Staff pharmacist

Posted by Matthew Lewis at Thursday, October 06, 2011

This rotation is all about figuring out what it would be like to be a general staff pharmacist, and it's at the VA (veteran's affairs) if you haven't read my previous post. The first thing that stuck me was where this VA is, which is right next to a college (Wayne State) and several other hospitals (Detroit Medical Center and Karmanos Cancer Institute to name a few) so it's at the heart of a medical complex. I've already done quite a few different things. The life of a staff pharmacist can pretty much be what you want to make it. You could be asked to take charge of the anticoagulation clinic, or make decisions about non-formulary medications. Your job might be to check physician orders and medication fills mostly.

Speaking of checking medications, the hospital inpatient setting employs a tech-check-tech system where properly trained and trusted pharmacy technicians check each other's work for accuracy. You might think it unsafe, but literature has shown that this system is just as accurate as a pharmacist check. tech-check-tech is an up and coming practice which allows pharmacists to get out onto the floor more often and help the medication ordering and administration process, which is where most medication errors occur.

Making IVs was fun, and interesting. You have to scrub in and gown up according to our fairly new industry practice of USP 797 guidelines which dictates how sterile IVs should be made. The actual mixing of the standard IVs isn't hard since most medications aren't toxic to any degree. I did not get the special chemo drug training though, since that is so dangerous even to people who follow the guidelines and have the two pairs of gloves on, the sterile disposable jacket, hair covering, mask, eye protection, mixing hoods with particular airflow and filters put in place among other things (As you can see, there are a lot of things to consider when implimenting USP 797.).

Now I'm just going on rounds and offering suggestions to the team to best manage the medications. Part of the job the pharmacist I round with is to make sure the vancomycin troughs are appropriate, and all the anticoagulation pharmacy follows is done by this pharmacist as well. I've learned quite a bit from that pharmacist as to the real-life application of medications which have narrow therapeutic ranges. In school, we learn with the impression that we can get patients' drug concentrations to the exact middle of our precise desired range, but in real practice there are mistakes as to when patients get lab draws, physicians of varying experience might not take your recommendations, or the patient might not "fit the mold" and metabolize the medication in some super fast or slow manner just to name a few things fighting against a pharmacist trying to get that perfect concentration.

That's what this rotation is all about for now, I'll keep you updated as things change.