Men in Mind for Pharmacists — Part 3
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Men in Mind for Pharmacists
Part 3: Behind the script

Men in Mind for Pharmacists

Men in Mind is an online training program built to help primary care professionals get the most out of every interaction with a male patient.

Part of Movember's work to change the face of men’s health, the course draws on leading research, the lived experience of men and primary care knowledge to unpack how masculinity shapes the way men seek help, communicate and engage in care.

The course is the first of its kind worldwide.

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Your certificate

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When you complete this module you'll receive a personalised Statement of Completion. Enter your details now so it's ready the moment you finish.

Accreditation pending

Accreditation for this course is still being finalised. You will still receive your Statement of Completion at the end of this module, and Movember will contact you with an updated certificate and proof of attendance in the coming weeks.

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Part 3: Behind the script

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Part 3: Behind the script

  • Part 1 was about recognising the problem.
  • Part 2 was about building the relationship that gets him to come back.
  • Part 3 is about applying what we know to presentations where clinical connection is critical: men's depression and suicide risk.

Ready? Let's get started.

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Hear it from him

The men below show us what the research can't.

Let's start with Azhaan.

D David
T Tom
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Part 3: Behind the script

3.1 Meet Azhaan

Hear it from him

Watch this short video to learn more about Azhaan's experience.

Azhaan

I think there's two sides of that pharmacist coin, the physical and the mental health one. So if I was coming in for something, just picking up antibiotics, I guess in the past I've just assumed I get my meds, I leave. But this one pharmacist that works next to the GP, amazing, he took the time when he gave me the medication, he's like: "Oh, has the doctor explained to you how this is taken?" And I said yes, because the doctor had. But even then, he took the time to say, "Okay, well, make sure you have it with food. It's a daily medication, but that doesn't mean take it in the morning one day and the night the next, only change it by two or three hours." But just explaining the steps around it, it made me feel like, look, he cared about the medication and cared about me actually taking it properly. And ever since, I think I've just felt a lot more comfortable picking up meds from that place as well.

It feels a little bit embarrassing to pick up a mental health medication from a pharmacist because it feels like I'm admitting that I have a problem. I don't like doing that. But he was just really nice about it. Just him talking about it that way, it almost normalized it for me. I felt extremely abnormal when I was picking up the medication, but him explaining it just like you would any other medication, it just made everything feel like it wasn't a problem, and that made me feel better.

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Every hero has a backstory

Azhaan

Some of it is what's happening now: work, relationships, a recent change. Some of it is what he's lived through. And some of it is what he's been carrying in his backpack. All of it shapes the man at your counter, and most of it you can't see.

Take Azhaan. The script he came in for was the part you could see. What you couldn't see was that, to him, collecting a mental health medication meant admitting something was wrong with him. The request was real, but it wasn't the whole story.

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Assessment activity  ·  Behind the script

Azhaan picks up antibiotics without a second thought, but collecting his escitalopram felt like "admitting I have a problem." What does this show?

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Assessment activity  ·  Behind the script

Azhaan says the pharmacist explaining the escitalopram "just like you would any other medication" made it "feel like this is something people take." What is this an example of?

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Part 3: Behind the script

3.2 Meet David

Hear it from him

Watch this short video to learn more about David's experience.

David

I spent most of my career in advertising, about 30 years. But the interesting thing about that was I lived with, and I still do, a mental illness. Bipolar one. Really severe depressions, amazing manic episodes. I wasn't diagnosed until I was 48.

When I was younger, I was a macho guy. Tough. I don't need help. I figured I was better off handling my mental health issues myself, and that's exactly what I did for the next 25 years.

I never spoke to anybody about my mental illness throughout my career in advertising.

We wear that mask because that mask helps us operate. I'd put on that mask every day, even if I was feeling like pure shit. Put that mask on, walk in that door, smile. And then at night I'd go home, strip the mask off, sit on the lounge and drink a few beers. My wife used to constantly say to me, how can you be so good with everybody else but be so terrible at home?

When my kids were about 14 and 12, we went to do the classic Disneyland holiday. Not knowing anything about time zones and the effect on sleep, it was the worst holiday of my life. I was so deeply depressed.

When I got back, I literally almost physically couldn't function. I had nothing in the way of energy. And I just thought, I've got to do something.

I don't think if it hadn't been for all the physical symptoms and the exhaustion and literally almost the inability to move, I don't think I would've done anything. I think I would've just kept rolling, like I was.

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Assessment activity  ·  Behind the script

David ran a 30-year career, wore the mask every day and wasn't diagnosed with bipolar until 48. What does his story show about how distress can present in men?

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Assessment activity  ·  Behind the script

When David finally acted, he spoke to someone about his sleep and exhaustion, not his mood. Why might he have led with the physical symptoms?

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Part 3: Behind the script

3.3 Male-type depression

Depression's usual face is sadness, fear and vulnerability. Those are the emotions men are taught early that they shouldn't. Anger is the usually the emotion that's OK to demonstrate. So when depression arrives, it often can't come out the way the textbooks describe.

Instead, it comes out sideways: as irritability, anger, substance use, risk-taking, or through physical symptoms. Because it doesn't look like depression, it gets explained away as personality, a bad patch, or a separate problem, when it's part of the same picture.

What can depression look like in men?

The full list includes:

  • When what he's been through (loss, rejection) doesn't match how he's acting (withdrawal, anger).
  • When he covers it up by suppressing or playing it down.
  • When he distracts himself or numbs out with excessive gaming, online activity or pornography.
  • When he's over-committed or overworked at school or in his job.
  • When he's leaning more on alcohol or other drugs to distract, avoid or numb distress.
  • When he needs alcohol or drugs to calm down and feel "normal".
  • When he's more irritable, more in conflict, or more aggressive (blaming others, lashing out, violence towards others).
  • When he reacts to everyday things with anger that doesn't fit the situation.
  • When he's coming in more often with physical complaints (especially sleep, aches and pains, or declining physical health).
  • When he's lost interest in sex, even if he's still having it.
  • When he's taking more risks or being reckless (e.g. dangerous driving).
  • When his impulse control is poor and he doesn't seem to care about the consequences.

Watch for the masculine stereotypes that can hide these signs: the 'grumpy older man', the 'invincible young thrill-seeker', the 'party boy', the 'new dad's existential crisis'. These stereotypes explain away what should be acted on.

Pause for a mo'

Review the list above. How might these patterns present at the counter? For example:

  • What medications might he be asking for?
  • How might he be behaving with you?
✓ Saved
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Part 3: Behind the script

3.4 Meet Tom

Hear it from him

Watch this short video to learn more about Tom's story.

Tom

I joined the police in 2014 at the age of 19. Things started to change in me. My sleep really started to deteriorate to the point I'd be waking up multiple times a night, struggling to fall asleep to begin with. And then the most prominent symptom for me was an inability to keep food down, particularly around exercise or heightened moments most of the time, and it continually got worse. Was quite nauseous, feel sick, throw up, thought there must be something going on inside my stomach.

So that led me to seek help by booking to go to a GP, and he told me, "Don't want you to lose your gains, mate" based off me going to the gym a bit at that point and gave me the anti-nausea tablets and said, "Come back in a couple of weeks if you're still struggling."

2017, sort of carried on doing what I was doing with these prescriptions. They didn't work. I used a few sleeping tablets here or there where I was struggling to sleep still, but then just sort of disconnected. As the person that was repeatedly giving me 150 milligrams of sertraline, I never had a conversation saying, "Mate, how are these actually going for you? What are they making you feel? Are they helping?" That conversation wasn't had with any of my GPs prior to when the script was renewed, and it wasn't had with the person dispensing them either.

And so I just took them, I just kept taking them. So I think some better understanding as well and a bit of education around what they were really doing to me, for me, or not, would've helped me probably sooner go, "Okay, maybe I don't need to be on these for the rest of my life, and maybe there's something else out there that's better for me." So there's probably an absence of any real interaction with a pharmacist that is probably the biggest concern in that space for me.

Every time I go and grab them, I could be feeling absolute lowest of lows, but give them a smile and ask them how they are. They'll ask me how I'm going, say, "Yeah, good, thank you. Have a good day." And that's the interaction. You go out and you're back to reality again. It's just that small interaction is just an exchange. It's a purchase, really. I've never seen it or had the experience where I felt like that could be someone I could engage with to actually find out more about what options are out there or, yeah.

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The role of masculinity in male suicide

Tom collected his script, smiled, said he was fine and left. Underneath, he was at the lowest point of his life. That gap between how he seemed and how he was is masculinity doing what it has done his whole life.

Around three in four suicide deaths in Australia are men (ABS, 2025). Suicide does not affect men at higher rates simply because of biological difference. It's shaped by what men learn over a lifetime: to provide, to protect, to stay in control. When distress peaks, four threads of that socialisation converge:

  • Strength and resolve. Men tend to choose more lethal methods, which makes an attempt more likely to be fatal.
  • The need for control. When control slips, the loss can feel harder to live with than to leave.
  • Habituation to risk. Years of physical risk-taking and tolerance for pain lower the psychological threshold for self-harm.
  • Identity disruption. Events that threaten masculine identity (job loss, relationship breakdown, financial insecurity, social isolation) pile weight onto the backpack he's already carrying. A job isn't only income, it's the provider role he's built himself on, so losing it can land far heavier than it looks.

In a healthcare setting, this means two things.

  • The "always fine" you see at the counter can be a front. The same stoicism can hold even when a man is in serious trouble, so it tells you less than it seems to.
  • A life event that looks ordinary - a job gone, a relationship ended - can sit a lot heavier for him than it appears, and can trigger a crisis you can't see.
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Assessment activity  ·  Behind the script

Tom says he could be at the "lowest of lows," but he'd smile, ask how you are, and say "yeah, good thanks" on his way out. Knowing what you now do about how masculinity shapes the way men present, what does this tell you about reading a man at the counter?

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Assessment activity  ·  Behind the script

Tom was on 150mg of sertraline, renewed and dispensed over a long stretch, and says nobody ever asked how it was actually going. From a pharmacist's view, what's the most useful read?

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Tom's backpack

Tom had more in his backpack than any pharmacist could have known. Here's what else he was carrying.

Select each brick to learn more.

A brick

Select a brick

Select each brick to learn more.

0 of 4 selected
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What you already know

The backpack shows you what nobody could ever have seen. But what we do know about men can fill in the rest:

  • he sits in the age and demographic group at the highest risk of suicide
  • he's less likely to raise his mental health himself
  • he's more likely to downplay what he does bring in
  • his job makes disclosing what's going on feel costlier, not easier

None of this will come up on its own, but knowing it's likely to be there is what prompts you to ask past what he came in for.

Pause for a mo'

When you're dispensing, you can already see things a man hasn't said out loud: what he's on, how long he's been on it, a dose that's gone up, a repeat he's late collecting. Think about your own dispensing. Which of these would make you stop and look a little closer?

✓ Saved
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A note

Not yours alone to carry

Male suicide risk doesn't have a single cause. Situational stressors, masculine socialisation, mental illness, social disconnection and structural pressures interact in ways that are rarely traceable to any one thing. The responsibility for noticing and responding is shared across everyone in a man's life — partners, mates, family, employers, and the healthcare system.

Your role as a pharmacist is important, but you're not carrying it alone.

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Part 3: Behind the script

3.5 MALE, revisited

The pathways into distress and suicidality are complex, and you may never know exactly what's on someone's mind. A busy pharmacy rarely leaves room for a long conversation, but length isn't always what matters. If a man feels safe with you, even a brief exchange may be enough for him to open up. That's when the tools in the MALE framework matter most.

A caveat

The content in this section offers practical ways to respond when a man is experiencing distress or thoughts of suicide. It adds to, rather than replaces, your professional judgement, existing assessment approaches, referral pathways and relevant training, such as Mental Health First Aid.

A man at the pharmacy counter, looking up in thought

Practical tools

MALE, revisited

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Resources to support the next step

Being the bridge may also mean connecting him with reliable information and practical tools. Alongside your local networks and referral pathways, these online resources can help men understand what they are experiencing and explore their next step.

  • Healthy Male

    Provides evidence-based, easy to understand resources written by clinical experts, focusing on a range of common health conditions.

    Visit website

  • Spanner in the Works

    A men's health promotion program, comprises resources catering for men of different age groups in the form of a 'service and maintenance' schedule.

    Visit website

  • Heads Up Guys

    An eHealth resource for men with depression. The website includes a "Self-Check" tool that men can use to self-screen for depression.

    Visit website

  • Movember Conversations

    A digital resource to provide our communities with practical guidance on how to support the men in their lives who might be struggling. Includes the Therapy for Men video series, demystifying therapy for men and how it works.

    Visit website
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Part 3: Behind the script

Interrupt the downward spiral

If you are concerned that a man may be thinking about suicide, apply the same MALE framework tools more directly: ask, normalise and be the bridge.

  • Ask directly
    There is no evidence that asking about suicide increases risk and consistent evidence that it can reduce it.
  • Normalise his experience
    Validate that given the circumstances, feeling suicidal may be normal, common and understandable.
  • Be the bridge
    Remember, your job isn't necessarily to counsel or treat him, it's to connect him on, provide a concrete next step and where possible, make the contact easy for him.
Try saying
  • "Given everything you've described, I want to ask directly. Have you had any thoughts of suicide, or of not wanting to be here?"
  • "That's actually more common than people realise in situations like this. I'm glad you told me."
  • "Have you spoken to a GP? There is a great GP at this clinic, do you want me to ring and book you in?"
  • "Have you heard of Lifeline? You can call them on 13 11 14 anytime, to speak to someone."

Take it with you

Download a summary of the MALE framework to take with you.

Download
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Assessment activity  ·  Behind the script

Put it into your own words.

For each scenario, write a line in your own words, then reveal an example to compare.

Scenario: A man's picking up a repeat for his antidepressant.

Write a line that normalises his experience and asks him directly about how he's going.

✓ Saved

Scenario: A man quietly asks about something for sleep issues at a busy counter.

Write a line that creates a sense of privacy and asks him directly what's going on.

✓ Saved

Scenario: A man comes in for something for ongoing nausea he can't shake.

Write a line that creates a sense of privacy and uses work as the way in to start the conversation.

✓ Saved

Scenario: You've asked a man how he's going and he admits he's not coping.

Write a line that acknowledges the effort it took to say that and bridges him to the next step.

✓ Saved
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What now?

You started this course with a number: more than 152 million prescriptions handed to men in a single year. And that's only the ones with a script. It doesn't count the men who came in for advice, asked a quiet question at the counter, or just grabbed something off the shelf. Most of them are somewhere in the journey you've just worked through. Some came in and never came back. Some came back with something you couldn't quite read. Some will walk in this week looking nothing like what you'd expect.

Hear from some of the experts about the opportunity in front of you.

Anna Georgiou

Some of the statistics out there at the moment are quite dire for men's health and their outcomes. It's time to focus a bit more on men's health.

James Georgiou

I have a big firm belief that the transaction you do on the day is not the important transaction. It's creating that relationship for the future.

Brad Butt

Pharmacists are going to have a larger role to play in a primary healthcare setting. We will become very much coal-facing. We can foster a deeper connection with the guys and help them unload some of those bricks from their bag. And we don't have to carry the burden for them, but just help them unpack it a little and make sure they're getting help from the right people.

James Georgiou

Any man that comes into my pharmacy has the ability to have a unique experience that's about wanting to come back and engage with me to get a solution that might crop up in the future.

Anna Georgiou

I have two little boys. I want the world to be better for my kids, and if we can improve health outcomes for men, that would make me sleep better at night.

Brad Butt

When I see the patients, they remind me of my family. They remind me of my mum. They remind me of my dad. They remind me of my grandparents. I think that's one of the beautiful things about being a community pharmacist is that you do have the opportunity to really love on these patients and help them have a better day and a healthier existence, both physically and mentally. And it's actually the betterment of our communities by supporting them.

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The ripple

When men engage well with healthcare, the effects move outward.

  • Poor mental and physical health in men is linked to increased risk of emotional and behavioural difficulties in their children.
  • Caregiving responsibilities, where men aren't supported to manage their health, most often fall to partners and family members.
  • The economic cost of avoidable men's health conditions in Australia was estimated at $10.7 billion in 2023, with $8.6 billion of that attributable to indirect costs including lost productivity and the burden on informal carers (HealthLumen, 2024).

Care leads to care

A man who comes back is a man whose children see care modelled. A man whose distress is picked up early is a man whose partner isn't eventually carrying it alone. Small changes in how you approach these interactions add up. Not just for him, but for the people whose lives are shaped by his.

CARE LEADS TO CARE CARE LEADS TO CARE CARE LEADS TO CARE CARE LEADS TO CARE
MEN’S POSITIVE HEALTHCARE EXPERIENCES
↳ experiences men’s needs & preferences
MEN’S SELF CARE
Men’s health & wellbeing
MEN’S CARE OF OTHERS
Partners, women, families, colleagues and communities
Movember (2024) The Real Face of Men's Health is a landmark report from the Movember Institute of Men's Health, synthesising peer-reviewed research, national polling of men and caregivers, and original economic modelling. It is one of the most comprehensive pictures of men's health in Australia to date. Access the report here.
Gupta and Hook (2021) surveyed 644 men in the United States on their self-care practices and caregiving of others. Men who practiced holistic care for themselves (physical, emotional and social) were 44% more likely to actively care for others in their lives. Access the report here.
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The opportunity, still

The next one walks in tomorrow.

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Certificate of Completion and Resources

You've reached the end of Part 3: Behind the script.

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Accreditation for this course is still being finalised, so the certificate below does not yet carry it. Movember will contact you with an updated certificate and proof of attendance in the coming weeks.

Additional resources

Tick the resources you'd like to keep, then email them to yourself. Anything you saved with the bookmark button as you moved through the module is already ticked for you.

    Tip: save resources as you go using the bookmark button inside each "MOUSTACHES LOVE RESEARCH" panel.

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      Changelog

      Current version: v2.21

      v2.21 22 Sep 2026 Feature Current
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