For Samantha Kourtis, working in wound care is something of a lifelong ambition. 

"When I was 10, I wanted to be a nurse. I wanted to do wounds," she says. 

After a brief diversion into biochemistry and a journey into pharmacy, Samantha has finally found herself in a position to pursue her passion. As owner of the Capital Chemist in Charnwood, Canberra, Samantha noticed that forging strong relationships with customers enabled her to deliver better, whole person care, which helped people recover from wounds faster. 

"My pharmacy is open seven days a week from 8am to 9pm, public holidays, all the time," she says. "Your business will go under if you're not clever enough to feel the heartbeat of the community." 

Samantha says she's grateful for that realisation. Since then, she's concentrated on building relationships with other health professionals in her community. 

"So many wounds… I've seen people try and heal without acknowledging that behind their wounds is a patient with other comorbidities, which has led to that wound in the first place," she says. "Pharmacists can't fix that, so they need to know who their tissue viability unit is, they need to know who's a podiatrist [and] can they refer to a diabetes educator? 

"Build that network and don't operate your clinic in a silo because that's what your patients need." 

Samantha recommends pharmacists get to know the GPs in their area, become familiar with those with a good track record in wound care, and reach out to community nurses to learn how to refer clients who have chronic wounds. 

Her proudest achievement is being invited to become one of the editors and authors of the Therapeutic Guidelines for Venous and Leg Ulcers, working with incredible professionals she had long admired. 

"That put me in a room with all these people that I had the biggest 'crushes' on," Samantha says. "I specifically got to work on the dressings and we totally changed up in those guidelines how we classify dressings and how we prescribe dressings." 

Some of the satisfaction of this work came from her experience with customers seeking inappropriate dressings, an experience many other pharmacists share. 

"Some of the craziest wounds I have ever seen are when someone's coming in to get… literally, a BAND-AID," she says. "And you lift up the bloody tea towel and you can see cartilage and bone, and all they wanted was a BAND-AID." 

Samantha advises others to not be daunted by these situations, but to use them as a chance to build healthcare team relationships. 

"If you want to do it, do it really well," she says. "And that means you're going to see things you've never seen before or you're going to have red flags and you're not going to know what to do." 

Samantha Kourtis of Capital Pharmacy in Charnwood ACT is a member of The Pharmacy Guild of Australia and a Wound Awareness Week Wound Champion who is available for interview from Canberra.