Melonie Sanassy

Meet Melonie Sanassy who gained valuable work experience during her studies to make her stand out. She currently works as a pharmacist at the Royal Marsden Hospital.

Working in a hospital environment

Melonie Sanassy first joined The Royal Marsden Hospital for her pre-registration year after gaining her MPharm degree.

In her current role, as a pharmacist in aseptic production, Melonie is responsible for checking and performing dosage calculations, and releasing chemotherapy and other parenterals to patients on wards within the correct time frame. She explains, ‘I have a duty to ensure that the daily monitoring has been undertaken and that all specifications are within an acceptable range to allow for the safe and effective running of the aseptic unit.’

Melonie’s interest in aseptic production developed during her pre-registration year where she did a rotation in aseptics and became validated to prepare chemotherapy for patients.

‘During my pre-registration year I undertook various other rotations which included audit, ward based rotations and medicines information, where I was able to liaise with staff, screen blood results, advise healthcare professionals and patients on appropriate medicaments, formulation, dosages and the use of complementary medicines. All these rotations gave me a positive insight into hospital pharmacy and made me want to pursue a career in aseptic production and would also allow me to develop as a clinical pharmacist for the future.’

Passing on knowledge

Melonie now helps to share her knowledge in aseptic production through a visiting lecturer role at the University. She says, ‘I supervise a small group of students whilst they aseptically prepare a product in the sterile manufacturing suite and mark them on their performance whilst gowning up, cleaning the cabinet and the preparation of the product.’

She stresses the importance of gaining relevant industry experience before graduating. ‘As an undergraduate I had a weekend pharmacy job – this was really helpful as I was able to keep my knowledge up-to-date regarding community pharmacy and could also make connections between what I had learnt in lectures to medicines that I would come across whilst working.’

She also spent a summer working at the University in the pharmaceutics department, where she investigated the role and fate of non-active excipients in topical formulations, using a range of techniques and studies on skin samples

Future plans

Melonie plans to stay within the hospital sector to gain more clinical experience and to undertake a clinical diploma. However, as an advocate for continually learning and developing, she hasn’t ruled out undertaking a PhD in Pharmaceutics in the future.

‘It is vital to always stay abreast of current news and know what is going on within the medical sector. If you are unsure of anything, make a note and always look it up in relevant texts.’