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Friday, August 23, 2013
May 20, 2013. To some people
it may have just been a normal Monday, but to me and my College of Pharmacy
classmates, it was a day of transition as we went from mostly classroom-bound
P3 students to almost-clinician P4s. They tell you when you start pharmacy
school that “it’s going to fly by” and “before you know it, you’ll be all
done,” but until you’re sitting in your car in a parking lot, staring at the
entrance to your first P4 rotation site and hoping you’ve learned (or should I
say, retained) enough throughout the past three years, it really doesn’t hit
you. They were right – time FLIES!
Community pharmacy is
generally a realm of pharmacy that most people are familiar with, as
pharmacists who work in the community are the most accessible to the general
population. I admittedly wasn’t the most excited to have to complete the
community rotation as a requirement during P4 year, as I’d had several years of
practice as a pharmacy technician at a couple of different community pharmacies
as well as during my IPPE in P2 year. Luckily, this experience at Sam’s Club
with my awesome preceptor, Dr. Sujal Patel, was definitely not what I was
expecting! Walking through the doors to the giant warehouse and into the small
but cozy pharmacy in the back of the store, I immediately felt welcomed by the
staff. It wasn’t long before I was learning the system, filling the
prescriptions, and putting my therapeutic knowledge to use through patient
counseling.
My experience on this
rotation was not the normal community pharmacy experience, however. Since Sam’s
Club as a company was just starting the immunization program in their
pharmacies, I had the opportunity to educate the staff not only in our
pharmacy, but in several other pharmacies across the state during the roll-out
of this program. I put together a binder of resources on the administration of
vaccines and helped develop the protocol for their dispensing. This allowed me
to not only brush up on my immunization knowledge, but to further develop my
communication skills with other health care providers. Once our program went
live, I was able to educate patients about their vaccinations too! This was
probably one of my favorite parts of this rotation.
Another memorable aspect of
this rotation was the health fair I was able to participate in. When I first
started at Sam’s Club, all I knew about the health fair was that it was on a
Saturday, which meant I’d be missing out on half of my weekend! Despite some
initial complaints to my classmates about having to go in on a Saturday, I
ended up having a great experience! June’s health fair focused on men’s health,
and incorporated PSA testing, TSH testing, BMI evaluations as well as blood
pressure assessments. The major niche for me in this setting was to interpret
and counsel patients on their blood pressure screens and BMI calculations. I
was surprised how many patients really wanted to talk to me about their
screenings, and also about how much advice I was able to communicate about
lifestyle changes, advocating for a healthy diet and exercise. I even had a
couple urgent situations with patients that had less than optimal blood
pressure screens, so that part kept me on my toes! Luckily, everyone left the
health fair feeling okay and those who needed it were counseled to follow up
with their physicians as soon as possible. You never know, I may have
indirectly saved some lives that day!
All in all I really enjoyed
the rotation and had a great time getting to know my preceptor and the
technicians. Besides all the great clinical knowledge I gained, I also learned
not to judge a rotation by its classified requirement! I’m excited to start
rotation 2 and see what it has in store!
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