N.L. professor named Canadian 'pharmacist of the year' for her work advancing HIV care

A pharmacist in Newfoundland and Labrador has received a high honour for her role in providing HIV care, improving health equity and advancing pharmacists' scope of practice.

On Wednesday, pharmacist and Memorial University professor Debbie Kelly was named the 2025 Canadian Pharmacist of the Year by the Canadian Pharmacists Association.

As a pharmacy student in the mid-1990s, she said she was drawn to HIV care. During her doctorate training, new drugs became available that revolutionized how HIV was managed.

"It just lit me up. I loved working with the patients. I'm supported by an incredible community of HIV practitioners and researchers and community," Kelly told CBC Radio's Newfoundland Morning.

"It's been just the most rewarding area to work in."

HIV patients used to have to take 20 pills a day to manage HIV infection, followed by additional pills for the side effects, she said.

"We've now gotten to a point where HIV is managed by one pill once a day, which is incredible. And people live long, normal lives," said Kelly.

Besides researching sexually transmitted diseases, Kelly also leads the medication therapy services clinic, a pharmacist clinic run by Memorial University.

She said they recently studied how pharmacy consultation service impacts a patient's quality of life, with 200 patients meeting with pharmacists for an initial one-hour comprehensive medication assessment with additional follow-up meetings.

They found pharmacists helped improve two-thirds of patients' experiences by removing unnecessary medications, she said.

"Just being able to sit down with someone for this one-hour visit where they could ask all the questions that they have, really helped them understand their medications better and be a more active player in their health," said Kelly.

Advocacy work

Kelly also advocates for pharmacists to practice to the full scope of work that they're trained for, but says there are often roadblocks.

"Even if they've got the ability to do it, a lot of times these services aren't covered. A lot of private insurances don't reimburse for a lot of the services that pharmacists can and and are doing for patients," Kelly said.

Even government insurance doesn't always cover the work pharmacists can do, she said.

"If we're talking about making the community pharmacy practice environment more ready and able to meet patients' needs that way, then we need to be able to remunerate them properly," said Kelly.

If they are compensated for their work and supported — like through pharmacy assistants and technicians —she said pharmacists can be more active on health care's front line, helping patients.

"I think that pharmacists are really underutilized at a time when our health-care system needs all hands on deck and every profession working to top of scope," said Kelly.

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