From Lagos to licensed: One pharmacist's journey into the heart of Canadian healthcare

We're pleased to present another of the essays submitted to Pharmacy Practice + Business' essay contest for internationally trained pharmacists.I became a pharmacist in Nigeria because I believed in the moment when everything changes.Not the dramatic, cinematic breakthrough one might expect, but the quiet, profound shift when a patient who arrives at the pharmacy in pain, confused, or frightened leaves with a clear plan and a renewed sense of hope. My journey began at the University of Ibadan, where I earned my pharmacy degree. Those formative years, followed by over a decade of practice, were defined by high-stakes environments, most profoundly in HIV and AIDS program management across Nigeria.Working at the intersection of clinical care and public health, I witnessed firsthand what access, or the absence of it, truly means. Patients who reached us early, received their medications consistently, and were seen as people rather than diagnoses had outcomes categorically different from those who did not. The distance between receiving the right medication at the right time and failing to do so was often the distance between life and death. That truth never left me. It transformed my understanding of pharmacy from a transactional service into something closer to a covenant, a commitment to stand between a person and their suffering and do everything within my professional power to close that gap.Coming to Canada after almost a decade of practice was not a simple career move but a total recalibration of my professional identity. Despite having led large teams and managed health programs, I found myself at the threshold of the Canadian licensing process feeling something I had not felt in years, genuine uncertainty. I had the privilege of passing all my PEBC exams on the first attempt within a single year, but speed did not equate to ease. That year was a pressure cooker. I balanced the demands of the Pharmacy Examining Board of Canada against work, family and the quiet weight of being far from everything familiar. There was a persistent fear of the what if, of failing a component and watching my timeline fracture. I spent countless evenings bridging the gap between Nigerian practice and Canadian professional reasoning, feeling at times like I was proving competence through a standardized lens, regardless of the lives I had already touched.I found my footing through a circle of friends, fellow pharmacists who had walked this path before me. They were navigators who shared mental blueprints alongside study notes and taught me that the PEBC tests not what you know but how you decide within a specific regulatory and ethical framework. My friend, Temilade Ojofeitimi, a licensed Pharmacist in British Columbia, stood out amongst other mentors, her guidance and support made the journey smoother and faster for me. Her words: ‘there is a way to think about the question that will lead you to the right answers’ shifted my exam preparation approach. That shift changed everything and became the foundation for a book I later wrote, Think Like a Canadian Pharmacist, so that those following me would not navigate that fog alone. I was subsequently invited to speak on ChatWithRutherfohrd, a podcast hosted by Ruth Iluobe, where I discussed the slow seasons, the self-doubt and the determination that carries you through. Every conversation since, through the book, the podcast and my work as a career mentor with the Black Pharmacy Professionals of Canada, has confirmed one thing. This story is not mine alone. It belongs to thousands of capable professionals who arrive in Canada ready to contribute and spend their early years learning not just a new system, but how to make their experience visible within it.I still remember receiving the email confirming my full registration with the College of Pharmacists of British Columbia. I sat in silence before the joy arrived, full and unhurried. It was not the joy of winning but of having become something new without losing what I already was.The transition also demanded a sense of humour. A few weeks into practice, I counselled a patient on a medication I had prescribed and dispensed hundreds of times in Nigeria, but whose Canadian brand name I had only ever read and never heard spoken aloud. I pronounced it with full confidence, in entirely the wrong way. The patient gently corrected me, kindly and without unkindness, and I thanked them genuinely. It was a small, humbling moment that reminded me I was still learning the language of Canadian pharmacy even when I already knew the medicine, and that there is real grace in being corrected by the very people you are there to help.I also encountered aspects of the licensing process that initially gave me pause and gently revealed something worth reflecting on, that there is a meaningful opportunity to make the IPG integration journey more seamless. A more connected system, one where verified documents follow the professional rather than being requested repeatedly, would honour the time and dignity of qualified pharmacists working hard to contribute to Canadian healthcare.This is where my interest in health technology becomes deeply personal. In daily practice I witness the friction pulling clinicians away from patients, documentation burdens, manual lookups and repetitive data entry consuming time that should belong to care. AI-assisted documentation and intelligent clinical decision support are not distant possibilities but the next frontier of pharmacy practice. Internationally educated pharmacists who have practiced in resource-constrained environments are uniquely positioned to help design those tools, having spent careers finding clinical solutions where the system offered none.My dream pharmacy is an integrated, technology-forward environment where the pharmacist is the primary clinical anchor of the care team, where intelligent systems handle the administrative burden and the pharmacist is freed to do what no algorithm will replicate: sit with a patient, understand the contours of their life and help them find their way back to health.I did not come to Canada to be accommodated. I came to contribute, to the patients in front of me, to the professionals coming behind me and to a healthcare system that is stronger for the diversity of experience it welcomes. The path I walked was not easy, but it was worth every step. And I intend to spend the rest of my career making sure it is a little clearer for every pharmacist who brings their global experience to Canadian shores and a little better for every patient waiting on the other side.Ibukun Babarinde is a British Columbia-licensed pharmacist currently practicing with Walmart Canada. A graduate of the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, she brings over a decade of international experience in clinical practice and public health to the Canadian healthcare landscape. Ibukun is the author of Think Like a Canadian Pharmacist, a resource designed to mentor internationally educated professionals through the licensing process. She is deeply committed to the intersection of healthcare, technology and business seeking to implement systems-driven solutions that reduce administrative friction and enhance the pharmacist’s impact on patient care.

From Lagos to licensed: One pharmacist's journey into the heart of Canadian healthcare

Register for free access or login.

Related Topics