Saturday, July 28, 2012

Good-bye Children, Hello B2!

Posted by ayumi :) at Saturday, July 28, 2012

Hello, hello, again! Long time no see?  I wasn't sure if I'll make it out of my first rotation, and I'm sure you were worried for me, too.  However, here I am again, living to talk about completing my first rotation AND since I’m so behind on this blogging business, completing my second rotation as well!  Time flies when you're having fun (or struggling like woah in my case), that's for sure!

I’m going to give you a little summary about how my Peds ID rotation ended up.  I was talking about how scared I was for rotations to begin, and how nervous I was about ID because it was never my forte, and unfortunately it still isn’t.  That said, my learning curve during this rotation was exponential! Really.  I read more articles about pediatric diseases and treatments than I had ever in my life.  I now know what it means to “choose the right drugs for the right bug coverage,” and that “narrow therapy” is always better than “broad therapy.”  These concepts, I kid you not, where some of the basic things we learned in therapeutics, but it was a difficult for me to fully understand why.  Once you can put a patient’s face to an infection, though, things start to make more sense.  I guess it just adds the urgency and seriousness of what we’re dealing with.  It’s like any other concept.  You just have to go through the hands-on process to actually “get” what’s going on. 

I still am not ready to be an ID pharmacist tomorrow; however, I have tons more respect for the ID team that I worked with and my preceptor.  Dr. Klein knows so much!  Everyone who was involved in this rotation are really good at including the student in all the patient discussions and makes you feel like you’re part of the group, well, because you are.  I do wish I had this rotation a little bit later in my rotation series, just so I would be more prepared and know what to expect, but what’s done is done, and I’m never looking back.  Good-bye Mott Hospital, it’s been real!  Oh, and THANK YOU to my fantastic ID team!  If you’re interested in Pediatrics and ID, this would be a good rotation to rank.  Everyone is so knowledgeable and willing to help you learn!

And two days later…  Hello B2!  I’ve graduated from pediatrics and moved on to the bigger and busier hospital, UH.  I spent most of my days in the basement pharmacy, which was good because Michigan summers are crazy thunderstorm-y, and I am not a fan of storms.  If you’re in the basement, there are NO windows, so you can see what ruckus Mother Nature is causing outside.

My second rotation was Nontraditional – Administration with Dr. Kelley.  She’s new, so not a lot of people have had the fantastic opportunity of meeting her just yet.  Of course, I am one of the lucky ones who got to spend five whole weeks with her!  I know, this is a moment where jealousy would be an appropriate emotion.  I’m telling you right now, P3s and below, when it comes to ranking time, even if you don’t think you’re interested in admin, rank Dr. Kelley high!  I really, truly enjoyed working with her!

I’m sure you’re now super curious as to why it was so great, right?  What does a pharmacist in administration do anyways?  Well, since I just finished my 5 weeks, I can answer that!  Dr. Kelley and I were problem solvers, brainstormers, new idea investigators, policy analyzers, ghost busters!  You name, we did it.  We went to a lot of meetings involving different departments and different minds, all focusing on how to make patient care at UMHS better.  I had the pleasure of meeting and working with so many BIG DEAL people! 

Here are some projects I got to work on during my 5 weeks… 1.  Looking at the feasibility of offering the service to flavor medications at our outpatient pharmacy.  2.  Conducting a gap analysis on the hospital’s 340B policy and procedures.  3.  Creating surveys for a new software being implemented at Mott.  4.  Observing and writing a report on the current discharge process.  5.  Creating a flow chart.  6.  Preparing handouts for various meetings.  In addition, we had lots of discussions on leadership, transitions of care, residencies, interviews, etc.  It might sound overwhelming.  I was overwhelmed for the first week or so, just because we never had a standard day.  Everyday was different.  Depending on what kind of person you are, this can be good or bad.  If you like structure and a set schedule, this rotation might be tough, but if you like not knowing what your day’s going to be like and living in the unknown, this rotation is pretty great and exciting.  I was in between the two.  I like knowing the future to a certain extent, so not knowing what kind of projects were going to pop up after each meeting made me a little anxious.  That said, I get bored really easily, but during this rotation I was seldom bored. 

Some tips for those of you who have this rotation in your future…  Don’t worry!  If I can make it through this, anyone can!  The earliest I went into rotation was 7am, usually 8am, so not super early.  Some days are long depending on how many meetings you have, but some days you just get to work on your projects.  I did have it easy because my rotation was in July, and according to Dr. Kelley, a lot of people like having fun in the summer and taking vacations, which means lots of canceled meetings!  I was spoiled.  So all I can say is, GOOD LUCK!  Hope your schedules aren’t too busy…  I tried keeping a to-do list of just rotation projects, and giving myself vague deadlines so if I run into problems, I can ask her whenever she seemed to have time.  She’s pretty hands off, and let’s you figure out a lot of things, so it’s a great opportunity to figure out how you work independently.  Oh, and I loved the fact that I met so many great people!  All my projects involved different groups of people (ACP, 12W Mott, Business director, financial director, Oncology…) so you have a myriad of chances to interact and network with pharmacists and nurses and other staff and hear their stories!  How cool.

Yes, yes, I liked this rotation a lot.  I don’t think I have the personality to be an admin pharmacist, but I’m really glad I had this rotation!  Thank you Dr. Kelley and everyone else in B2!  I’ll come back and visit J

I’m writing all this in transition to my third rotation on the Megabus – Community Rotation – Specialty Pharmacy (HIV/AIDS) in Chicago!  I hear this rotation is intense!  I’m nervous.  On the other hand, I am super excited to be in Chicago in the summer!  I get to live with my best friends for 5 weeks!  Should be a blast and a half! 

Mkk, until next time!  Hopefully you’ll hear from me sooner next time.
Hope your summer is fun-filled!

yours truly,
ayumi 

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