What day is it?

Posted by Matthew Lewis at Wednesday, August 31, 2011

It is hard to believe it's Wednesday already and the first half of the first week of the second rotation is done. As I suspected, I am very familiar with lung transplant issues due to my PharmD project, which is finding out if an anti T-cell drug (antithymoglobulin) has a good risk vs. benefit ratio. I am loving this rotation! It feels great to actually know something about the medications and the patient population, instead of neonatal patients and issues.

However, this rotation started off with lots of work and patients. The expected learning curve is shorter, since we are now all rotation pros, having been on the scene for the lengthy time of four weeks at a previous site. I have already gotten assigned an in-service presentation, did a medication class overview, with another one on the way, got assigned a larger topic on infection protocols, and had four patients. Okay, you might not think four is a lot, but when you consider most of these patients are going home on 20+ medications,multilayered comorbidities, and need extreme education, it becomes a lot. In fact, transplant pharmacists educate everybody because anti-rejection medications like Prograf and Cellcept have severe side effects like nephrotoxicity and debilitating diarrhea which must be managed with appropriate dosing and therapeutic choices. I'm happy here though despite the work load. This is going to be great, but it's going to fly by.