Community Pharmacists Guide Patients Through Everyday Wound Care

On any given spring afternoon in rural Kentucky, it’s common to see families walk into a community pharmacy with a fresh scrape, a kitchen burn, or a cut from the garden. For Nadia Maqbool Ahmad, PharmD, District Engagement Lead Pharmacist at Walgreens, these moments are not interruptions to the workday. They are part of the workday. In this conversation, she describes how wound care at the pharmacy counter has quietly become a crucial part of frontline health care.

Ahmad walks us through her real-world approach when a patient arrives with a minor injury. She begins with a rapid visual assessment—size, depth, and location of the wound, the presence of bleeding, swelling, redness, and any visible dirt or debris. From there, she explains how a few focused questions about when and how the injury happened, whether it has been cleaned, and whether the pain is worsening help her quickly sort out what can be managed in the pharmacy and what may require a higher level of care.

Ahmad also asks about other clinical conditions, such as diabetes, poor circulation, immune conditions, and medications such as blood thinners or steroids. These details, she explains, can transform what appears to be a simple wound into a potential source of serious complications—especially in high-risk patients.

Ahmad outlines the practical steps she recommends for basic wound care—cleaning, protecting, and monitoring—while emphasizing the judgment call of when to refer patients to urgent care, the emergency department, or their primary care clinician. Above all, she offers a close look at how one pharmacist uses everyday encounters to practice triage, deliver education, and build trust, illustrating the often-overlooked clinical role of community pharmacy in wound management.

READ MORE: Wound Care Resource Center

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