The Pharmaceutical Journal/Mariachiara D'Elia
Mariachiara D’Elia is proof that you do not have to have years of pharmacy experience under your belt to truly make a difference to patients. D’elia, a newly qualified clinical pharmacist based at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London, is both caring for people with cancer and carrying out research, writing guidelines and presenting her work at national meetings.
Our judges were impressed by how much she has managed to achieve in her short career so far, adding “they can’t wait to see what she does next”.
Looking back, even at school in Taranto in Puglia, Italy, she would be the one trying to address inequalities and standing up for what is right. It is something she continued at Kingston University — that is once she got used to the different way of teaching. Having attended a very classical high school, where everything was based on formal lectures, the workshops and seminars were a culture shock. She says her results were not great at first, but her tutor reassured her that she just needed to get the hang of it.
Her parents were initially unsure about D’Elia’s choice of degree and that it required moving to a different country. “My mum had lots of patience, and I had to make sure she was proud of me and that she could trust me, and so I started to study a lot and then I found my way and really loved pharmacy,” she explains, adding that her mother has been a fantastic role model in the way she selflessly supports those around her.
D’Elia’s leadership skills developed early, as she engaged actively with her university’s pharmacy students’ association and held the position of academic lead and organised tutoring sessions for fourth-year pharmacy students.
However, research is where her passion lies. While at university, D’Elia won the British Oncology Pharmacy Association’s (BOPA) ‘Best Poster Research Award’ for a project on the barriers and facilitators encountered during COVID-19 by pharmacy professionals using teleconsultations.
She remains a member of BOPA and is on their equality, diversity and inclusion committee. It is partly why she chose to work at the Royal Marsden, a world-leading cancer trust, after spending some time working in the community and general practice.
Being able to speak at these conferences and be recognised for the work I’m doing it’s such a big achievement and I’m very proud of myself
Most recently, she has co-authored a set of best practice guidelines with Stewart O’Callaghan for safe and effective prescribing for transgender individuals living with cancer. The first of their kind, the BOPA ‘TRANScribing: clinical considerations for safe and inclusive prescribing for transgender and non-binary patients’ guidelines have were published in August 2024 and will be presented to the UK SACT (Systemic Anti-cancer Therapy) board for endorsement. The guidelines focus on how drugs interact with individuals’ physiological characteristics, considering sex and gender diversities.
D’Elia has given several presentations about the guidelines at major cancer conferences, which have garnered interest from NHS England. “We also did a remote presentation to a conference in Australia, so it’s getting lots of attention,” she says.
In the long term, she hopes to develop resources that ensure transgender individuals receive comprehensive care, including long-term monitoring for cardiovascular risks, bone density and other health considerations often overlooked owing to their hormonal treatments.
These are impressive milestones for a pharmacist who graduated in 2022. She attributes her success to the support she has received from her peers, mentors and professors who have believed in her potential. They say she has “so much energy and enthusiasm” and has gone from strength to strength.
At first, she just thought pharmacy would be an interesting job but has found deeper meaning over time. She has been inspired by the concept of ‘ikigai’, a Japanese philosophy integrating passion, mission, vocation and profession. She has realised that pharmacy combines her love for science with the ability to help people directly.
D’Elia plans to continue with projects that address health inequalities, particularly within the LGBTQ+ community. At the moment, this involves leading on a service evaluation at her trust to assess the experiences of LGBTQ+ patients in cancer care. All of this is alongside managing a busy role in a multidisciplinary team to provide clinical pharmacy services to cancer patients.
It can mean working at the weekend, but to de-stress, D’Elia has joined the hospital choir. It reminds her of the singing, acting and dancing she used to do when she was a child.
“I didn’t grow up in this country, I just moved alone when I was 18, and I had massive language barriers,” she explains. “So being able to speak at these conferences and be recognised for the work I’m doing it’s such a big achievement and I’m very proud of myself, which maybe sounds a bit cheesy to say, but I would never have expected it to be honest.”
Panel comments
“Mariachiara has achieved a lot in her short career, very impressive. She has made a positive impact within her field of secondary care oncology. I would be very interested in seeing what she does next”
“She is providing transgender-aware care that is not associated with the process of transition itself. She is clearly effective and is leading pharmacy input in a new area.”
- Meet the rest of The Pharmaceutical Journal’s Women to Watch 2024 here
