Week 1 = DONE!

Posted by Christine Rabah at Friday, August 05, 2011

So the first week is over! It really flew by.

My first rotation is Drug Information at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak with Dr. Mark Lutz. My first day, a Wayne State LAPP student took myself (the only UM student) and a couple of other Wayne students on a tour of the hospital then dropped us off to our respective preceptors. I am doing my rotation along with a PGY-1 resident (Beaumont has 6 PGY-1 residents this year!). The first thing my preceptor did on Monday for both of us was refresh our memory on what references are used for what types of questions. It was a lengthy, but much needed review. EBM P1 year, anyone? :)

My preceptor gave us a few projects that we would be working on this month, including a calendar with draft and final due dates and meetings & conferences I have to attend. This rotation requires me to do the following:

1. answer drug related questions in the DI call center (duh!)
2. create a new drug monograph on a new antiplatet drug called Ticagrelor (Brilinta) for Beaumont's Medication Management Committee (a.k.a P&T) to review and consider adding to formulary when it's available. This will also be presented to the Cardiology Clinical SubCommittee for review
3. conduct a journal club presentation on the article of my choice in front of other pharmacy students and pharmacists (Beaumont has a system for this where you are reviewed by 4 people just to get feedback on how you did, which is nice)
4. an Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) newsletter review, and how those issue impact Beaumont
5. an FDA MedWatch Safety Alert on Dronedarone (Multaq) and how this issue impacts Beaumont
6. and lastly, I have to update Beaumont's extemporaneous compounding recipes for 6 different drugs I was given (dantrolene, demeclocycline, enalapril, hydrocortisone, lansoprazole, and verapamil)

This rotation is very independent- I split half of the day in the DI call center with the resident so we both get a chance to answer any questions. When I'm not there, I'm working on my projects. I've already had a chance to attend a meeting with the Formulary Management SubCommittee.

The DI call center doesn't get a high volume of calls. but I have already gotten a couple of interesting ones. One call was a nurse from the anesthesia dept asking if her patient was having surgery in 2 days, should she stop taking her Arava (leflunomide)? As students, what is our typical go-to resource? MICROMEDEX! My preceptor wanted me to shy away from that (even though it is a great source) and try others. After checking a few sources (including Beaumont's Pre-Anesthesia Guidelines that show what drugs need to be stopped and how long prior to surgery), I came to the conclusion that the patient could continue taking her medication like normal.

I won't be posting much on this particular rotation since I basically covered everything I'm doing, but as soon as I get that off-the-wall question, you will all hear about it :)

Pop quiz! How many mEq of potassium are in a banana? (Yep, I really got a call from a physican about this. He was laughing too, which slightly made me feel like I was being punked)

Answer: 11 :)

-Christine