Women's Health and Compounding... What a learning mix!

Posted by Elizabeth Kelly at Wednesday, October 12, 2011

So this month I have been on rotation at Clark Professional Pharmacy, which is a compounding women's health pharmacy in Ypsilanti across from St. Joe's. And boy is it an interesting side of community pharmacy. I have never really spent any time in an independent pharmacy before, especially one like this.

First off let's talk about the compounding aspect: they have a very professional compounding lab in the back of the pharmacy. This is where they have specific technicians making capsules (much easier than compounding lab by the way), creams, injections etc. They even make serum eye drops for people from the person's own blood. I thought that was super cool.

Second, is the whole women's health aspect. Many of the drugs they compound are hormone replacement therapy medication's. They also focus most of their OTC products as herbal products for thyroid function, cholesterol, and PMS symptoms. It has been great learning about the different therapies used and how helpful they can actually be. One of the best aspects of this experience is seeing Dr. Worthing, my preceptor, help so many different ladies. He is a major referral for many doctors in the area. For example, we had a lady come in yesterday with complaints of low libido, but she was very nervous about talking about the entire subject, especially with a male. He made her feel so comfortable and really did a fantastic job explaining to her his recommendations, potential side effects, and overall evidence of therapy. He makes patients want to come back and really dedicates himself to his patients.

It's also extremely interesting to learn the whole business aspect of things. How they network, how they keep track of their finances, and how different their overall process is for processing scripts has really made me learn a whole new aspect of community pharmacy.

I highly recommend this rotation for anyone looking to get outside the normal community pharmacy experience that they may have experienced as a job. It has been challenging (all the cross multiplication for the compounding!) and a lot of fun. It is a great atmosphere to work in and when I am done I will miss everybody there.