Mrs Leanne May

Contact

Leanne May
About
Teaching and learning
Research
Professional practice, knowledge exchange and impact
Image gallery

About

I am an experienced registered community pharmacist and pharmacy teaching fellow.

I have worked as a pharmacy teaching fellow at Kingston University for the past 10 years, teaching pharmacy practice to undergraduates. I previously undertook the role of MPharm course director for the past 3.5 years from February 2019 to July 2022.

In addition to this role, I also work part-time in practice as a community pharmacist for Boots.

Further to this, I facilitate training events for pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and trainee pharmacists in my role as a CPPE (Centre for Postgraduate Pharmacy Education) events tutor and support UK pharmacists and pharmacy technicians, locally and internationally, to return to pharmacy practice and to the GPhC register as a CPPE return to practice tutor.

I have also contributed articles, videos and training modules for a community pharmacy magazine with a focus on clinical topics, revalidation and calculations used in community pharmacy.

I have a keen interest in utilising technology in teaching and am always looking for new ways to deliver material and keep students engaged and learning.

Academic responsibilities

Pharmacy Teaching Fellow

Qualifications

  • 2020: Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
  • 2003 - 2004: Postgraduate Clinical Diploma in Pharmacy Practice (community), with Distinction - De Montfort University
  • 2000: RPSGB Overseas Pharmacists Exams, Sunderland University
  • 1993 - 1996: Bachelor of Pharmacy - University of Port Elizabeth, South Africa
  • 2023 Aurora Advance HE

Teaching and learning

I have a keen interest in technology in learning. 

I was an early adopter of technology in teaching and I shared my experiences during a School learning and teaching seminar of the use of quiz-style clickers, as part of a wider university project, and using a leaderboard and competition to stimulate engagement.

I enjoy using a flipped lecture approach in some pharmacy practice topics and responding to symptoms teaching.

As a community pharmacist, I have an interest in responding to symptoms teaching and particularly how this relates to health inequalities. I have created a Canvas module that incorporates images from many countries, inspired by "Mind the Gap" to ensure students have exposure to identifying skin conditions on darker skin tones.

As we move to a curriculum designed to create prescriber-ready pharmacy students, I enjoy exploring how we can utilise simulations through role play and videos to support experiential learning, with a particular focus on clinical diagnostics and consultation skills, bringing in experience from pharmacy practice and my CPPE role.

In my time as MPharm course director, I worked with the pharmacy team to move our teaching and assessment content online, while maintaining an element of face-to-face teaching, with safety as a priority, during the COVID-19 pandemic, sharing learning around using Teams, break out rooms, polls, MyDispense for practicals, recording lectures using various online tools and captioning these. 

I was awarded Senior Fellowship of the Higher Education Authority (SFHEA) in 2020 - Advance HE.

Qualifications and expertise

  • Senior Fellow HEA

Undergraduate courses taught

Research

Clinical Pharmacy Congress poster presentation 22 April 2016: A survey of the perceptions of community pharmacists of electronic prescription service in the dispensing process 

RPS Winter summit poster presentation 5th December 2017: Evaluation of GP Practice Clinical Pharmacists' Perceptions of their Learning and Development Needs 

Areas of specialism

  • Community pharmacy
  • Digital technology in pharmacy education and training
  • Pharmacy education and training
  • Simulations in pharmacy education
  • Responding to symptoms

Publications

Jump to: Article | Conference or Workshop Item
Number of items: 5.

Article

Slater, Natasha, Mason, Thuy, Micallef, Ricarda, Ramkhelawon, Madhvee and May, Leanne (2023) Enabling access to pharmacy law teaching during COVID-19 : student perceptions of MyDispense and assessment outcomes. Pharmacy, 11(2), p. 44. ISSN (online) 2226-4787

Nabhani‐Gebara, Shereen, Fletcher, Simon, Shamim, Atif, May, Leanne, Butt, Nabiha, Chagger, Sunita, Mason, Thuy, Patel, Kunal, Royle, Finlay and Reeves, Scott (2020) General practice pharmacists in England : integration, mediation and professional dynamics. Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy, 16(1), pp. 17-24. ISSN (print) 1551-7411

Conference or Workshop Item

May, Leanne (2023) Current pharmacist independent prescribers' views on the knowledge and skills required at undergraduate level for pharmacy students to become safe and effective future prescribers. In: Pharmacy Education Conference 2023; 11 Sep 2023, Manchester, U.K.. (In Press)

Kamdar, Dipa, May, Leanne and Wells, Joshua (2023) Evaluating the impact of an inclusivity workshop on pharmacy students’ perceptions and knowledge of health inequalities. In: Higher Education Institutional Research (HEIR) Conference 2023 : Addressing Equity in Higher Education Through Institutional Research; 07-08 Sep 2023, Kingston upon Thames, U.K.. (In Press)

Kamdar, Dipa, May, Leanne and Wells, Joshua (2023) Empowering pharmacy students to address health inequalities to shape holistic and sustainable practice. In: Festival of Learning 2023; 22 Jun 2023, Kingston upon Thames, U.K.. (Unpublished)

This list was generated on Wed Sep 13 07:00:30 2023 BST.

Professional practice, knowledge exchange and impact

I have worked as a community pharmacist with a large multiple-chain pharmacy from 2001 until now. A key role I held in this time was as a group pharmacy manager where I led the clinical governance for 8 pharmacies. I am currently still working as a part-time relief pharmacist.

In my role with Boots, alongside working part-time as a community pharmacist, I supported drive-through COVID-19 test centres in April 2020 by testing and training testers to administer swab tests at drive-through centers around London. 

I supported our Kingston university students working on the front line during the height of the pandemic with drop-in calls to ensure they stayed safe in the workplace over the summer of 2020.

I wrote support articles for a pharmacy magazine, C+D about the Moderna vaccine and Janssen vaccine in 2021 and a discussion around the updated NICE guidance. I also shared a support video to reduce vaccine hesitancy on social media.

As part of my CPPE role, I support pharmacists and pharmacy technicians with online courses to return to the register and create a portfolio for GPhC evaluation and for pharmacists currently on the register, who have taken a break from pharmacy, to return to practice. 

I have created support material for pharmacy professionals to undertake various aspects of their revalidation on the C+D website such as a podcast of an example of a peer discussion and written entries of a reflective account.

I have also written various training modules for C+D from 2017-2021 including topics such as:

Multiple sclerosis, Codeine over the counter (OTC), OTC  medicine abuse, Erectile dysfunction, Ticks and Lyme disease, Hyperhydrosis, Concussion, Oral thrush, Leukemia, Non-oral hormonal contraception, Asthma, Lung cancer, First aid, Trichotillomania, Dry skin, Look alike sound alike errors, Lung function tests, Lithium, Hernia, Calculations.

Qualifications and expertise

  • Registered pharmacist GPhC
  • Postgraduate Clinical Diploma in Pharmacy Practice (community), with Distinction
  • CPPE Return to practice and return to register tutor
  • CPPE events tutor, London

Professional and scholarly affiliations

  • General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC)
  • Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) member since 2000

Social media

LinkedIn Twitter