Ron (Mehran) Najibnia
Excellence in Patient Care Award
Pharmacy Operations Manager, Naz Pharmacies
North Vancouver, B.C.
Patients — they’re at the heart of the business of pharmacy practice.
For Ron Najibnia, recipient of the 2024 Excellence in Patient Care Award, this means recognizing that the patient experience comes first.
It means that pharmacists should be adaptable in understanding the needs of the individual in front of them and going beyond just dispensing to provide clinical and professional services that help improve the health of pharmacy users.
“Every night, when I go to sleep, I close my eyes and review my day, playing it back like I am at the cinema. I ask myself, how many patients did I have the pleasure to help? What services did I provide for my patients? What problems did I resolve? Doing this helps me start every new day with much more enthusiasm and with much more attention to detail,” he said.
A PharmD holder and graduate of Azad University’s School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences in Iran, Najibnia initially arrived in Canada in the early 2000s with the intention of furthering his education by attending school in Alberta.
Before his trip to the prairie province, he stopped in British Columbia to visit his brother, who was already living here, and to meet with some of his fellow pharmacy school graduates who had earlier moved to Canada, where they started their pharmacy practice, or were getting their licence to practice.
Ron Najibnia, pharmacy operations manager at Naz Pharmacies, believes that all pharmacists should embrace clinical services that go beyond dispensing medications.
It was this decision to visit B.C. that would change the trajectory of his career. Some of his friends were already practicing as community pharmacists, and invited him to take a closer look at how pharmacy in Canada was different from Iran.
“I thought it was so exciting because, at that time, I felt what Canadian pharmacists were able to do for their patients was so innovative, and I believed that Canada is one of the leading countries in terms of the scope of pharmacy practice,” Najibnia said.
Instead of following his initial intention of continuing education in Alberta, he decided to become licenced to practice as a pharmacist in British Columbia first. Since then, for the last 20 years, he has been working and leading as a community pharmacist, spending his first 10 years with Sobeys, followed by another decade at Costco.
During this time, Najibnia also began to broaden his skillset by completing courses to expand his clinical knowledge and leadership skills, while taking on various teaching roles at the University of British Columbia Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences. In 2024, Najibnia started his current role with Naz Pharmacies as pharmacy operations manager.
Concurrently, he is pursuing his knowledge through an MBA program in Vancouver. Today, as a leader within the profession, he sees his role as guiding new pharmacists and managers to deliver patient care with the same passion he espouses.
“These days, it’s critical that pharmacists become more involved in clinical practice. Pharmacists are not just dispensers. Pharmacists are counsellors, both to the patient and to other health-care professionals. We are trustworthy sources of information,” Najibnia said.
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