What is your educational background?

My initial educational background is Pharmacy, I hold a Japanese pharmacist license. After a couple of years of experience as a clinical pharmacist in Japan, I further pursued my academic education in France: Master of Science in Pharmacology, Physiology and Toxicology in Paris Descartes University and Inter-University Degree (DIU) in Pharmaco-epidemiology and Pharmacovigilance in Bordeaux Segalen University. I continuously take challenges to learn and develop myself, I am currently a PhD candidate in Public Health and Health Economics in a Japanese university.

What made you apply to the JPO programme? 

I have been strongly interested in serving public health in a global environment. This is the main motivation and rational which orient me in each opportunity of career choice. Before joining the WHO, I mainly worked for the private sector, specialized in healthcare such as global pharmaceutical industries. Honestly, I was not aware of the JPO programme until the moment an acquaintance working in a National Health Authority informed me of it. I immediately got interested in taking this new challenge. Because I was convinced that this opportunity could bring  me to new horizons to contribute to people’s health from the public sector perspective and to let me learn about Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs) and contribute to them.

What is a day at the office like?

I joined the Pharmacovigilance team in the Access to Medicines and Health Products Division at the WHO HQ in 2019. In the team, we aim to enhance patient safety by providing reliable, balanced information for the effective assessment of the benefit-risk profile of medicines and vaccines. I have been actively involved in multiple projects in the team, one of which is leading, from the WHO side, to support LMICs to implement and deploy a mobile application to enhance drug safety in countries. The activity requires my holistic involvement. For example, given the multilateral engagement in the activity, I have been proactively coordinating different entities such as countries and technical partners for smooth roll-outs. In addition, I have been contributing to assess the impact and improve the technology through my technical knowledge and experience.

My usual day consists of communications through emails and teleconferences and scientific research to make the mobile application more valuable and meaningful. Of course, before the pandemic, I also had very frequent duty travels to countries which gave me invaluable on-site experiences and learnings.

What is the most challenging project that you have worked on/are working on? 

I basically very much welcome challenges. I am naturally reserved but I can be brave enough to face challenging tasks since I know that I have grown so much through overcoming many challenges in my experiences. As an example, I had the experience of being requested to lead a fairly technical workshop session in an LMIC in only a couple of days before the workshop due to an unexpected absence of a speaker. I was the only WHO officer on-site and I prepared the session receiving inputs remotely from HQ and led the workshop session, which was successfully held. It was very stressful, however, I learnt so much and glad that the participants were also satisfied with the session. I deeply appreciate my supervisor’s trust to let me lead this session. This experience made me more resilient, proactive and persevering.

What has been the most rewarding experience to date for you at your duty station? (work and/or non-work related)

I feel very rewarded when I see tangible figures and outcomes after my interventions. For example, I supported almost 10 countries to roll out the mobile application. In addition, I have been preparing a scientific manuscript to share my experiences in a peer-reviewed journal. This publication will be my life-long asset to prove my contribution to the team during my JPO assignment at the WHO.

What piece of advice would you give to those who are considering applying to the JPO Programme?

The JPO Programme offers excellent opportunities to expand your skillsets in various areas. Even if you are new to the UN system or the public sector (like I was), please do not hesitate to take this new endeavour. Your previous experiences will be certainly useful and will be enriched through this unique opportunity.