The Business Undergraduate Mentoring Program (BUMP)
The Business Undergraduate Mentoring Program is a prestige program that matches experienced business people with the best Pharmacy students at the University of Sydney
In 2006, the Pharmacy Practice Foundation established the Business Undergraduate Mentoring Program (BUMP) to provide undergraduate pharmacy students at the University of Sydney with a practical understanding of the management knowledge and skills to successfully run a community pharmacy. BUMP pairs students (as potential community pharmacy owners and/or managers) with current successful and innovative community pharmacists, to gain business skills and experiences in the management of a pharmacy practice.
BUMP is an optional program that students can undertake in addition to their Bachelor of Pharmacy load. The course is designed to introduce 2nd year students to the basics of managing a pharmacy business and expose them to the unique and innovative business skills and experiences of some of the most successful pharmacy owners and managers in the business. It combines tutorial-based learning about the business of pharmacy, with real, practical exposure to the running of a pharmacy.
Undertaken in two blocks during the last semester of Year 2 and the first semester of Year 3, students and mentors meet once a fortnight in the mentor’s pharmacy and complete objectives set at a fortnightly University-based tutorial. Guest speakers at these tutorials are pharmacists with a wealth of experience in the industry. There are a range of retail business topics covered in tutorials including stock and premises management, marketing and merchandising, money management and human resources.
The initial student intake into BUMP was 15 students from the 2nd and 3rd year cohorts of undergraduate pharmacy students. Feedback from both students and mentors has been extremely positive and the second intake, running across 2007/08 increased to 20 students, all from 2nd year. While entry into the program is competitive, it is anticipated that the program will continue to expand in coming years.
Following the success of the inaugural Business Undergraduate Mentoring Program, and student interest in continuing pharmacy management education, the Business Skills Program was introduced in the second semester of 2007. This program is available to Year 3 and Year 4 of the Bachelor of Pharmacy program, as well as postgraduate students undertaking the Master of Pharmacy program.
The Foundation would welcome enquiries from any potential mentor pharmacists or pharmacy students interested in learning more about BUMP.
Meet a Mentor and Mentee
Lyn Bronger (Mentor) and Grace Shoukry (Mentee)
Grace Shoukry, BPharm Year 3 – MENTEE
Grace was a mentee in the first BUMP intake which ran in 2006/07. She was placed with Lyn and John Bronger who own Chemistworks, and she undertook the community pharmacy part of the program at their pharmacy in Wetherill Park.
- BUMP provided me with a unique opportunity to gain one-on-one training with a successful community pharmacist. Not only did I see Lyn’s pharmacy management skills in practice, but she also took me to other pharmacies, where I had an opportunity to see first hand and have personally explained to me, different approaches in pharmacy management.
Grace also found the fortnightly tutorials invaluable, particularly enjoying the presentation of guest speakers who each brought a different perspective on community pharmacy.
- I learned about different models of community pharmacy such as discount pharmacies and service based pharmacies, sole-ownership, pharmacy chains and franchises. I saw that each can be a viable business option, while meeting different needs within the community.
The opportunity to follow up tutorials with discussions with her mentor in a relaxed environment meant that Grace not only learnt about pharmacy management but was also able to draw on her mentor’s previous experience and engage in useful discussions about the future of pharmacy and pharmacy practice in Australia. The experience has helped Grace begin to develop a network within community pharmacy. She is currently working in her mentor’s pharmacy and hopes to be able to maintain the friendship and professional relationship she has developed with her mentor, when she moves from pharmacy student to registered pharmacist, managing and owning her own pharmacy one day.
- I would highly recommend BUMP to other undergraduate pharmacy students. Although it is an additional program on top of the full-time student load, it is well planned to not clash with other parts of our timetable and as the tutorials are held once a fortnight, it was not a very onerous addition to my other studies, compared with the benefits I gained from it.
Lyn and her husband John are the originators of the ChemistWorks Group of Pharmacies. They have been actively involved in the Pharmacy Practice Foundation for a number of years and John was instrumental in the development of BUMP. Lyn has previously lectured in pharmacy management and has a strong interest in helping develop the profession of pharmacy with the community.
For Lyn, becoming a BUMP Mentor was a natural extension of her work style and belief in the importance in helping young pharmacists become established in their profession.
- I get a great satisfaction in helping students and new pharmacists, and find the interaction stimulating. When my daughter was a pharmacy student, we would often find ourselves having informal discussions with her and her friends about aspects of pharmacy as a business. This program is a more formal extension of those discussions.
- Not only does BUMP offer the students an opportunity to consolidate their learning with exposure to real businesses, it also allows them to begin developing networks within the profession. My mentee from the first BUMP intake is now working part time in one of my businesses. Before undertaking the program, she was splitting her time across three separate pharmacies, which was difficult for her in terms of settling in to a practical learning routine.
In addition to exposing her mentees to her own practice, Lyn takes them on tours of shopping centres, to observe and discuss various approaches to retail success, such as customer flow throughout shopping centres, as well as within individual stores, store locations, marketing and merchandising in other pharmacies as well as other retail outlets.
Lyn would strongly encourage pharmacists to consider becoming a mentor.
- Apart from the satisfaction of helping others, it provides business benefits such as getting to know and train future pharmacists who may become staff, managers or partners for your own business and the experience of learning about current pharmacy education and the needs and expectations of future graduates, who will take responsibility for the industry into the future.
Additionally, the opportunity to gain access to the University and the Alumni has been a bonus for Lyn.
Damian Smith, John Bronger and John Maronese (mentors)
with Sinthia Bosnic-Anticevich (Director, BUMP program)
More information
For more details on any aspect of the program, please contact the Program Coordinator:
Pina Valente
Phone: +61 2 1351 7827
Email:
The BUMP program 2008–10 is proudly sponsored by Johnston Rorke Chartered Accountants
