2ndwind Academy Podcast
2ndwind Academy Podcast
129: Karen Brown - Revolutionising Athlete Safety and Sports Pharmacy
What happens when elite sports and cutting-edge medicine intersect? Ryan invites Karen Brown, to the show.
Karen Brown is an award-winning pharmacist and former Queensland Firebirds netball star transforming how athletes approach health, performance, and safety. Through Batch Tested, Australia’s leading platform for rigorously tested supplements, Karen ensures that athletes worldwide safeguard their careers and health. Her unique perspective as both an elite athlete and a clinical expert has positioned her as a champion for innovation in sports and pharmacy.
Karen’s influence doesn’t stop at supplement safety. As a business owner, educator, and advocate, she’s paving the way for Sports pharmacy to become a global standard, redefining the pharmacist's role in elite athletic care. Her groundbreaking work bridges the worlds of medicine and sports, setting new standards for clean supplementation and athlete support.
Tune in to learn more about:
- How Karen’s passion and entrepreneurial spirit gave rise to Batch Tested, addressing critical gaps in supplement safety for athletes.
- Why 1 in 5 supplements pose career-ending risks and how Karen is revolutionizing trust in the sports industry.
- The essence of an emerging specialty is Sports pharmacy, where clinical expertise meets athletic performance, ensuring smarter, safer care for athletes.
- How setbacks, like missing her dream university course, became stepping stones for her impactful career.
- Discover Karen’s bold philosophy, Fly the plane while you’re building it, which emphasizes the power of action over perfection.
- Lessons from Karen’s netball career that fuel her success in business and mentorship.
- A visionary outlook on Brisbane 2032, where Karen aims to integrate clinical pharmacists into sports teams for next-level athlete care.
- The future of clean sports: How Batch Tested is setting a new standard for athlete safety and integrity.
…and so much more!
Are you looking for Career Clarity for your next step, for more information, or to book a consultancy, make sure you check out www.2ndwind.io
Links
Website: https://batchtested.com.au
https://www.linkedin.com/company/batch-tested/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karen-brown-8b7900106
Hi, I'm Ryan Gonsalves and welcome to a Second Wind Academy podcast, a show all about career transition through the lens of elite athletes. Each week, I invite a guest to the show who shares their unique sporting story. Please join me to delve into the thoughts and actions of athletes through a series of conversations. Don't worry, there's plenty to learn from those of you that aren't particularly sporty. Elite athletes are still people after all. Let's be inspired by the stories of others. Hi, karen, welcome to the show. It's good to have you here today.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me, Ryan.
Speaker 1:Wonderful. So I'm again. I always seem to start my conversation with them. I'm really looking forward to this chat, and that's generally because I actually am looking forward to the conversation. Oh, that's nice, and I know we'll. You know we are going to get a slightly different flavor from yourself as well, because you're also you're also in a space that I don't know a lot about, so there is going to be a lot of genuine intrigue as we move through what you are doing today, so I hope that's going to be okay. Sounds good, yeah Well, so listen. For those who are listening to you for the first time, please can you give us that quick introduction who you are and what you're up to nowadays?
Speaker 2:Sure. So hi everyone. I'm Karen Brown. I actually wear a lot of hats at the moment Some would say too many but my main day-to-day role is I am a pharmacist and I own some pharmacies in Brisbane, queensland. I also run a supplement company called Batch, tested for athletes, and I also run another company called Pharmacy Redefined, which is about pharmacy ownership and educating pharmacy owners. And I'm a wife and I'm a mom, so my days are pretty jam-packed, but I love it that way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they are. And again, I think it's just so interesting that the pharmacy, but then you're also advocating as well, or you're supporting lots of other pharmacies together as well. How did you get into that piece?
Speaker 2:I think the concept of helping my fellow pharmacy owners is in Australia you need to be a pharmacist to own a pharmacy, but our university degree is all clinical, so there's no business training, there's no formal qualifications to own a pharmacy business. Most of the time, you either inherit money through your family or you get bought in as a junior partner, et cetera. So my friend who's a pharmacy accountant and I felt there was a real missed opportunity amongst all the conferences we have in our calendar of actually bringing the business world to the pharmacy world. So it's an annual conference and it's an amazing week, yeah, where we bring the outside world into the pharmacy world, because ultimately, business is business and humans are humans. So it's a magical week where we learn a lot from each other and I think, out of all the hats that I wear, there's actually a synergy between all of them and I just want to help people. So, whether it's helping my patients, whether it's helping my athletes, whether it's helping fellow pharmacy owners, my team, yeah, helping is a big part of what I do.
Speaker 1:Brilliant and listen. I get super glad that you're on the show as well, helping lots of others to understand a bit more about pharmacy and your journey to where you are today, so that's really useful. I'm interested though pharmacy. What is it about pharmacy that attracted you to sort of enter into that space?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's actually. Some might say it's a bit corny, but I was actually in year nine at a careers information day when I decided I wanted to be a pharmacist. So there's not too many 14 year olds that kind of know exactly what they want to do. I knew I wanted to help people with their health and in the 90s pharmacies looked like a really pretty place to work and that appealed to me more than, say, the sterile environment of a doctor's surgery or a hospital or something like that.
Speaker 2:I have no family background in health, so engineers, lawyers, etc. So I was kind of the odd one out that went down the health path, lawyers, etc. So I was kind of the odd one out that went down the health path and I absolutely love it and feel truly blessed that I got to do what I do. And once I graduated, within about six months I became a partner in my first pharmacy and so it's all I've ever known. But I genuinely love getting up every day and not knowing what's going to happen, like I think that's the beauty of pharmacy people walk in and you're not quite sure how they're going to need your help, but you know they will need your help and you also leave each day knowing that you've made a difference. So it's a very rewarding career and a great one for females as well. It's something that you can do part-time, you can kind of do around family. So, yeah, absolutely love it.
Speaker 1:And so, just before we go back and chat a bit on some of the sporting background as well, I'd love that clear definition. This is the bit we all listen to which is you know, to me, when I go into a pharmacy or a chemist, maybe I should ask the difference between the two, but when I walk into one of those establishments to buy my Lemsip or whatever it might be, I'm then, you know, the person who asks me questions about what I'm using it for and where I'm at. I've never really thought who or what that person is, what that qualification is. So I've just got to ask really clearly what is a pharmacist?
Speaker 2:Sure, so really, really short. We are the medicine experts. So we spend four years at uni literally studying medications and medicines and what happens when they go in your body. So we are the experts in how they should be dosed, if they interact with other things, what are the side effects of them. So our aim in, I suppose, the broader community is the quality and safe use of medicine. So whenever there's medicines involved, there should be a pharmacist involved.
Speaker 2:But now the thing that I love about it most, and when you ask the difference between a chemist so old school pharmacy 50 years ago was you physically made up the medicines, so it was very chemistry related. So you mix this with this, this and you've got your concoction and you dispense it to the patient. Now, majority of medicines come already pre-done. So a lot of the work we do. Yes, a lot of people would think to go to a pharmacy because that's where they get their prescription medicine dispensed. But now it's a lot of symptom requests. So people will come in. I've got a cold, I've got a sore back, I've cut myself. I haven't been well for a while. How can I get better? So a lot of preventative medicine, a lot of symptom triaging, minor ailments. We now vaccinate, we now inject medications. Soon we'll be prescribing.
Speaker 2:So we are very much that centre of a community that is open all the time, super accessible, keeps people, frees up GPs, keeps people out of hospital. So that's what I love about it. It's not just standing there dispensing a prescription. There's actually so much more to your day of how you help people and I like that. You're that trusted member of the community. And probably how I run my pharmacies is that real old school community pharmacy where you're out and about, you're at the schools you're helping, do talks and things like that. So, yeah, back in the day, the pharmacist would have been the person that knew everyone in the town and was that trusted source. And obviously, coming through COVID, where we were the ones that all kept our doors open, definitely people realise exactly the role that we play in the community and that's what I love about it that you're really respected and trusted and you get to make a difference. So you'll view your pharmacy very different now when you go in. I will.
Speaker 1:I will. I'll be having a conversation, I will be saying yeah, rather than just saying, well, I've just got a cold and, yeah, I've used it before I'll actually say I'll be like, wow, okay, so why are you asking me this? If I say I'm doing these things and you know, and then we'll take it from there, and I know, certainly from here, as an athlete and thinking about pain medication, things like that, that I've gone through probably never really thought about the science that comes behind it. We literally just you know, the tablet had, the injection, whatever it was, and I suppose there's a lot of trust and, you know, perhaps we'll come back to that. In that relation to sport, I suppose I'm interested, karen, because for everyone you know comes on the show is always this sort of athletic sort of perspective that we bring towards our career, and so for you, just talk a bit about, you know, yes, this passion for pharmacy. For most, there's also that sporting avenue. So where did sport come in your life as you were growing up?
Speaker 2:Sure, so I played professional netball for the Queensland Firebirds. Sport was a big part of my life. I come from a very sporting family so my dad played rugby league for Australia, my mom swam for Queensland, my brother played rugby union for Queensland, so sport has been our life as young as I can remember. I'm also six foot three, so height I'm the shortest child in my family and height has definitely played a big part in my netball journey. And yeah, so I was very fortunate. It was interesting how life works out. So I mentioned before year nine wanted to do pharmacy.
Speaker 2:In year 12, I was actually offered a scholarship to the Australian Institute of Sport for netball and I declined that scholarship because I couldn't do pharmacy in Canberra. So I was like no, pharmacy is more important than the big picture. I will stay in Brisbane. I then got my year 12 results and I actually just missed out on the score that I needed to get into pharmacy. It was one of the pharmacy at the time was one of the most exclusive university degrees to get into and I just missed out on that. So I did science.
Speaker 2:So in hindsight could have gone to Canberra, could have gone to the AIS, stayed in Brisbane and did science, but in those sliding door moments, because I stayed in Brisbane, I then got offered my first contract for the Queensland Firebirds and when I look back, being able to play professional netball, travel the country I was able to do that in combination with doing my science degree. I would never have been able to do that in combination with doing a full-time pharmacy degree. So I know, you know, as I said, missing out on pharmacy at the time was like the world is ending. But doing a science degree while I played professional netball, blessing in disguise, and I could combine the two pretty well and then obviously then went on to do pharmacy.
Speaker 2:But so much of how I run businesses, how I lead teams, is all about what I learned in sport. I think the synergies are huge and transcends so many parts of your life. So, yeah, sporting team has been a huge part of my life and still is. I actually still coach netball and obviously now we batch tested. Being back involved with athletes, it's yeah, once an athlete, always an athlete.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Athletes for life as well. So, listen, that is so interesting. One of the bits I just want to touch on. There was, you know, and they're going to be many people listening who are probably at the early stage of their career and thinking well, I know, I want to study a subject, but I also want to do this sport. You made a conscious decision there to focus, or at least to prioritize, that life after sport or that alternative career at the same time. How difficult was that decision to make for you?
Speaker 2:Well, I think the world is very different now as well. So this is 20 years ago where, yes, I got paid to play nipple, but ultimately it was a hobby and you happen to get a weekly paycheck, kind of thing. What I love now in women's sport is that girls that are in high school or early 20s can genuinely have a full-time professional career in sport for years and years and years. And, yes, they still need to think of life after sport. We know that that identity as an athlete can be taken away in a heartbeat kind of thing be taken away in a heartbeat kind of thing.
Speaker 2:But I think 20 years ago, even when I played professional netball, you either went to uni all day and study or you worked all day. So you train in the morning, go to work all day, you train at night or you go to uni. So it was just a given, whereas now they actually can make that choice and go. Well, I'm going to commit to this sport. I get paid a really good salary with all my endorsements and sponsorships, and I can live comfortably until that journey ends, and then I have to decide what to do. But it was a pretty easy decision for me, knowing the long-term career pathway. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and you are right, it has changed. We were both at the Wattle Nest at the conference this past weekend, where we had many athletes up on stage talking about their either dual career or what the identity challenge is once they come out of the sport. And so for you, it wasn't quite two equal forces driving you.
Speaker 2:It wasn't clear-cut like that, yeah.
Speaker 1:What is still interesting is the fact you still didn't make that academic. You didn't make the qualification that you wanted to, but that clearly hadn't deterred you from achieving what you're doing now as a leader in your industry. Do you remember? You said it there like the world had ended. But what was that moment like for you?
Speaker 2:I would say the world ended, but it was quite funny at the time. So back in the day you had to get a score and you needed a score of four to get in and I got a score of five. But the actual irony that probably hit home the most was my brother, who was two years older than me, got the same score two years earlier and I always thought I was so much smarter than him. So the fact that I got the same score as him and he wrote me this beautiful card at the time and I'll always remember it, saying congratulations on all that you've achieved. But deep down I knew you were never any smarter than me, and now we've got the proof to show it. So I'm not quite sure what was more devastating, but it is actually something I do a lot of public speaking and when I talk to girls or any high school student, that number that you get at the end of year 12 does not define you.
Speaker 2:It is literally a number that you talk about for maybe six months of your life and you can chop and change your career.
Speaker 2:As I said, I'm kind of quite unique in that I can't imagine doing another career, but that's the beauty of the world now that it doesn't matter what you do in those first few years.
Speaker 2:You can chop and change.
Speaker 2:And I actually and I'm not sure of current statistics, but when I was probably 15 years ago, when I was at the Royal Children's Hospital, part of the Children's Hospital was the Poisons Information Call Centre, which is where people called if there was an overdose or a toxicology kind of inquiry, and one of the biggest days of calls was on year 12 result day and that's really, really sad to think that just how much pressure our youth put on themselves with those marks and ultimately, as I said, six months later no one even asked you at your job interview when you're 20 what mark you got in year 12. So I think that has changed a lot now and when I do talk to students, it's something I always say to them that that number does not define you and if you really want something, there's a lot of pathways to get to that and, as I said, for me it was a blessing in disguise because I got to live out my dream of playing professional netball, which I could never have done if I'd got into full-time pharmacy at the time.
Speaker 1:And do you know what? Absolutely right. Just echoing that, you know you're certainly more than a number and more than a grade, and what it also talks about is that identity on anything is so, can be so short-lived, especially if it's that metric, be it academic or sport or whatever it is, and you're certainly demonstrating that in where you're going now.
Speaker 2:And I think as well, if you're really passionate about something, you will find a way to do it. So I said yes, right in that moment. I was devastated, but then it all worked out for the best in the end. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, because, like you're saying you, eventually for the best in the end, yeah, well, well, yeah, because you, like you're saying you, you eventually got the best of both worlds. Um, you know, you can say in that way and so it meant you, you got to study, you also got to be a professional athlete, travel the country, as as you mentioned, and and live out that dream. So, towards the end of that university period or becoming then, you know, I guess, getting the degree and becoming qualified, I suppose you had to make some sort of decision, at least in terms of ongoing pursuit of the professional netball career versus moving into pharmacy on a full-time basis. What was that moment for you, like? What sorts of things did you have to weigh up?
Speaker 2:full-time basis. What was that moment for you like? What sorts of things did you have to weigh up? I think for me I always felt that the pharmacy. I knew what that commitment was.
Speaker 2:So it, to me in netball, was always a hobby. And, yes, as I said, yes, I happened to get paid for it, but I never saw it as a career. It was how lucky am I to be good at what I do and get to play at the top level in a state perspective and be surrounded by my friends every single day? So I must admit, when I finished netball, the thing I missed most was actually the sisterhood of seeing your friends every single day, and I suppose the highs and lows that come with sport as well, that you know. Yes, when you're winning and you're the star of the show, it's amazing. When you're losing, it's not so fun, kind of thing. So, um, for me it was a pretty easy decision. I was like, okay, I need to do this now. This is what my new timetable will look like, kind of thing. And I'm also one of these people that if I'm in it, I'm in at 110%. So I knew I could not commit to netball. I couldn't do both of them to 110%. So that's when it was like no pharmacy is my future.
Speaker 2:In saying that, I pretty much went straight into coaching netball. So to me it was always about being involved in the sport. But I couldn't give 110% to being the commitment of being an athlete. But I could coach and I've actually coached for a long time, up until I had children and now gone back to coaching. So I suppose that's my way of giving back and my love of the sport and mentoring. So yeah, to me it was quite a straightforward decision because netball wasn't the be-all and end-all to me. It was almost like a side thing that I just happened to be good at and loved playing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I know what you mean and there's many who come on who I've spoken with now, who it's I really like doing the sport, and people said I was good so I just kept doing it and that meant I got to a level and just enjoyed it. And you mean enjoyment and then enjoyment of the sport, and what's wonderful in what you've said is, whilst you stop playing and miss the like you say, that sisterhood of being an athlete and being with them in the changing room, you were able to stay involved in the sport and have done, I guess, for probably a longer period of actually playing.
Speaker 2:And you still get the same adrenaline rushes, like it's very different, but you still get to experience the highs and the lows and yeah, I think being in sport is so much part of it and your commitment to that sport and it doesn't always have to be through being an athlete. I think you know you see a lot of people where they go back, whether it's in coaching or managing or high performance kind of thing. But yeah, to me I'm still very much a netballer, just in a different. I'm just not wearing the shoes with the bib, I'm not putting the bib on. That's probably a better way of saying it.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, so then, okay. So you're not wearing the bib on your day-to-day job but bit by bit, it feels as though the sporting journey is stuck with you and has come back in. And you mentioned at the start of our conversation batch tested, and um talk to me a bit about what batch tested is and who it's impacting sure, um.
Speaker 2:So batch test is literally a colliding of my two worlds of athlete and pharmacist. So our batch tested is an online platform that ensures athletes get the tested or certified batch of their supplements. So, whether that's vitamins, protein powder, electrolytes I was approached by some sports dietitians just pre-Tokyo and they came to me and said we're struggling to find the batches of these products we want to recommend. You deal with these companies all the time in pharmacy. You clinically understand what these products are all about because you're a pharmacist, but you also have been drug tested and you understand drugs in sport. Could you kind of look after this for us? So that's ultimately what we do. We bring together all the companies that test and I think the big thing about it is one in five supplements that you find at the pharmacy, the supermarket, a supplement store, online, et cetera, contain a prohibited substance. That would result in potentially a career-ending positive drug test for an athlete. So there's companies out there that invest in third-party testing. So the two companies or the two testing laboratories that people might be familiar with is Hasta and Informed Sport. So they are testing the products to demonstrate that there is no prohibited substances detected, which is all great if you can find that batch that has been tested, and that's what all the athletes and the dietitians were struggling with. So they know, when they reach out to Batch Tested, that we only keep the batches that are tested and certified, and in some cases we will actually invest in the testing ourselves. So if the original supplier doesn't feel a need and that's where it really gets a bit difficult, because when you think about people that need this third party testing that are subjected to drug testing is a pretty small percentage in the global market, so for some companies they go well, I would be investing in all this testing when 99.99% of our customers don't need it. So if there's not already tested, that's when we will invest in the testing ourselves, just so that we've got options for athletes. And then it goes into sport pharmacy as well, which is not necessarily a recognised field of pharmacy in Australia but is huge overseas.
Speaker 2:But ultimately, the role that the pharmacist plays, then, is drugs in sport. You know, if you were to take something at half time, how long will it take to kick in? How long will it take to clear out of your body what interactions? What I do a lot with some of the athletes is you find that the, the team doctor, might look after the athlete, but then they've got other doctors that might be looking after their, uh, their skin. They might have other doctors that are looking after their mental health, etc. So being able to kind of link them all together, um, so that's another passion. At the moment it's very much a supply, uh, but I would love it eventually to turn in a really huge clinical role, um. But yes, the beauty of my two worlds coming together, um, and ultimately, our mission at batch tested is to ensure that no australian athlete returns a positive drug test due to contaminated supplements. So the last years those results have been zero, but prior to that it could have been 17, 18 a year that were testing positive due to contaminated supplements.
Speaker 1:There are too many stories of bankruptcies, mental health issues and, unfortunately, suicide, and so I think it's time to act. Every year, we see thousands of athletes that reach a point where they need to consider their life after they leave sport. This might be at retirement, injury, or they need to juggle dual careers between sport and a job. As a former English professional footballer, I have somehow managed to transition from sport into banking, strategy, innovation and now life coach, career practitioner and founder of the second wind academy. So I want to help those around me find their career. Second wind find me on insta or through my new facebook group, second wind academy, where I'd love to know your thoughts and suggestions.
Speaker 1:There's a lot that you mentioned in in that piece around batch tested and also around the sort of, at least in Australia's emerging sports pharmacy. I kind of want to just touch on batch tested. You said something really interesting, which is around that, that mission of an Australian athlete being, you know, getting a positive um, I guess a positive result or positive test when, as we get drug tested after, after events, you know. So how do you go about doing that? How do you go about athletes learning about what you do and how you help them?
Speaker 2:yeah, a massive education process. Um, and look, 20 years ago, when I was playing netball, it was a blanket ruling that you just don't take supplements. And still to this day, the only zero risk is to take zero supplements. But what they find is a lot of athletes do want to take supplements and the biggest thing we see batch tested is immune supplements, so probiotics, vitamin C, zinc. Athletes do not have time to get sick, so they want to protect their immune system as much as they can, particularly if they're traveling and they're in a team environment. So for me it's all about education, because the assumptions that I hear every single day from athletes, from doctors, from dieticians, from parents, it's really, really scary. So I think in the general population as well, there's this concept that natural equals safe, which is not the case at all. Anything that you put into your mouth is designed to have an action and a reaction, so it's designed to do something to your body. So we get a lot of people go oh, it's just a vitamin, like it'll be fine. But what we find is the reason supplements are so risky is they don't go under the same quality assurance and testing as what our medications do when they come into the country.
Speaker 2:People with supplement companies can literally make any claim or their secret blend or their special formulation. They don't have to list all these ingredients on there. They can claim it does X, y, z. And when the dieticians approached me, they would say to an athlete I want you to get this protein powder. They'd go to a shop. The sales assistant go no, no, this one's far better, it'll help bulk you up. It'll do this, this and this. Take this. And I've got athletes that even won't order a smoothie from a cafe in case the blender wasn't washed properly from the person before and there is a skerrick of protein powder from the customer before, for example. So there's some of them that are absolutely paranoid and there's others that are so blasé about it.
Speaker 2:So some of the assumptions I get is that company sponsors a major sporting event so they must be safe. Well, no, a company sponsors an event because of marketing purposes and in some cases they will provide the event competitors with a product, but they may just test the requirements for that event. So if you're the general member of public or another athlete outside that competition, you would not get a tested batch. Only the people that are in that competition may get tested products. You get other things where an athlete endorses that product, so it must be safe. We'd like to assume that if an athlete is endorsing a product that A, they actually use the product that B, that they check it's safe. There's a lot of sporting coats that you can actually not even be pictured in a social media photo with a product if it hasn't been Hasta tested or Formsport tested. But in some cases the company will just test.
Speaker 1:What I was going to say is you must get examples where it's allowed in one sport, on the one body, but not allowed in another. So if I see a football player who's using a supplement that might be safe for FIFA or football perspectives, but then it may not be allowed in swimming or gymnastics.
Speaker 2:That's very much relevant with medication. So the website that athletes will be familiar with is called Global Draw, and that's where they type in what sport they play and what the ingredient of the medicine that they're and also where they purchase it from. So different countries, the same product in different countries contains different ingredients. So an athlete will put in I'm an athlete, I play this sport, this is the medication I'm referring to, this is where I purchased this medication, and then it will show them in competition, out of competition. So, yes, what sport you play is relevant, and also whether it's in competition or out of competition, because there's some medications that are banned during competition only, but you can take them in the off season, for example. So that's also important that people know. How long does it take to clear to get out of your body? So if you've got a competition starting next week, do you have to stop taking that? A week out, two days out, a month out? For example, with supplements though generally speaking it is a blanket rule, except some sporting codes even have. One of the sporting codes I know, for example, is a blanket approach to no herbal supplements. So even if it has been tested and shown to not contain prohibitive substances. There is still a blanket rule in that sport that you cannot have anything that has a herb in it. So each kind of sport does have a few little nuances, but yes, there's so many and it's just education, it's just so they understand it.
Speaker 2:I've had parents. We deal a lot with parents, particularly with swimmers, because obviously at a young age swimmers go to Olympic trials, they can be subject to drug testing and there's an overwhelming responsibility. The parent doesn't want to stuff it up, so they want to get it right. But also the parents aren't educated. The athletes are educated, but not necessarily parents. And that's even little things where an athlete may have got the batch tested, batch from their dietician, et cetera they leave out the container on the bench. The partner goes oh wow, they've run out of it, I'll just pick it up at the pharmacy, not realizing the bottle at the pharmacy hasn't been tested but the one that they got from their club or their dietician had been tested.
Speaker 2:So there's a lot of inadvertent people trying to help and not understanding the rules and that's why, ultimately, where there is peace of mind for athletes that they know they can reach out and they know that they'll get the tested version. And even in our case, we've ordered batches from companies that we know that is the tested batch and they've sent us the wrong batch that's not tested. So you're like, imagine that had gone to the athlete and they hadn't checked. They just assumed that it was the tested batch because that's what they'd asked for. So yeah, ultimately we're there as peace of mind, as part of their team, to help them that if they do want to use supplements, how do we do it as safe as possible?
Speaker 1:You know it is so complex, right, and you know what you've described there, each bit by itself, simple Look at the batch, make sure it's tested, know it is. You're getting all of those things but you put it together and you get this sort of real complex situation that athletes and their surrounding loved ones need to be aware of so that they stay safe, so they are performing, I guess, legally and and getting the right things that they're ingesting. You know you mentioned an interesting statistic. There is that one in five products that one would see at the pharmacy, you know would be well, as you said, would basically end their career if they were found to have taken that substance. That 20%, that's massive. I just didn't know that.
Speaker 2:That certainly is, and a lot of athletes will say to me an athlete is guilty until they can prove their innocence. The general member of the public is innocent until they're proven guilty. So even if you can prove yourself that you were innocent, your name has still been washed through the media and all the rest of it kind of thing. So, as I said, it's huge for them. And also one of the things I often say is why would you risk your career on a non-tested fish oil or probiotic Like? I had a parent just before the Paris Olympics that rang me and I'm glad that I actually talked to her where she picked up a vitamin B supplement for her son and she's like, oh, I just felt he was really lethargic and I just wanted to pep him up and I'm sure they only test for high risk vitamins. This is just vitamin D. And I was like, hang on a minute, what if your son medals at the Olympics and fails because you wanted to top him up? Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2:It's a supplement. It's there to supplement your really good nutrition, all the hard work that you do in your training and your preparation. Don't go and ruin it because you thought you'd just take a supplement off the shelf. If you're going to do it, make sure it's the right supplement. So people do ring me, I'll kind of go. What do you want to achieve out of it? Like, what is the aim of taking this? Because if you put it in your mouth it's going to do something and let's make it as safe as possible. Don't just take it for the sake of taking it, or don't just take it because someone famous said they used it or something like that. Like it's not worth risking your career on a little vitamin supplement.
Speaker 1:So true, so true. And when you say it like that it makes you think well, everybody, every athlete and support of the athlete, should get clued up more about supplements and you know the one in five stats. Crazy enough as it is, but really get clued up in making sure that they are helping in the right way.
Speaker 2:And there's a really big case in America at the moment around a young athlete whose early 20s was tipped to be the next best sprinter athletic star was gifted some gummies by well it's actually all over the media so I can talk about some Gatorade gummies was gifted it as part of winning this big youth championships and he said to his coach do you think these are all right? And the coach was like yeah, they're a really good brand. He took the gummies. He then tested positive a month later. He has been banned for four years. He is now through the courts suing Gatorade.
Speaker 2:What was found out was that the gummies when they tested the gummies, they failed testing. But when they went back to the company, the company kind of claimed that oh, you've already opened the packet, so maybe you've contaminated them. So maybe you've contaminated them. When he went back to get a sealed packet, they no longer were made. So this young kid's career is ruined because he was gifted a packet of gummies that were going to help give him energy. Like it's just not worth it. And now it's a huge legal case over there that he's trying to clear his name. He's lost millions and millions of dollars of endorsements.
Speaker 2:Who knows what will happen. It's a bit of a David versus Goliath kind of battle, but it just shows. And we always come back to the athlete is responsible for whatever you put in your mouth. Whether your coach says it's okay, whether your player manager has done the contract commercial sponsorship for you, whether your club says, here, just take it, it all comes back to the athlete and that's where it's really. We deal with a lot of player managers where they'll wing up and go. My athlete's been asked to sponsor or to be an ambassador. Is this product safe? What do I need to look for? So so much of what I do is education around, just so they know how to look for it and what the differences are and the nuances, just so they can stay safe.
Speaker 1:So it's a colliding of all my worlds, which I love, yeah yeah, and that's right and sort of, as you said, the position you find yourself in is having been a professional athlete, having been tested yourself and now as a pharmacist, you're able, you've got that knowledge, you understand what it's like as an athlete and now as a pharmacist on what good looks like and how to you know. It's such a compelling proposition for yourself but super helpful for an athlete or a supporter to know that you can be a trusted source.
Speaker 2:That is our aim. Peace of mind, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, so now one of those bits that's really interesting is that's definitely an education piece. You mentioned something about sports pharmacy. Now that's a new term for me. Educate me, what do you mean by sports pharmacy for me?
Speaker 2:educate me, what do you mean by sports pharmacy? Yeah, so ultimately, as pharmacists, we believe wherever medicine is there should be a pharmacist. So traditionally in a sporting team you would have your physio, your doctor, your dietician, your strength and conditioning et cetera, and where the role of the pharmacist comes in. So I'll give you a really good example. I had a dietician reach out to me a few weeks ago, had a professional netballer. They were having really bad muscle cramps. She said we worked through the nutritional side of it, her hydration. We're confident, we've ticked every box but we cannot understand why she's cramping so badly. And I'd said to her has she started any new medication? Yes, she'd started on a medication for acne that had slowly increased over X amount of weeks and the team doctor wasn't aware that she was on this medication. The dermatologist that prescribed the medication wasn't even aware that she was a professional athlete and I said to her straight away. I said that medication is causing the cramps. I said so we either remove the medication and use it cosmetic like, if it's a cosmetic reason, can we wait until the off season and treat the acne then, or let's go back to the lowest possible dose we can where we're getting less cramps. The athlete stopped taking the medication under the guidance of the doctor and the cramps went away.
Speaker 2:So that's the role that the pharmacist can play is piecing all the different aspects together. When we have dieticians ring and go, you know, for example, I've got a patient that's on thyroid medication. Can they take creatine? Well, hang on a minute, are we using creatine? Because they're really low in energy, but that's actually because their thyroid levels went right to start with. So let's get those blood levels right before we start doing X, y, z.
Speaker 2:So in America, where it's really big, it is a lot around drugs and sports. So what is safe? So ultimately, the team relies on that pharmacist to go yes, this is safe, no, it's not. Things like let's use a wafer formulation at halftime, because that will kick in a lot quicker than taking a tablet. How do we treat anything to do with pain management? So how do we look after that? How do we wean them off it? What's the different combinations? So, ultimately, anything where medicine is involved with the athlete, a pharmacist can be involved and should be involved. So that's my aim.
Speaker 2:When you look at Brisbane 2032. There is a pharmacist in the Olympic Village every time, but it's purely to dispense medicines. So I would love it to see it as a clinical role, where that source of information of this athlete needs to be on this medicine how often do I give it, when do I give it, is it safe, can I use it with this, etc. So, yeah, that's my ultimate goal is that clinical role. And even when I talk to students that are looking to do pharmacy that's one of the beauties of it there's just so many avenues of pharmacy that you can go down Once you've kind of got that foundation to be a pharmacist, yeah, there's a lot of channels that you can go to. And thinking back to school wanting to be in sport, most people would have gone to physio or dietitians. So the fact that you can be a pharmacist and still be involved in sport and athletes is super exciting.
Speaker 1:It is. It's very exciting. And it's such an interesting field because I know for me as an athlete we had a physio most of the time. That was about as far as it went. I'd never see, well, I barely saw the team doctor until I got very injured. But it was the physio and the fact I might take well, I won't say the number, but probably too many ibuprofen before a match when I was carrying an injury. You'd probably be well, you'd know, but you'd be horrified still carrying an injury. You'd be probably be hot, well, you'd know, but you'd be horrified still.
Speaker 1:Um, you know, that was about as far as any sort of logic went. And I, from awake, it's gonna be good, boom, off we go and off we go and play. But nowadays I will hear a lot about the other physio, yes, the sport scientist, of course, more and more psychological support, and you know you spoke about, you know we have people look after our body and and our and our mind and, yes, more and more getting a dietitian coming in, so thinking about the foods that I eat, when and how, and you know to me much more about energy and digestion. But you're quite right, the increase in supplements that come outside of the food, just in general population, never mind an athletic or an elite athletic, is on the rise, and so having someone who is clinically trained to look after that must be becoming more and more important, and it's something that more clubs should be focusing on.
Speaker 2:And even with respect to medications, a lot of the time we are treating the athlete, your job I need you on the field this weekend and I'll do whatever it takes to get you back on the field but also what happens when you don't need to be on the field and you retire or you become delisted and for the last x amount of years you've been on that pain medication and your body has needed that. What is the support and that of the help that you then need to wean off that medication and you don't need that now because you're not playing week in, week out and things like that. So, yeah, look, I think the role is absolutely there and it's my job to prove our worth that we should be there.
Speaker 1:How do you prove that? What steps are you taking to prove the worth of sports pharmacy?
Speaker 2:I think it's like anything when it's new just keep showing your worth in examples. So each time they reach out that you're helping them or you're challenging them with other things, or have you thought of this, or you know I can do this, or things like that. So, yes, you get in the door from a supply perspective, but then it's just showing your value to them. They go, wow, I couldn't live without you. Actually, you're really really helpful. How do you come on board, kind of thing. So I think that's the key is just constantly keep showing your value and then, I suppose, then commercializing that value as well. Ultimately, now, it's all free advice kind of thing.
Speaker 2:But I think it's like anyone, when you're starting out, you just show them, yeah, that this is the contribution you can make and to make their life easier and safer, and then eventually they go yes, that's actually a cool part of it and, as you said, where it all started and it was just the coach, then we slowly have added in health professionals all along the way. You know, this is just another aspect that, yeah, would be great to see, and I was at a huge overseas, so most college teams in America would have a pharmacist attached to them. So, yeah, it's just getting that here and just bit by bit. But also more people you know as in coming through the ranks that want to specialise in this area. That also makes it more appealing then as well.
Speaker 1:Wonderful for me, certainly, I'll say being educated through our conversation. So I can selfishly say thank you because I feel good. I'm sure those listening have also found it useful. I suppose then you know we spoke just a bit there about, you know, athletes leaving the game or studying at the same time and wanting to keep that connection into sport typically would go down a sports science, a physio route, something along those lines. I think what you've done in this conversation, certainly for me, is make pharmacy and sports pharmacy a route that would be sort of interesting or a destination that starts to sound interesting. How would someone interested and I suppose I'm thinking of athletes who are listening to this, who are going, god, yeah, that would be interesting, I'd like to learn a bit more explore that. What guidance would you give to them to explore a sports pharmacy career?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so unfortunately in Australia there's no formal courses available yet in that specialty. But what I do is I'm really so very big on LinkedIn but very well connected on LinkedIn to a lot of the sport pharmacists that are overseas and there's an international sport pharmacist network when they have conferences or workshops or things like that. So there's quite a few good podcasts overseas as well on sport pharmacy. So that's kind of where I've tapped into and learning from that international network and I think over time hopefully it becomes an option that there is a stream here in Australia where you can kind of once you finish your pharmacy degree, then go and specialise in sport pharmacy. But at the moment it's very much an international resource pool that I tap into.
Speaker 2:But then, in saying that, we lead the way in Australia when it comes to supplements. So we are seen as having some of the best markets and the most strictest and cleanest and credible kind of sources. So whilst they lead the way in the pharmacy clinical space, they tap into me for the supplement space because what we do in here, compared to what they do overseas, is seen in such high regard in Australia. So, yeah, it works both ways.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, it does. It sounds good to be, you know, breaking the barrier in some way and, like you say, demonstrating the value as part of that relationship, and that's something that it sounds like you're able to do in that supplement space. I was literally just looking at my phone there and I was like, yeah, one of my favorite podcasts, the Science of Sport podcast, speaks a lot about, probably approaches it much more from a doping perspective, if anything. But I've never, honestly, I've never and this is supposed to be a good statement but I've never really thought about the pharmacy, I've never thought about that compartment that, oh yeah, there'll be a specialist who knows how that's pulled together and therefore they can go to the batch level. So, yeah, thank you.
Speaker 2:Oh, you're welcome, but thanks for being curious about it as well. I think that's all part of it, isn't it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is, it is, it really is and yeah, hopefully this again the conversation will help Well, certainly educate, you know, will form part of the education for the athletes, and I know there are many parents and supporters who listen to this podcast as well, so hopefully it'll give them a little bit more of a guiding step towards it.
Speaker 1:And you know, karen, it's hard. Throughout all this again, I've been focused so much on the sports science, haven't really even delved into you as a former athlete and how that has supported you and moved into that, so it does sound like we're just going to have to get you back on again. Uh, in due course to to talk even more about this, do round two. Um, so look, karen, what? What I will say right now is this and thanks very much for sharing well, I guess educating as well on on sports pharmacy, but sort of describing at least how you bring the best of both worlds to support athletes as they move forward as well. So I definitely really appreciate you sharing, taking the time out and sharing today for those who want to follow your journey, get in contact, perhaps to learn a bit where's the best place to find you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so LinkedIn will be the best place to connect with me. And then, obviously, our batchtestedcomau is our website from a batch test perspective. But, yes, I'm always on LinkedIn, so I think that's a world of information that you can connect with each other and share. So, yes, always, and also with a batch tester perspective, I can help out. If people want to reach out and have a chat about, you know, if they're looking at supplements, what supplements should they take, help them in that space as well. So, yeah, linkedin or batchtestercomau.
Speaker 1:Brilliant. Thanks very much, karen. I'm going to go now and just look at the batches of all these different things that we've got in the house, because I've never looked at all of those numbers. Now I'm now I'm gonna go study them, just just because.
Speaker 2:All right reach out if you need my help I certainly will do.
Speaker 1:Thanks a lot, karen thanks, ryan bye thank you for listening to the second win podcast. We hope you enjoyed hearing insights from today's athlete on transitioning out of competitive careers. If you're looking for career clarity for your next step, make sure you check out secondwindio for more information or to book a consultation with me. I'd like to thank Claire from Betty Brook Design, Nancy from Savvy Podcast Solutions and Cerise from Copying Content by Lola for their help in putting this podcast together. That's all from me. Take it easy Until next time.
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