Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore!!

Posted by Jenna at Sunday, November 06, 2011

My fourth rotation is my institutional rotation at Henry Ford Wyandotte. Institutional rotation is classically the rotation that people wish would be eliminated because a lot of them unfortunately turn out to be a huge waste of time. After coming off such a high from my last rotation, this rotation honestly seemed horrible at first. I wanted my babies back, I wanted my preceptor back, I wanted Mott back. In case you haven't realized, I love Mott! As a side (& dorky) note, whenever I used to walk into UMHS or Mott, I would get goosebumps. Why? Because I knew that great, revolutionary things were happening within their walls. It would be my dream to work at Mott, if I don't end up moving to warmer weather! Anyway, I digress.


Wyandotte is ~350 beds and takes me 50-55 minutes to get to each day. It reminds me a lot of the hospital system that I worked at at home. Paper charts, paper orders .. no real rounds, less pharmacist interaction with other HCP's. Not a fan. Granted, I will fully admit that training at a tertiary academic medical campus like UofM completely spoils us. Pharmacy (and medicine) is not as advanced or collaborative at many hospitals but having rotations and shadowing experiences at UofM makes you (or at least me, anyway) want that level of practice. 


Wyandotte is probably THE friendliest atmosphere, though! Everybody knows everybody and if they don't know you they try to get to know you. My first trip to the coffee shop yielded a 'Welcome to Wyandotte, I've never seen you before, tell me about yourself.' That, and by the third day of me getting my morning coffee, the barista knew my order. That's one of the ways to my heart .. knowing my coffee order. It's the little things, I tell ya!


Everyone in the pharmacy is really nice as well. They're a lot of fun as well. So far, I've mostly been working on projects, including:
          * MAR Reconciliation ~ Comparing the written orders from the previous 24 hours to the patient's daily MAR (medication administration record). This was to check that pharmacy entered/deleted orders correctly to ensure the paper MAR had the correct drugs, doses, & frequency/timing. 
          * Clostridium difficile infection rate ~ Collected patient antibiotic data to determine if specific antibiotics were implicated in their increase in C. diff and to determine if their C. diff treatment/duration was appropriate. 
          * Brilinta (ticagrelor) ~ Antiplatelet drug approved by the FDA in July. I did ~15 minute inservice to the pharmacists to explain the drug and it's major trial (PLATO).
          * Neonatal Umbilical Catheters & Common Neonatal Medications ~ Wyandotte has a 'feeders & growers' NICU, meaning the babies aren't sick, they just need to gain some weight. Like many people, their pharmacists tend to be hesitant about entering orders for the babies so I'm working on an inservice that will hopefully help ease some of these fears. I will probably also make a pocket reference card for them. 


Time is flying by, plain & simple. Yes, I'm excited to graduate and move on to the next chapter of my life .. but I wish time would slow down a bit. I'm starting to get pretty frazzled .. okay really frazzled. My to-do list grows daily and things aren't really getting crossed off of it. In the next few weeks I have a few looming deadlines and still a lot of work to put in to meet them. Midyear is also fast approaching and while I did a ton of research this summer, I feel like I need to get myself more prepared & fast!