, because they’re so intertwined, but they are often regarded as two separate industries.

When we were preparing for this podcast, you mentioned to me that you haven’t left the pharmacy industry. You are still in the pharmacy industry.

I think that’s a really good message to get across — that you can still be part of the pharmacy industry and do different things.

Emi Gosling (17:04)
Yeah, no, I very much feel part of the pharmacy world.

I keep my registration up. I stay a member of the PSA. I go to conferences. I still like — I’ve got friends who were university friends or people I’ve met through other ways.

I’ve met a lot of people through retail pharmacies, for example, and I still stay connected with them.

So yeah, I do still feel, and describe myself, as a pharmacist. Absolutely.

Krysti-Lee Patterson (17:35)
Yeah, I love that.

It’s so important for people to hear that you can do different things, or dip your toe into something that might seem completely different at the beginning, but you can still 100% be part of the pharmacy industry and try these different things.

Now, I first came across what you do — and what people like yourself do — when I was working for a banner group during COVID.

I think during COVID it became a realisation for me, and I don’t know if it was the same for other pharmacists, but it certainly became clear how we promote services as opposed to just products.

I think I’ve always understood advertising as promoting a product: “Here’s a product, I’m going to put it in a catalogue, I’m going to put it in a TV ad.”

I understood that as advertising.

But I don’t think I’d made the connection yet that services are also something we advertise.

It wasn’t until pharmacists started doing more vaccinations. We weren’t allowed to say which vaccine brand we had, but then COVID came around and then you…

Emi Gosling (18:50)
The TGA changed the rules, yes.

Krysti-Lee Patterson (18:52)
Yeah.

Emi Gosling (18:53)
I was up on stage talking about it at APP, explaining the rules and very confidently saying exactly what the rules were.

Then two weeks later — probably just when the recording was released — the rules changed.

So it looked like I was saying the wrong thing. It was mortifying.

But anyway…

Krysti-Lee Patterson (19:13)
But even just being across that, it’s something that I don’t think I really — maybe I touched on it at university and don’t remember.

Emi Gosling (19:22)
I don’t remember anything about advertising at university.

Krysti-Lee Patterson (19:26)
I remember there was something that had to get reviewed, and someone was like, “We’ll get Emi to review it.”

I was like, “Who’s this Emi?”

And then I’m thinking, “She sounds like she just knows everything about anything relating to pharmacy and advertising.”

But that started opening my eyes to how important it is.

I think that’s when I personally started becoming more aware of what I say on social media and things like that.

Emi Gosling
Absolutely.

Krysti-Lee Patterson (20:00)
Because, as was really evident during COVID times, if you’re a health professional — whether you’re a pharmacist, GP, or another health professional — there were cases where health professionals were losing, or potentially looking at losing, their AHPRA registration because they were saying things that didn’t align with the evidence.

But then, with the rise of social media and content creators, it blows my mind that a non-health professional can basically say whatever they want.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but my understanding is that if you’re not a health professional, you can say whatever you want on social media and do sponsored posts and advertising.

But if you’re a pharmacist or another health professional, we have different rules that we need to follow.

It’s something that I know a lot of pharmacists using social media need to think about.

How do we know what we can and can’t say?

I feel like this could probably be an APP session in itself.

Narrator (21:12)
Pharmacy Daily is a proud supporter of Your Pharmacy Career Podcast. If you’re in the pharmacy world, it’s a great resource to stay up to date with the latest industry news.

To subscribe, just head to pharmacydaily.com.au to get the newsletter delivered straight to your inbox.

Krysti-Lee Patterson (21:27)
So, maybe you’ve got some thoughts on that. Well, I’m sure you do, but could you give some insights as to how we can manage that as pharmacists?

I know that’s a big question with a big answer, but feel free to answer it however you like.

Emi Gosling (21:44)
Maybe I’ll break it down a little bit.

You’re 100% correct in that pharmacists, or any health professional, do have this extra level of scrutiny and extra level of responsibility.

Health professionals might be promoting a clinic service, or they might be promoting their personal brand. They want to be seen as an expert in that area, and social media, as you know, can get great traction.

It is really good to have qualified people talking about health products rather than the assorted influencers you mentioned earlier.

But yes, there is that level of scrutiny, both from a TGA perspective and an AHPRA perspective, to ensure that the message is not misconstrued by the audience.

Krysti-Lee Patterson (22:29)
I think with social media, it’s 100% public, right?

What you put out there — even if maybe your main target audience is other health professionals or other pharmacists — and maybe, for example, you’re providing some tips on how to study for an exam, or you’re talking about medications and things like that.

It’s probably unlikely that the algorithm would show that to a consumer, but there is still that risk.

As pharmacists, we probably need to attack it in a number of different ways.

It’s not just, “I’m a pharmacist and I can say something because my target audience is other health professionals, so it’s not advertising.”

Then maybe you’re putting a post on behalf of your pharmacy that you work for, and there are different things you need to consider.

I’ll give one example, and this is a question I have.

Say, for example, you’re doing a “meet the team” video. You’re filming a staff member, and they’re saying, “I’m Krysti-Lee, I’m a pharmacist, I’ve just started working here…”

But they’re doing it in front of products. They might be standing in front of the vitamin section, or they might be standing in the dispensary, and unintentionally in the video you can see packets and products.

Is that something that we should be considerate of?

I just wonder because when you’re understanding what is advertising and what isn’t, even though our intention might not be advertising, the TGA rules we have to abide by may actually consider it advertising.

Emi Gosling (24:09)
Yeah, you’d have to be really careful.

You standing in the store saying, “Hi, I’m Krysti-Lee,” with vitamins behind you — I can’t see that being an issue at all.

If you’re standing in the dispensary saying, “I’m Krysti-Lee, I’ve got a passion for pain management,” and then you can see a medicinal cannabis sign or something like that, then that’s when it would become a different level.

That’s just off the top of my head as a random example.

The example I was thinking about was: “I’m Krysti-Lee, I’m actually going on holidays, and this is what I need to take.”

So you’re walking around the shop, picking up your Hydralyte, picking up your face mask, picking up your bits and pieces:

“I’m going to take this. I’m going to an area where sanitation isn’t so good. I’m going to need all this.”

That would be construed as a healthcare professional endorsement of those particular products you’re grabbing as you walk around the store.

Krysti-Lee Patterson (25:08)
Interesting. Okay, because I guess another example could be, “What’s in the bag?”

You’re saying, “I’m a pharmacist and these are my favourite products,” and maybe there’s a lip balm, but then you start pulling out your go-to products.

I know that if, for example, a drug company has sponsored you to do that ad, you have to disclose that — put “sponsored post” or something similar.

But if they haven’t and you’re just talking about a product, the answer is probably yes, but that’s considered advertising, right?

Because you can see a product.

Emi Gosling (25:50)
Yeah, it will be taken in context.

But my advice would always be, if you’re going to be showing a selection of products, you’ll want to be providing information. You don’t want to just be focusing on one product.

Another example would be a “get ready with me” video:

“The pharmacist waking up in the morning, and this is what I do. I have to have a coffee, I have to walk my dog, I have to have a Berocca…”

That type of thing would be an endorsement or testimonial of the product.

“Now look at me in the business. I’m getting through my day, powering on after all of these things.”

That could easily be considered an advertisement for a product.

Whether it was sponsored by a company is irrelevant — you are promoting the product.

Krysti-Lee Patterson (26:39)
Okay, that makes sense.

So it’s kind of what you mentioned around context. If you’re just in the pharmacy and you can maybe see some blurry products in the background, but you’re talking about something completely different, then obviously that’s not the same.

But if you’re talking about pain management and medicinal cannabis, or you’re standing in front of the vitamin wall talking about probiotics and there’s a huge range of probiotics in the background, that’s when the line gets blurry.

Emi Gosling (27:10)
Exactly.

Krysti-Lee Patterson (27:11)
So I feel like this can be quite a complicated area, and you could probably get very “purple pen” from your hospital days.

But for an everyday pharmacy that wants to start doing more on social media for their business — promoting the services they’re offering — how would you advise them to go about that?

What are the things they need to think about and hopefully be aware of?

Emi Gosling (27:49)
Absolutely, the starting point is being aware of the rules.

Having a good grasp of what you can and can’t do, being structured about how you’re going to do it, and being mindful of the objective of the whole practice.

It’s not a zero-risk endeavour.

When you mentioned social media earlier, any media is advertising. We need to think of the whole thing as advertising, not just social media.

Putting a poster up on the wall in your pharmacy is advertising. Putting a big post on your company Facebook page is also advertising. The same rules apply to both.

So, like I said, starting with knowing the rules is number one.

There are obviously a few things to be mindful of when you are putting content on social media.

As you mentioned earlier, it is a public platform, even if you think it’s private and you feel like it’s just a casual chat with your community.

This is a public platform that anyone can see, and you need to be very mindful of what you’re posting and the appropriateness of what you’re posting.

Krysti-Lee Patterson (29:06)
So where can pharmacists go to find out the rules?

You mentioned they need to be aware of the rules. I’m guessing you shouldn’t just type into Claude or ChatGPT, “Hey, what are the advertising rules?” I’m sure there are proper websites where we can go to get that correct information.

Emi Gosling (29:24)
Yeah, I do believe a lot of people are trying that and certainly putting their content through those platforms.

But to start with, the TGA has some great guidance and AHPRA has some guidance as well. There are definitely hubs on both of those websites that provide a lot of information about advertising and the rules around it.

I expect that AI draws from those resources, but AI is not going to be able to pick up those little nuances that we’ve talked about earlier and explain them to whoever is creating the content.

Krysti-Lee Patterson (29:59)
Yeah, absolutely.

So it’s still — like anything you put through AI — you still need to have that knowledge and understanding to be able to identify and assess the output.

Emi Gosling (30:12)
A lot of the banner groups have people on board who are mindful of the regulations, so they create some generic content.

I appreciate that a lot of pharmacies want to make their own content to make it relevant to their own audiences.

The generic content is great, but if you want to personalise it, that’s going to be better.

Krysti-Lee Patterson (30:35)
Do you have any advice for pharmacists who might be wanting to start a consulting business or do something a little bit different?

Maybe some things they need to be aware of when making that decision — the good and the bad.

Emi Gosling (30:50)
I’m sure everyone tells you when you ask that question, “It’s going to be hard.”

And it is hard.

I think for me, one of the hardest things was — which I don’t like to admit — believing in myself and believing that I could do it.

We all talk about imposter syndrome and that type of thing, but when I thought about it, it wasn’t even imposter syndrome. It was just self-confidence.

Trust yourself. If you think you can do it, give it a shot.

What’s the worst thing that can happen? It doesn’t work.

Well, at least you’ve given it a shot.

Krysti-Lee Patterson (31:25)
And like you said earlier, what’s the worst thing that can happen? Your backup plan is…

Emi Gosling (31:31)
Exactly.

No shame. And we all learn something from it.

You’ve grown your mind a little bit, you’ve given something else a try, and it could go really well.

Even when I started out, I thought I would just be looking at advertising and supporting advertisers with their content.

But it has expanded so much more now.

The spectrum of clients I work with varies quite dramatically.

It could be someone making a supplement who wants to expand the claims they talk about.

It could be a pharmaceutical company wanting expert advice on how to get permission for their product to be advertised for a particular indication.

It could be a clinic wanting their website reviewed to make sure they’re compliant with all of the regulations around promoting their service.

So yeah, it’s very diverse.

Krysti-Lee Patterson (32:26)
Yeah, absolutely.

So, Emi, we’re coming to the end of the podcast now.

Is there anything we haven’t covered that you think is really important to get across to pharmacies, or maybe just some last words of wisdom that you want to share?

Emi Gosling (32:48)
No, I think the most important thing, certainly along the lines of what we’ve been talking about with advertising, is to be aware of what advertising is.

Be aware that a sign in your window, a photo, talking about your services — all of those types of things can be advertising.

Just be really careful how you’re promoting them.

I suppose because I get all the notifications from the TGA, they really are cracking down.

They’ve changed a lot of the rules around compounding and promoting that.

They do a great job putting out guidance, but they also put out a lot of notifications about the fines they’re giving to people and their compliance and regulatory focus areas.

Those areas are very closely aligned to what a lot of pharmacies are doing.

If your business or your content is on their radar — which everything is, because they use AI — you need to be mindful of what you’re doing.

Krysti-Lee Patterson (33:45)
Well, thank you so much, Emi. I found this really, really helpful, even just personally as well.

I think the examples that you spoke about will really give listeners something practical that they can take away.

One thought I’ve just had — if you’re thinking about what things can be classified as advertising, making sure your team is aware of it.

They don’t necessarily need to understand every detail, but just being aware is important.

Because we know in pharmacy, especially community pharmacy, we’ve got a lot of young staff members and pharmacy assistants. Quite often they’ll do the displays, put up posters, or help create social media content.

Whereas, as you mentioned, if you’re part of a banner group, they might send you materials and you can be assured that someone else has checked them.

But now with Canva and things like that, a lot of the time I see in pharmacies that I’ve locumed in, it’s like, “Can you get the 15-year-old to create this thing, handle it for me, and put it onto social media?”

And they always do a great job because they’re so much more attuned to using these software platforms.

But just making sure they’re aware that the pharmacist should have a double-check of this sort of content.

They don’t need to know all the details, but just make sure they get a second pair of eyes over some of these things.

Emi Gosling (35:05)
Yeah.

Krysti-Lee Patterson (35:06)
I think one of the things I’ve been thinking about throughout our discussion is that, I think it would be safe to say, the majority of the time when there are things where maybe, as an industry, we haven’t been compliant or we’ve been sitting on the side of the fence that’s about to tip into non-compliance, I don’t think anyone is doing it intentionally.

It’s usually about understanding.

Emi Gosling (35:35)
Yeah.

That’s the crux of being a pharmacist — being ethical, compliant, and trustworthy.

That trust is what your customers and patients love you for and keep coming back to you for.

That’s something we definitely want to strive towards pushing and achieving.

Krysti-Lee Patterson (35:53)
Well, thank you so much, Emi. It’s been wonderful speaking to you.

If you do want to reach out to Emi, we’ll put the details to Emi’s business in the show notes as well.

You’re on LinkedIn, I assume, and I’m sure you wouldn’t mind people reaching out to you directly as well.

Narrator (36:10)
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