Pharm. MacJob Oladipupo is a pharmacist who has decided to venture into the innovative field of graphopharmacy. The B.Pharm. degree holder from the University of Ibadan is also a certified graphologist from the Handwriting University of Los Angeles, USA. He was also trained at the Body Language Institute, in Virginia, USA, with specialisation in deception detection. MacJob, who helps in forgery detection as a forensic document examiner, had a successful career in the pharmaceutical industry before advancing into graphopharmacy. In this exclusive interview with Patrick Iwelunmor, the handwriting specialist gives insight into the field of graphopharmcy and its usefulness to the pharmacy profession. Excerpts:
Leaving a multinational organisation to go into a line that is unfamiliar in this clime must have come with many challenges for you. Is this the case?
Of course, heavy duty challenges, for that matter. I can’t tell you the number of times I felt like throwing in the towel. It could really be pressurising, trying to create something new or perhaps different. But the joy there is when your content or creativity is being appreciated, not necessarily because of commensurate financial compensation, but just that feeling of a voice that is heard.
So, what are some of the memorable or landmark moments in this new phase of your career?
I have had quite a number but I will just mention about three of them. The first that readily comes to mind was the opportunity our organisation had to train the Executive Council of Lagos State at the time. I have also had the rare privilege of training all the judges and magistrates in Lagos State under the leadership of the current Chief Judge of Lagos State, Hon. Justice Kazeem Olanrewaju Alogba.
I also had the opportunity to come on board as one of the MTN youth ambassadors for the MTN Pulse campus invasion programme in 2019. Unfortunately, the project couldn’t continue, no thanks to COVID-19. However, we still have challenges of various shades even till now. I honestly do not think we will get to a point we won’t have any anymore.
You mentioned something about your specialisation in deception detection. My question is why this area – afterall, it is commonly believed that everyone is a liar?
It is expedient for me to state here that deception detection goes beyond just trying to catch a liar – which isn’t wrong necessarily. However, because of the way the human body is wired, there are essential details required for the safety of your business, family and all kinds of relationships that your brain isn’t ordinarily well poised to pick, until there is a deliberate effort to upgrade your observational skills to a level where you have immunisation or vaccination against deception. That is the whole concept of one of our signature training programmes which is called LIAR-BILITY
The fact is this, no matter what you say, no matter how you slay and notwithstanding who you pay or how you play, someone is going to lie to you and get away with it. But the responsibility now lies in your hands to not allow those lies escape you thereby causing your business to bleed literally or destroy your relationships. And I dare say that one of the major challenges confronting the community pharmacy practice, among the myriads of challenges, is in this area of deception. To be specific, pilfering. A number of pharmacies have come up with a mitigation plan to curb this in their premises but many just couldn’t care less. The complacency of still selling on a daily basis seems quite enough for them to bother about the leakages. Unfortunately, it’s the tiny drops that make a mighty ocean.
In what ways do you think community pharmacists need to position themselves in a vantage manner ahead of the disruptions in years to come within the profession?
I believe strongly that one key strategy for the longevity of the community pharmacy practice, just like any other profession, is innovative service. If your business model isn’t positioned in such a way that you are open to relevant changes that will add value, it’s only a matter of time before the growth graph begins to go downwards.
The bedrock for the transformation of any organisation is innovation, and that takes me to an innovative concept, called graphopharmacy
What is graphopharmacy all about?
Graphopharmacy is a non-drug intervention and creative proactive solution to healthcare management. It leverages the essential principles of graphology in detecting red flags that speak to a current or an eventual health challenge through the study of energy patterns reflected in handwriting.
All I am saying is that, there are traits regarding a person’s mental or physical health status you can pick just by analysing their handwriting .
Are you serious?
Absolutely. And you know, one good thing about this new field that I am hoping community pharmacy practitioners will begin to embrace is that it will not only serve as a way of rendering a more valuable healthcare service to the community but, in return, more income is available to the pharmacist.
This is quite exciting to hear. I am particularly fascinated by the non drug approach you mentioned earlier; how does this work?
Yeah, it is a non-drug approach because the only requirement from the patient is the their handwriting sample that can be profiled and analysed by a graphopharmacist who has been adequately trained.
How effective and efficient is this kind of method for use in healthcare management?
I have been doing background studies on this concept with few of my colleagues in the graphology space for close to eight years now and we have got to a point that we know what works and what is apocryphal. There are so many parameters we have validated and calibrated to be able to decipher various personality trait concerns, mental health and also physical health challenges.
What are other benefits of this innovative concept?
I would say that concerns around drug interactions cannot arise in this case since the approach is a non-drug type. In fact, one other benefit is that certain health challenges can be picked at the elementary stages and proactively attended to or nipped in the bud before a full blown condition results, if graphopharmacy is deployed adequately.
Community pharmacists are clearly the focal beneficiaries of this innovative idea. So, what efforts are you making to ensure this innovation spreads to all community pharmacists everywhere, not just in Nigeria but outside the shores of the country?
I want to specially appreciate the management of Pharmanews again for this interview. I believe it is one of the ways of publicising this innovation out there for everyone within the community pharmacy space to be aware of the future trend in healthcare management.
Also, I have been in talks with some key stakeholders within the pharma industry. Just a while ago, I was able to speak with the chairperson of ACPN, Lagos State, on how we can add value to the community pharmacists in Lagos State through the introduction of graphopharmacy. We are open to other collaborations from pharmaceutical companies, ACPN chapters across other states, etc. The goal is for us to offer better and affordable service to customers/patients, which ultimately leads to more financial gains for pharmacists.
So how do you intend going about it? Are you considering training or what do you have in mind?
We have a training coming up in August this year. Details of the training will be communicated in Pharmanews. It will be for as many as would want to leverage the opportunity of joining the prestigious class of the new era of pharmacists with graphopharmatherapy skills, which their medical counterparts have no clue about at the moment.
The beauty is that only pharmacists who have successfully complied with all needed conditions will enjoy that exclusive privilege of rendering graphopharmacy services to their customers, especially their premium customers.
I know you mentioned something about project STEP-UP before now, what is that all about?
STEP-UP is an acronym for Strategic, Training, Eventually Produces Unstoppable Professionals or better still, Unstoppable Pharmacists. That represents the umbrella project name of the campaign we want to run. The flagship of this project is graphopharmacy.
So every community pharmacist needs to STEP-UP their game as it where if I got you correctly?
Precisely, you got it right.
So what would be your final words in this interview session?
The scarcity of wisdom is the strength of its value. As a flip, if wisdom is in abundance, foolishness will be valuable on the same principle of scarcity. As professionals, it is important for us to evolve with time because that is the only guarantee for relevance in the future. As a community pharmacist, if there is any skillset you plan on adding to yourself, an exclusion of graphopharmacy from that list is definitely not an option. I look forward to having as many pharmacists as possible who want to really stand out among other peers register for this upcoming training in August once the details are out.
