“Aunty, you left out a bottle of eye drops.”

This is the attention to detail that Unity’s lead pharmacist has when engaging with customers, by going the extra mile when reviewing their medication intake.

Zhi Ying recalls an elderly customer, who approached Zhi Ying for assistance. While comparing the medication list with pictures that the customer supplied, she noticed something was missing. It turned out that the elderly customer’s children made an error while handing over caregiving duties, and neglected to include an eyedrop medication for their mother.

Zhi Ying’s fervent passion for her work extends to the community, especially as the COVID-19 pandemic hit. She created a “Find A Pharmacist” Whatsapp group for her regular customers at AMK Hub Unity so they could skip the queue and contact pharmacists conveniently. This initiative brought Zhi Ying and her team closer to the local community. “We’ve actually taught someone how to fix a faulty thermometer on video cam through the service before,” she quipped.

Zhi Ying also extends her skills through elderly outreach programmes. She led her team of pharmacists to run pharmacy care services for elderly homes, and also designed syllabuses for nurses and reviewed medication compliance at another welfare home, and even converted the lessons into e-learning modules during the pandemic so the nurses could continue to benefit.

Her care for the wider community, coupled with her keen empathy for customers, makes her exceptionally earnest and warm when serving women. Women who just started their young families love coming to her because as a mother with two young toddlers, she understands the deep struggles of her female customers. Always ready to share her life experience from a female perspective, she even dishes out some neat tricks to tame children running in the store while their mothers are consulting her.

This is part of our #InternationalWomensDay 3-part series to celebrate the women among us who have gone beyond their call of duty to serve you and your community, while juggling the many roles they play for their family, friends and beyond.