Anna in pajamas – a rotation at Lexi-Comp, Inc.

Posted by Anna at Tuesday, October 09, 2012

I just finished my fourth rotation: Drug Information with Lexi-Comp, Inc. As the title implies, this rotation has an open dress code as the bulk of the work occurs at home. It was great to take that white coat off for five weeks, but don’t let the cozy working situation fool you—this was a challenging rotation with high expectations.

I had the honor of reuniting on rotation with one of my colleagues, Katrina. Our preceptor, Dr. Dan Streetman, is one of the pharmacists responsible for the interaction database for Lexi-Comp (among his other responsibilities). This was the main focus of our rotation, which meant a lot of CYP interaction review! Essentially, Dr. Streetman makes sure the interactions reported by Lexi-Comp are up to date and accurate, and he also fields questions directed to the interactions team. For five weeks Katrina and I did our best to do the same!

A perk of this rotation is flexibility in your schedule. Your hours can be whatever you want them to be, as long as you get your projects done and make sure to get in (at least) 40 hours of work per week. Due to the nature of this rotation, my laptop became my new best friend. I would search for information, read the literature, come up with my own interpretation and recommendations, and type up a summary of what I found. This was a less traditional take on a drug information experience, as I never directly communicated with other health care providers regarding patient specific questions; however, I did have the chance to answer questions posed to the interactions team. Some of these questions included:

·         Is there any data regarding an interaction between digoxin and proton pump inhibitors—specifically long-term use of PPIs?

·         Should gadobenate have any QT interactions and/or be listed in one of the QT-prolonging groups? If yes, which risk-category? 

·         What interactions need to be added for Stribild, a newly approved drug?

Other basic daily tasks included creating new drug interaction monographs, updating old interaction monographs, journal club, and working on a longitudinal project that involved herbal-drug interactions.  We would also meet with Dr. Streetman twice a week to go over our pending projects and get grilled on our therapeutic knowledge.

Overall, I learned many things on this rotation. I had the opportunity to delve deeper into the mechanisms of drug interactions and the questions that pharmacists face when analyzing literature for true interactions. I gained confidence in my ability to evaluate the primary literature and make my own conclusions regarding the data. I also discovered that working from home is not my forte—although I loved my comfy clothes and short commute, the lack of direct human interaction was difficult, and I also felt that since I worked from home I never actually left work.

The fourth rotation was definitely a blur of activity, as I completed my Pharm.D. seminar on the last day of rotation. Already I am two days into my fifth (!!!) rotation—Advanced Institutional Pharmacy at Spectrum Health in Grand Rapids!