6.5 Alison Tennant - Won’t someone think of the children?

It takes a special sort of person to work in paediatric care. We chat to Alison Tennant, Chief Pharmacist at Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS Trust about the risks and rewards of working with children and their medicines. Parents going home with bags of bottles, the difficulties of shared decision making and instead of DNA we have DNB - Did not Bring. A joyous and fascinating episode where we delve into the art and practice of prescribing in children.In our micro discussion we discuss the excellent paper “Why learning how to swallow pills is good for patients, parents, and the planet” in which we learn about the importance of teaching children how to swallow tablets. Both as a lifeskill and as a measure to support sustainability. “If you can swallow Lego you can swallow a tablet!” https://www.bmj.com/content/384/bmj-2023-076257Video: Kidzmedz Project: Teaching Children to Swallow Tablets: https://youtu.be/XwiuU-k2FIM?si=pXmEULvikHBA4FttAs with all of our guests, Alison shares with us a Memory Evoking Medicine, a career anthem and book that has influenced his life. Alison’s choice is as unique as you might expect!Bonus Content! Pharmacogenomics in Children- Listen to Alison talk about her favourite subject regarding pharmacogenomics in mental health youngsters,  and how it helps the shared decision making process in deciding which medicines to use https://www.theauralapothecary.com/p/bonus-material/Our new website is now live https://www.theauralapothecary.com/ and as well as being a searchable database of all episodes, we will be uploading transcripts and extra content for your enjoyment and education. Have a look and let us know what you think! Our latest blog posts talks about our first live public show - ‘Music, Memories and Medicines’ - have a read here; https://www.theauralapothecary.com/blog/the-three-apothecaries-music-medicines-and-memories/. To get in touch follow us on Twitter and Instagram @auralapothecary or email us at [email protected] .Don’t forget to rate us and comment wherever you have got this podcast from. You can listen to the Aural Apothecary playlist here; https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3OsWj4w8sxsvuwR9zMXgn5?si=tiHXrQI7QsGtSQwPyz1KBg You can view the Aural Apothecary Library here;  https://litalist.com/shelf/view-bookcase?publicId=KN6E3O