A winding journey from pharmacist to family physician

Pauwlina Cyca still vividly remembers the beautiful old bowl that sat on the table in the home of an older couple she was visiting—something she did for her pharmacy patients with less ambulatory ability. “The bowl was filled—like heaping—with medication, all mixed up together, like it was a candy dish,” she says. “I said, ‘This is a very beautiful dish. I noticed that you have all of your medications in here. Can you tell me what this is?’ And they said, ‘Well, these are all the medicines that we're supposed to take, that our doctor has prescribed. And we have a hard time opening the vials. So we put them all in this bowl and then every time we're feeling a little bit ailing, we'll take a handful.’”The couples’ health issues and “helter-skelter” labs suddenly made more sense to Cyca, as did the importance of home visits: “You get a better understanding why they are presenting the way they are, and why they perhaps can't access the treatment that is recommended that would help them.”As a community pharmacist, she deeply appreciated these patient touch points, she says. “I felt like I was making a big change and I was affecting a lot of people's lives in a positive way,” she says. “That's part of what drove me to family medicine in the first place, because I wanted to continue to affect and influence global change.”Now Cyca is adding family doctor to her resume. A childhood desire to go into medicine was first born when her sister and mother had to receive treatment for Hodgkin’s Lymphoma at the same time. But financial and time limitations prevented her from taking the MCATs, and when an opportunity to become a pharmacist appeared in the form of a fully funded degree, she took it, and a hugely successful career followed: “I was a pharmacist in hospital, then transitioned to community and then into regulatory and then into corporate oversight, operational excellence and regulatory compliance.” Years later, she lost her mother who left behind a letter: “Pauwlina, you must follow your dream. You must at least try. You will regret the most not trying.” Her resignation followed, she passed the MCAT and applied to University of Calgary. Now the mother of three kids (she has twin 13-year-old girls and a 10-year-old son) and two “stomachs on legs” (aka Labradors) is completing her senior year of her residency.Read: Getting prescribing teams right“To affect change, you need to be in the system”Cyca also serves as president of the Professional Association of Resident Physicians of Alberta (PARA) and is lead resident for her program in the Northwest Division. “It can be very busy, but I'm of the mind that to affect change, you need to be in the system,” she says. Cyca is also still practicing as a pharmacist as the senior advisor of pharmacy services for Pharmacy Brands Canada. By early July 2025, Cyca will be a family doctor. “I will be pursuing the general practice oncology fellowship, which will privilege me to care for individuals who are receiving chemotherapy primarily,” she says. “It'll also privilege me to help care for individuals who are on the acute care oncology ward. My practice will be as diverse as my residency has been and hopefully I’ll be able to integrate my pharmacy training and knowledge in the medicine as well.” She says her pharmacy background has offered her a different perspective on the likelihood of therapeutic success with a patient once a treatment is prescribed: “One, can they afford it? Two, is it covered? Three, is it accessible in Canada? Is this a medication that exists and is readily accessible? Is there a manufacturer shortage? Or is there an alternative treatment that would make it easier for the patient to adhere to the recommendations for the therapy choices that they have?” All these questions bring her right bacj to the candy bowl filled with medications. “Having all of these different experiences really helps bring perspective from a patient care experience,” she says. “I can recommend things to the moon and back as a physician, but if that patient is not able to access or adhere to the therapies it's prescribed or designed, it doesn't matter.”Read: Pharmacy Brands Canada opens pharmacist-led clinic in Alberta.

A winding journey from pharmacist to family physician

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