Caroline Aberhart arrived in Bermuda four years ago, with $11 in her pocket.

Somehow she’d lost her wallet on the long journey from her native New Zealand.

On the plus side, she had a job she relished.

The clinical pharmacist is promoting her career choice as part of Pharmacy Week. It’s part of efforts by the Bermuda Pharmaceutical Association to change how pharmacists interact with the public.

“Right now pharmacists are seen purely as dispensers [of medicine] but that’s only the tip of the iceberg of what we’re able to do,” the 32-year-old said. “There’s a lot that goes on in the dispensary that you don’t see. We are the medicine experts, while doctors are experts in terms of diagnosis and disease. So we’re making sure the diagnosis is correct, we’re looking to make sure there’s no drug interactions, we’re looking to make sure that the drug isn’t creating a side effect for the disease. It’s about finding what’s right for that patient.

“In other jurisdictions the pharmacists serve as anticoagulant monitors, they run vaccination programmes, they have clinical pharmacists in GP offices. BPA wants a five-year plan to be able to provide that to Bermuda.”

Such practices were standard in New Zealand, where she worked as an oncology and palliative care specialist pharmacist, Ms Aberhart said.

“In New Zealand a pharmacist reviews medicine use and liaises with the patient’s GP. That’s what I do in the hospital and that’s what we’d like to see in the community.”

Ms Aberhart was born in Christ Church and studied at the University of Otago. The pharmacist worked for hospitals in various parts of New Zealand before she spotted an advertisement for a job with the Bermuda Hospitals Board.

“I thought Bermuda was unusual so I applied,” she said.

She travelled from Christ Church to Auckland to Sydney, Australia and then on to the US, to San Francisco and New York, before boarding a flight to Bermuda.

She lost her wallet while rummaging through her bags at San Francisco International Airport.

“I got on the flight and the steward asked if I’d lost anything. I said no, I hadn’t noticed. They’d found my wallet at the gate but there were no more flights from San Francisco to New York that day. So there I was with no credit card, no money, nothing.”

The couple sitting next to her overheard the conversation. They said they’d been to New Zealand and been treated kindly and wanted to return the favour. They gave her $20.

“I bought a Quarter Pounder at JFK,” Ms Aberhart said.

“I arrived with $11. I had a very lonely weekend at the [hospital staff accommodations].”

She became president of the BPA two years ago. It’s a way for her to give back to her second home.

“There weren’t a lot of New Zealanders so I adopted and continue to grow my island family,” she said. “I’ve played rugby for the national team and am captain of Mariners RFC ladies team — we won the league last year. For me coming here was an adventure. I wasn’t concerned about the distance away from home, living here I got to see parts of the world I wouldn’t have in New Zealand.”

As BPA president she’s an integral part of the organisation’s overhaul.

“Three years ago the BPA managed to shed the burden of pharmacists’ registration,” she said. “It’s now taken care of by the Pharmacy Council which means we’re able to focus on the professional development of pharmacists and act as an advocacy body for the profession.

“The organisation has also rebranded itself. We have a new website and a change in constitution. Today we’re moving away from the paternalistic healthcare process. The fact that people can Google makes a pharmacist’s job more important. We’ve introduced the ‘blue card’, a form mainly targeted at seniors — we wouldn’t write it for someone on less than four medicines. It helps them understand the medication they’re getting and how it helps.”