[silnarnin]

Yes, the interview was without a calculator (despite the fact that in the university I was always able to use one in the exams.).

Yes, I would check the box of Panadol Actifast because I don't know the composition by memory. I don't think I've ever passed through the till a box of Panadol Actifast, and of the top of my head, I don't know if it contains anything more beyond paracetamol.

Pharmacy in the UK is very different from in Portugal. However, it wasn't difficult to learn, specially because all my books in university were in English. The hard part was the communication with the patient; they don't use the scientic terms for their symptons, do they? I've heard things like a cold stomach, a cold in the belly, a sore any part of the body... And in the beginning the accent was difficult as well. I was used to BBC english, and I started to work in the north east of england. It was very hard for me to understand the patients' names in the first month. And the first time that I heard thrush, I though I had understood throat! The English word I knew was candidiasis, thrush was never mentioned in the books. The fact that so much codeine is used also surprised me. In Portugal, it is very rarely prescribed. So the terms like co-codamol and co-dydramol I had never heard before.

I think that with Spanish pharmacists, the main problem is the language. But, at least with the ones I've met, their main objective in coming here is to learn English, and then go back to Spain.

It would be good for the profession that English pharmacists could also spend a year working in another country. I bet that they would come back with a different knowledge than they would have if they had stayed, and also new ideas to develop here!

I'm staying a few more years, but I want to go back. I've learnt so much here, and I would like to copy some of the services we have here in a pharmacy in Portugal. However, there are also things we do in Portugal that it would benefit patient if we could do here.