Charbel Abdo — The NHS Pharmacist Gap

Speaker:I am Adam Walker, a biometrics consultant, and this is the Pharma Prescribed Podcast where leaders, innovators, and hidden voices in healthcare open up, no sound bites, no spin, just raw insight, one prescription at a time in an industry driven by data protocols and pressure. We rarely pause to ask the human questions.

Speaker:What drives us, what breaks us, and what truths live behind the titles we wear?

Speaker:Our guest today is Charbel Abdo. He was born and raised in Lebanon. Charbel brings deep rooted expertise and a global perspective to the future of pharmaceutical care, a fully qualified pharmacist. He built his clinical foundation in Lebanon and recently earned an MSC in pharmaceutical sciences with distinction at the University of Greenwich.

Speaker:Now based in the uk, Charbel is actively seeking his first opportunity in clinical research. He has a passion for evidence-based practice and an eye for regulatory innovation. He\'s ready to bring analytical, precision and patient first thinking to a forward looking clinical trials. He blends frontline experience with academic depth and is eager to step into the UK clinical research space where he can apply scientific background and multicultural insight, making meaningful contributions to patient safety and trial excellence.

Speaker:Charbel is a pleasure to welcome you to Pharma Prescribed. How are you today?

Speaker 2: I\'m fine, thank you. What about you?

Speaker:My throat is a little bit better than it was earlier on in the week, but thanks for asking .

Speaker:For our audience, perhaps you can tell \'em a little bit about yourself and perhaps how we first got to know one another through the University of Greenwich.

Speaker 2: Yeah as you said, my name is Charbel, and I\'m originally from Lebanon. ~~I recently,~~ master\'s degree in pharmaceutical sciences, from the University of, in the uk. My journey to becoming a pharmacist was far from easy. ~~It was,~~ it demanded a lot of, resilience, sacrifice, and deep.

Speaker 2: Strength. ~~I, I say~~ before I start talking a bit about ~~my, my~~ path, ~~I, I would, I would~~ like to say, how we met me and you, because it was ~~just,~~ a bit weird, honestly. While I was at uni, ~~I~~ received an email about, Astra having ~~like~~ a seminar about, employers networking session.

Speaker 2: I agreed to attend. I completely forgot about it on the day. So as I was heading back to my room, I was at the accommodation. It happened to, I met someone, he was, not a student, not even, a doctor. And he asked me if I can show him what room this is, and ~~I.~~ I didn\'t know. So I just told him, well, I know the building and I can help you find the room inside the building, and this is what happened.

Speaker 2: So when I went into the room, I saw the posture and with AstraZeneca logo on it. So I was like, oh, okay. ~~I just~~ I immediately remembered and, I saw you standing in front of it and I asked you if can still join and, you. For sure. And then I told you ~~just,~~ I want to grab a coffee.

Speaker 2: And we had a conversation. Actually it was a great conversation about my background. And when you heard that I\'m from Lebanon, you immediately started to share. And you told me that you, went to Israel, after graduating with your wife. And, had visited areas near, the Lebanese border and even catching glimpses of Lebanon.

Speaker 2: This is what you said. Yeah. So later, we changed, contact details and, we stayed connected. I remember very well when you introduced me to, Wael, it was, ~~it was pretty,~~ pretty awesome as well. So, Adam gave me, Waal\'s contact and details because he was working with him on something related to COVID, during that time for two.

Speaker:Just before we go into the story of Wael, I\'m reminded of that conversation that you and I had at the university. Thank you for recounting that. Charbel. What El for our listeners is a mutual colleague and friend of ours.

Speaker:So it transpired that. I was working on a particular study with a guy that was also from Lebanon, but at that time I think was working in the Emirates and he was called Bel. I beg your pardon. He was called what? El And then I would like you to continue the story. Yeah,

Speaker 2: yeah. I was going to mention that he\'s a senior from AstraZeneca.

Speaker 2: I.

Speaker 2: Well, when I was, video calling, Wael, ~~what,~~ immediately after I started to talk, he asked me, wait a second. Just wait. I completely stopped. So he told me, are you from Aya, which is my village? And I said, yeah, why? He told me first. Is familiar because he happens to be from the North Lebanon.

Speaker 2: We, we speak just like Yorkshire, the uk. You I told him, yeah, he told me, but how he told me your abdo and Abdo is a famous family.

Speaker 2: I know that you are from there. And I then I started to, he started to mention some people that he already, know from Aya, and they happened to be my cousins and my friends. And so later on I was telling my, this story to my father, and he told me ~~what, what, what~~ was his name? I, I told him. He was, his name was Wael.

Speaker 2: And I gave him the family name as well. And, he told me that his father is my friend and they invited each other for lunch. It was outstanding. This story. This shows how the world is so small. We live in a very, very small, world, honestly.

Speaker 2: So from the UK to Lebanon, so yeah.

Speaker:There\'s a reason, as I said to you when we first got to know one another, Charbel, there was a reason why we connected in that room when I was presenting, the background and my experiences of AstraZeneca to the University of Greenwich on that particular day. There is a further reason why I connected you with Wael, and a story. Your resilience and your drive and determination to push through the challenges that you\'ve experienced both at home in Lebanon and indeed in the uk. It\'s not an easy world to navigate. What struck me when I first met you particularly was your.

Speaker:Expertise and the fact that you\'ve been a fully practicing pharmacist in Lebanon and you were coming to the UK to study a Masters in pharmaceutical sciences. My immediate question to you and remains, why on earth is the UK not employing fully qualified pharmacists because we don\'t have enough fully qualified pharmacists within this country?

Speaker:That was my immediate question and thought back to you, wasn\'t it? That was exactly where we started the conversation.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2: From the beginning.

Speaker 2: Before I started to, still in high school. Always had this, love to chemistry and biology. So I was thinking, can I do with it? And I don\'t know if this is. It\'s always these, costs in the society. You\'re a doctor, you\'re a pharmacist, you\'re an engineer, you\'re not a biologic teacher.

Speaker 2: So I was like, okay, what\'s best from all these options for me? And I thought that pharmacy, why not? It wasn\'t my option. Honestly, my parents were like insisted at first and. I decided that I want to start learning pharmacy, so I had to leave my village and I moved to Beirut to begin my studies.

Speaker 2: I lived in a student, accommodation in the early years and, during the prepharmacy phase, I had to maintain a GPA of three over four in order for me to be able to. Class to. .

Speaker:For our audience who don\'t understand what a GPA of three means, what does that mean in kind of broad parlance?

Speaker:What does that actually equate to?

Speaker 2: It\'s just like your overall grade.

Speaker:It has to be above a certain percentage.

Speaker 2: It doesn\'t for most, courses, but for to, for pharmacy, it has to be a good gpa. Good GPA means you have good grades like the overall of your grades. And, my passing grade was 70 over a hundred, not even 50, yeah. So, yeah, it was, pretty hard. And then after I just, yeah, I passed this three pharmacy and I became like actually studying the core pharmacy course, curriculum. After two years, hard because I used to live in an accommodation with a lot of students and they used to throw parties and.

Speaker 2: You know, student accommodation. And I had to really concentrate on heavy courses. And I had to literally have ~~the course just like~~ modules requiring deep memorization and understanding, particularly in pharmacology drug interaction clinical applications. It.

Speaker 2: And ~~after, after like~~ I decided to move to a private accommodation.

Speaker 2: So I stayed there for one year and after that COVID Pandemic came and this destroyed everything ~~at first, initially.~~ I honestly, ~~we,~~ we all students liked it. Studying from home seems like a relief. Yeah. But. That changed quickly when exams started.

Speaker 2: So, exams became harder, because they wanted to prevent students from cheating. And, everything was different. We weren\'t attending classes. Imagine yourself, at home, the comfort of your bed. You\'re not gonna leave, attend the course. And even if you did go into the, the meeting.

Speaker 2: Leave the phone next to you or the computer. So we passed all of that, and I had to put more effort. I doubled down my effort, and I was determined to success. Yeah. I just wanted to finish. And in my final, year, it was a bit interesting because in 2022, we came back to almost.

Speaker 2: Came back to normal life. I had, a semester, my last semester was at, a hospital placement, rotating through departments ~~like,~~ the ICU, ~~like,~~ oncology, general medicine. And I, started to apply my knowledge and I started to analyze. Real life, cases, not cases given to you on paper just to test your knowledge.

Speaker 2: It was really, and believe it or not, we found lots of errors as students in the treatment algorithms because, fresh starters, we know the latest treatment algorithm, whether it was for ~~like,~~ the ad add a guideline. We say it\'s the American as Diabetes Association. It\'s all it was released in 2020 22 and we 21.

Speaker 2: Sorry. It was the latest one back then. So we know it was metformin was the first line treatment. No, it\'s not. So it all changes and I think that most of the doctors, they are not always up to date that this is something, that should, we should focus on.

Speaker:It\'s an amazing point you make there, Val, around learning and acquiring that knowledge and applying yourself during the time of a pandemic. I\'m wondering, as probably many of our listeners are what you did with that pharmacy degree and at what point you decided that. You wanted to travel overseas and come to the uk?

Speaker 2: After like I found 2 jobs. One as an assistant pharmacist and one as, a pharmacy manager. I worked at a pharmacy manager for, like almost a year, but, ~~soon late, like~~ later, I decided that. No, this is not what I want, honestly, because being at a pharmacy, it\'ll just keep you in your place.

Speaker 2: You won\'t grow because pharmacy is a, ~~it\'s a pharmacy, it\'s a store,~~ it\'s a drug store. You sell, ~~you, you~~ have to have, okay, you require a lot of skills. You have to have no knowledge, good communication skills. You have to know how to ups, ~~but. Sorry,~~ upsell, but thing is, I always wanted to not to stay at the pharmacy and have my own pharmacy.

Speaker 2: the UK wasn\'t ~~on,~~ on my list. ~~I start, I,~~ I wanted to go to France first. I. The French, test, language test and, I didn\'t succeed knowing that ~~my,~~ my French is so good.

Speaker:That was what I was gonna say.

Speaker:I mean, I know having got to know you, that you speak multiple languages and I think you speak \'em at a very high level. That\'s right, isn\'t it?

Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, in Lebanon, we know. Arabic is our first language, but our second language is not English is French. All of our courses, since you were like, since you joined, school, kindergarten, everything is in French.

Speaker 2: We focus on teaching stu, like we know French. We even use French in our daily conversation. But what I failed. Because test they, I was out a subject. ~~They asked me about,~~ they asked me about a specific, ~~I\'m gonna mention it. It\'s called I, I, I don\'t particularly,~~ remember the four topic, but it was some about something called, I\'m gonna say, which is, ghost Restaurant.

Speaker 2: And I was elaborating about it. I think that the main point of giving such a test is to test if you, English, sorry, if French or not. If you do, ~~mean,~~ if I was talking to a person, I could have asked, ~~can you please just~~ clarify what is this word? But I was, it was on paper, so anyway.

Speaker 2: I failed and I was like, okay, I can\'t apply to universities if I didn\'t have this test. And it was already too late. So, my sister, she told me, so you to the uk I told her to the uk. I mean, ~~it is, it\'s not.~~ Look, France is so common, like students are known in Lebanon. You go to France after you finish.

Speaker 2: If you, if you wanna go abroad, you go to either France or Belgium. Not a lot of people come to the uk. \'cause first of all, it\'s more expensive. Second of all it\'s the language. It\'s not hard, but we are French based, so we know French is our, only country. France is the only country that if you wanna continue your PhD, you go to France.

Speaker 2: Anyway, I passed the SAT test and I applied, for the visa, but ~~before,~~ before applying to the visa, you have to get a ca number. Like you have to apply for the uni, ~~the has to accept you,~~ had to accept you. I was going to Sunland at,

Speaker:have you been to Sunland? Do you know what Sunland like?

Speaker 2: No, but I\'m glad that I didn\'t go there because.

Speaker 2: I know a lot of students, from there, and they were all, they all told me the same thing. Thank God you didn\'t come here because it\'s, the weather is harsh, it\'s far, ~~it is always, it is~~ cold. ~~It is is~~ different.

Speaker 2: So I got refused for the Visa on the first time. I got a Visa refusal because, I failed to submit paper, additional papers that were, that I was required to submit.

Speaker 2: The, but the thing is, it wasn\'t my fault. They asked for documents and, paperwork. Lebanon takes more than 10 working days because it\'s Lebanon. I couldn\'t say anything. I just got refused. So I had two, two options. I had to change my, my course. Because Sunderland, they don\'t give, January intake in this particular course.

Speaker 2: Or ~~I have to, I have to~~ apply for different universities that, give ~~this, topic, sorry,~~ this, course as a January, intake. And this is what I did. ~~I applied for,~~ I applied for University of Greenwich. I applied for Nottingham Sur Nottingham Trend and the University of Surrey, and I was accepted in all three.

Speaker 2: But I chose Greenwich because of, I liked the building as simple as that. I\'m gonna be, I saw the building, ~~this~~ the architecture. I was like, okay, I\'m gonna, this university. So

Speaker:this is it. So this is, this is that beautiful building at the front of the Medway campus, right? Yeah.

Speaker 2: Not in Greenwich. Okay. I thought that I\'m gonna be there.

Speaker:Yeah. That\'ll be the one, that\'ll be the one that draw Drew people in. Yeah.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Coming to the, the one with the lovely

Speaker:view of canary wool.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 2: So coming to the UK was a culture shock to me. It was

Speaker:Tell me, tell me what the challenges you experienced when you first landed.

Speaker 2: Everything felt new and unfamiliar. Everything starting with the train system. We don\'t have train systems in Lebanon, so I didn\'t have a card. You have to tap everything ~~I~~ cash with me. So it was completely, switching to speaking English full time was mentally overwhelming

Speaker 3: because

Speaker 2: when you, I know English, we use it, but speaking English all the time is different.

Speaker 2: ~~I sometimes,~~ sometimes I avoided, conversations because, ~~I just,~~ especially when ~~my mind,~~ my mind was burdened with a lot of stuff going on inside my head. I can\'t, I couldn\'t put any effort in just trying to, because when you want to speak a different language, you, your mind will go, okay, I need to find that particular word.

Speaker 2: That you\'re thinking about in your own language and try to find the equivalence in the other language. And this is where you feel like your brain is literally burning. And especially when you want to use it to have a conversation, not just you think about it at the moment, because I\'m not using a lot of French.

Speaker 2: I can write French very well, but I can\'t think in French. I need time to practice speaking the language. \'cause my mind now is focused on either English or Arabic. I passed this period where I\'m translating from Arabic to English because I\'ve been here for one and a half year. And, ~~I just,~~ yeah, it was completely fine.

Speaker 2: But back then it was, just a challenge.

Speaker:I must compliment you. I think I said it the first time I met you. Your English is outstanding. It\'s crystal clear. I\'m sure anyone listening and watching this will really. Be amazed to know that you speak as many languages as you do with such competence.

Speaker:But I think the difficulty in for anyone when living in a new country is really integrating into that culture, isn\'t it? Whatever that might look and feel like for you. But you know, you bring your traditions from home, you bring your lifestyle, all those things to bear in a country where it\'s very, very different.

Speaker:And I know that the different parts of the UK can be very different. Nevermind. You come into a city like London and the surrounding areas, the Medway campus, it\'s very different, isn\'t it? It must be very, very different for you.

Speaker 2: It is different. ~~I\'m the type of person that can, you said we have a set, sorry.~~

Speaker 2: Yeah. You have to go somewhere. You have to bring your traditions with you, but you integrate, in my opinion, coming to the uk. And just acting like a normal ese is not interesting. ~~Sorry, I\'m not saying that it is, but~~ seriously, you have to just integrate, see what they\'re doing. Okay. I\'m gonna learn, I\'m gonna grow.

Speaker 2: ~~I\'m, I\'m gonna~~ acquire, I\'m not gonna say the same. Okay.

Speaker 2: So Lebanon, we don\'t have a lot a We do, but not a lot of traffic lights. So you have to, sometimes you have to cross roads. You just look to the right and look to the left, and you just cross here. Even if there was no cars, a driver, press the button, wait until the passengers.

Speaker:That\'s brilliant. Where I live, I live in a little rural village. We don\'t have any traffic lights, so if you don\'t look left and you dunno right? You might get run down by a, a lawnmower or a tractor. There\'s lots of tractors around us at the moment, particularly with the hay on the fields at the moment.

Speaker:It\'s really funny that you make that particular point. So that sounds like a actually you quite like it, right? You quite like the difference. I do like it. And you\'re embracing the difference. I do like it.

Speaker 2: Honestly, sometimes I used to be ~~on,~~ on a call ~~with my,~~ with my, sister or mother, and I used to tell, look, and I go to the traffic light and I press the button and the button ~~go, go,~~ goes green.

Speaker 2: And I just literally cross the, and my mother used to say, this is how ~~we we\'re~~ supposed, like people supposed to do. This is what advanced, countries, are like, you know, it, it was this sim simple ~~and,~~ and basic thing was was something in for us, you know, in our, in my country.

Speaker:I love the fact that you think that is a good, it makes me laugh. We love rules in this country, don\'t we? I mean, in the UK we love rules. Rules are

Speaker 2: good. Rules are good. I, I like that.

Speaker:I like rules, but I\'m not sure I like all the rules. That\'s another conversation for another day. But it is a very rules based country, isn\'t it?

Speaker:I would say probably.

Speaker 2: I want to mention something about living abroad. When I was in Lebanon, I used to live on my own because I had to go to Beirut because, I had to live there. My mother used to food to me and, wash my clothes every weekend because I used to go to my village.

Speaker 2: So here, when I first came here, I had to become my own mother. So this was pretty difficult. I had to take full responsibility for every aspect of life. Literally. I had to cook, I had to clean, I had to go and buy groceries. I had to go to uni and I had to study as well. So it was, it was a lot. It was literally a lot to do, but I made it through and I\'m happy

Speaker:that, that\'s hilarious because my kids both stay the same as, you know, I\'ve got two children, a, a son and a daughter who are both at university and they stay the same.

Speaker:And when they come home to my wife and I, they\'re like, that\'s why they sleep for a week because of all the things they have to do, not just turn up for lectures. And I said, we said to them both. We\'re like, but this is how the real world is right. But until you\'re thrown into that real world, you don\'t really know that there\'s a, a life outside of getting your, getting your washing done.

Speaker:Exactly. Getting food on the table, clean plates, clean knives, and full books.

Speaker 2: I have never imagined myself going to a specific store to buy something just because it was 20 p cheaper, or 50 or a pound. This is what our parents are, and we don\'t know that because we don\'t do it. When we lived with them.

Speaker:It\'s an amazing point you make there. And, yeah. For, for all those, university students and, and newly qualified students that I\'m sure will be tuning into this, they need to be reminded of that. So thank you for reminding them. Shabel.

Speaker:So talking now about the University of Greenwich.

Speaker:As you know, and the reason we came to contact and come into contact with one another was around the employability service and around the University of Greenwich, how they try to support students, not just through their experiences at the university, but above and beyond and outside when they\'re working and trying to seek new work.

Speaker:How\'s your experience been at the University of Greenwich in the employability service?

Speaker 2: Well, honestly, I went there a couple of times. They were so nice. They offered to, edit my cv, and they gave me advice about how to, edit my CV in a way that, sometimes you have to use key keywords and.

Speaker 2: Arrangement of subtitles and the cv. You have to mention your skills. You have to mention your past experiences. So yeah, they did give me a lot of ideas about this topic, but I was, I should have stayed a bit longer and gave this topic a longer time, but I couldn\'t because I studies coursework.

Speaker 2: The most important thing is my research, thesis, which took a lot of time. But yeah, and overall they were so nice

Speaker:and that\'s been my experience. I mean, it\'s, it\'s the reason I keep coming back and. I know we\'ve met plenty of times on the campus at Medway. They always give me some space where I can meet with students, but also do my own work as well.

Speaker:It seems to be a very welcoming environment, not just for students, but for visitors of the, of the sites in the campus. It\'s a very well run organization, and I\'m not selling their services, but, it\'s very different to the experience I had, ~~you know,~~ 30 years ago when I left the university. Nevertheless, I can see how it\'s trying to prepare.

Speaker:Students for life outside of university. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker:So moving forward now, what\'s the future looking like for you? We talked about, ~~you know,~~ your background in pharmacy, trying to secure a role. What does, if I were to give you a wish, what would that wish be? What would the ideal role for you look like in the future?

Speaker 2: in the meantime? Applying for, entry level pharmaceutical shop jobs. ~~I~~ through LinkedIn and company websites, but, because I know that you have to start, I just want to start somewhere, but we should always focus on growing. So I\'m available to any position that will help me grow and acquire new, knowledge, information, anything, because I literally have only, academic based skills.

Speaker 2: I know, analytical techniques. I know about quality control and quality assurance. I. How to analyze data from ~~techniques, like a lot of~~ techniques like H-P-L-C or whatever, N-M-R D-L-S I know ~~all of,~~ all of these, but, I need to start ~~like~~ having, experience in a company where everything is more, not only academic,

Speaker:absolutely.

Speaker:And I think the hardest thing, as I\'ve said to you before, is getting your first foot in the door, isn\'t it? I remember applying for hundreds and hundreds of entry level roles when I first left university, and I think it isn\'t any easier with chat, GPT and various other tools because not only can you adapt your.

Speaker:Applications using those. As I understand it, they\'re being filtered through various tools to filter out what looks like, computer generated cvs. We\'ve worked on your CV together. It\'s excellent and I hope it will bring you, something close to what you\'re looking for. The additional conversations that you and I have had around.

Speaker:Those types of entry roles remind me a lot about where I think your skills are particularly well suited, and we talked about early phase clinical trial units where there are multi multitudes of different roles and there is an opportunity to do like carousel type learning where you can go from one function to another.

Speaker:There\'s labs. Exactly. There\'s monitoring, there\'s bedside bloods being taken, there\'s pharmacy. And it\'s all under one roof. So there are many opportunities to do that.

Speaker 2: You know, I think it\'s, it\'s a plus for a person to be. A lot of my colleagues, at uni, they used to have, bachelor degrees in chemistry and they came to do pharmaceutical sciences or biology or whatever background.

Speaker 2: Me having, the academic knowledge and pharmacology knowledge related to pharmacy is a very big, plus to, to this role. Because I remember very well, I\'m a fresh grad, so I had about three courses where I already knew half of the, ~~not half maybe~~ a bit more ~~than~~ than half of ~~what,~~ what they\'re talking about, whereas.

Speaker 2: My friends used to struggle a bit because they were new. They never took pharmacology before. They dunno what\'s interaction is they dunno. Receptive. I mean, it is, it\'s true. It\'s really true.

Speaker:I think you\'re very well set and further to that point. There are plenty of roles that I can think of that I\'ve worked alongside with people who\'ve had far less experience and far less capabilities than you have.

Speaker:So I\'m very hopeful that you will be able to secure something meaningful in the very near term. So this is that opportunity for you to entirely sell yourself to our, our audience. Now listeners,

Speaker 2: Things are challenging. I\'m in transition period. ~~I always say that just too much to myself.~~

Speaker 2: Applying, learning, growing, it\'s all just, glamorous, but it is real. I, I know that every, every step, no matter how small it is, it just making progress. I\'m proud of how far I\'ve come and I\'m optimistic about what\'s going to come next.

Speaker:And you should be. You absolutely should be, because as I say, ~~I think~~ I always say that to

Speaker 2: myself.

Speaker:I think you\'ve not only got the academic skills, but you\'re a really good guy. You know, you\'re a good guy, you\'re consistent in your behaviors. You show up and you\'ve demonstrated that in all the time that I\'ve known you. So I think this has been wonderful and I hope this forms that platform for you to secure something meaningful.

Speaker:It will enable you to share this on LinkedIn and various other platforms and we\'ll clip it up and you can share it wherever you want to.

Speaker 2: More.

Speaker 2: One more thing I would like to say, since we\'re on, ~~like~~ we have a lot of, we might have a lot of audience hiring, fresh graduates should be seen as an opportunity for the companies because, new grads bring energy.

Speaker 2: They bring adaptability to the company. They have hunger to learn if you wanna say it. So just wanna know, absorb. Companies might have the chance to shape young professionals in a way that fits their values and culture. Not just like, sorry, gonna be offensive to senior people, but ~~just gonna, okay.~~

Speaker 2: Sorry. Senior employees maybe set in their ways fresh grass are open to innovation, e eager to contribute. They just. Because senior people would just come and say, okay, this is how I do it. I\'m gonna do it the way I want to do it. And but like fresh grads, you can teach them whatever you want.

Speaker:You are malleable. You want to learn, you\'re keen to hit the ground running. I was only recording a podcast earlier today where we made this exact point, which is the problem with clinical research is the old way. It\'s the way we\'ve always done it. What we actually need to do is. Throw away the rule book, start all over again.

Speaker:Build from the ground up with technology, with highly qualified minds, but also just not coming to the discussion with your predetermined, this is how we\'ve always done it, approach. It\'s a point that you\'ve made that other people have made. And I\'ve come from a couple of conferences recently where similar things have been mentioned.

Speaker:A wonderful opportunity for our audience, hopefully to get you to know you better.

Speaker:Al I always like to finish with a quick fire round, and the first question of that is, what is the one piece of advice you would give to your slightly younger self? Because you\'re already quite a young chap.

Speaker 2: Not put a lot of pressure on yourself.

Speaker 2: Don\'t put a lot of pressure because. Sometimes you worry about things that you should not worry about. Sometimes you just see yourself as, ~~but~~ this is why a person grow, always see that I need more, but I see myself ~~five,~~ five, maybe nine years ago before I finished my, because my pharmacy degree took six years.

Speaker 2: Seven years ago, I\'ll tell myself that I could have done something related to the field. Yeah. If I already knew that I\'m gonna end up in pharmaceutical industry related to the field with less, pressure.

Speaker:Great point. What are the three qualities you most value in others?

Speaker 2: Sorry, can you clarify your question please?

Speaker:What are the three qualities you most value in others?

Speaker 2: I like, strong personalities. I like someone ~~to~~ have like to talk to, to have conversation, connections I have, ~~I like people that are like,~~ have knowledge. Knowledge. If I start a conversation with you. I like to have debates.

Speaker 2: No, I think this is more right than the you. I like that these scientific battles. If you wanna say it. And the last thing is, to be, a good person to just be genuine all the time.

Speaker:I, I absolutely echo that last one by the way. Hopefully I demonstrate that sometimes as well.

Speaker:What is the thing you enjoy? What is the favorite thing you enjoy outside of work?

Speaker 2: ~~Talk about that. Basically I didn\'t want to in first I wanted to,~~ I\'ve always. Wanted to become a chef. I like cooking. I have very deep passion for food, especially desserts. I think, ~~but you know,~~ I kind of, sometimes I think that I can connect what I\'m, what I like to do.

Speaker 2: Pharmac Pharmaceutical. Why I want to go to pharmaceutical industry because it\'s cooking, it\'s cooking medication. You have, mix chemicals together and you, with a final product that is going to be, given to a person. So it\'s the same, but seriously, I might, in the future, I might explore that path, more seriously.

Speaker 2: I\'ve considered. Studying at, this, the, where they teach you how to do a lot of suites, I\'ve followed them. So I\'ve seen a lot of great chefs graduating from that, institution. So yeah, I believe some one day I\'ll open my own restaurant.

Speaker 2: You.

Speaker:I\'m just reminded as he was saying that, do you, are you aware of a guy called Heston Blumenthal? He\'s a UK chef that does kind of what you are suggesting. It\'s like a fusion between chemistry and food. That\'s exactly what he does.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. I\'ve, I\'ve heard of him. Yeah.

Speaker:Yeah. That\'s what you reminded me of when you said that.

Speaker:And finally, what is your number one golden rule for life and for business?

Speaker 2: Honest. Be honest all the time. I always say something, if you wanna do something, do it, like finish it, not just do it because you want to do it or do it to just tick a box that I did it.

Speaker:Very good.

Speaker 2: Well, I mean, if you have a, if you have a task to do, I\'d rather do it completely, fully as I wanted, as I expect someone to do something.

Speaker 2: Rather Than just ticking a box. I\'d rather say, no, I don\'t wanna do it. I don\'t doing,

Speaker:it\'s been an absolute delight talking to you today. We\'ve touched on ~~your background in.~~ Your background in pharmacy and what brought you into the UK and ultimately learning at the University of Greenwich. And thankfully the fact that we got to know one each other, one another, and that we\'ve continued to stay in contact.

Speaker:For any of our listeners that wanna reach out to you and hopefully offer you that first role in clinical research, what\'s the best way they can get hold of you?

Speaker 2: Excuse me. The line was. What\'s the best

Speaker:way that our audience can get hold of you if they want to give you your first role in clinical research?

Speaker 2: It\'s just they just offer it, and you can find out when you offer it.

Speaker:So should they reach out to you on LinkedIn? Is that the best place to make contact with you?

Speaker 2: Yeah, of course. I\'m always active on LinkedIn. You can find my, contact details there my personal email, my phone number.

Speaker 2: I\'m available to relocate anywhere in the uk. I\'m now, but I can go anywhere in the uk, scotland even.

Speaker:Thank you so much for taking the time today. In addition to that, I\'ll say if anyone wants to make contact with you, of course they can direct message me through my LinkedIn profile and through the podcast. It\'s been an absolute delight today to welcome you onto Pharma Prescribed and thank you so much for being here, Charbel.

Speaker 2: Thank you very much. I really appreciate you having me here.