Looking Back on Rotation 1

Posted by Nina Cimino at Tuesday, August 30, 2011

With my first rotation behind me now, I am so happy to look back at all the great experiences I had in such a short amount of time. Aside from rounding by myself during my last week, I also got a chance to practice my presentation skills while completing my long-term projects.

First, I presented at journal club. Journal club is held during the lunch hour, and is attended by the pharmacists and pharmacy students in the hospital. For my presentation, I reviewed and critiqued an article which reported the results of a phase 3 study on a new oncology drug. The drug, ipilimumab, had been recently been approved by the FDA and added to the hospital formulary, so it was important that the pharmacists be aware of it. After I went through the article and my critique, my preceptor and the other pharmacists asked me questions they had about the drug and its clinical applications. This experience was a really good chance for me to practice my evidence based medicine skills, and also to practice speaking in front of a group. Since I plan to pursue a residency post-graduation, I was happy to get practice in all of these areas!

My second presentation was a nursing in-service, during which I presented information about a new oncology drug to the nurses working in the outpatient infusion center. I put together a poster and handouts that could be left in the infusion center, so that all the nurses could review the information. One thing I enjoyed about this presentation was that because all nurses were oncology specialists, they were all very interested in the information about the new drug.

I will miss all the great people I had an opportunity to work with on this rotation, but I am so happy with the learning experience I had! I learned more in 4 weeks than I ever thought I would, and I already am starting to feel more confident in my abilities as a pharmacy professional.