Rotation 4: Drug Information

Posted by Unknown at Friday, October 05, 2018

During the last 5 weeks, I had the opportunity to work with a well known drug information company and had a great experience!

Before the rotation started, I talked to multiple people who had this rotation in the past and came in with some specific expectations. While my expectations pretty much held up (time requirement, workload, preceptor style), I learned it is important to continue keeping an open mind going into any rotation no matter what you were told by others.

First, I'll let you know that this is one of the only rotations where you get to work from home!! It was amazing and I really enjoyed setting my own schedule and working at my pace! That being said, you have to manage your time well and hold yourself accountable to getting all the work done. I met with my preceptor (and fellow classmate on rotation with me) three times a week. These meetings were between 20 minutes and 1 hour and were helpful in keeping me on track with the rotation work. My preceptor was a great resource and was very receptive to questions and suggestions. She also gave great feedback and really helped refine my skills.

My preceptor worked in the drug interaction section of the company, so we worked on updating and creating drug interaction monographs. After this rotation, I feel a lot more comfortable doing PubMed searches because of all the searching I did for this rotation! I know I will take the skills I learned in this rotation and bring them with me wherever I go! I also learned how to write concise, one sentence summaries of clinical studies for the monographs. This is a very specific kind of writing and I think it will be helpful in the future when I am writing papers and in residency. I also got to explore topics I didn't know much about during three longitudinal projects (drugs that prolong QTc, possible UGT1A1 inducers/inhibitors and interactions with smoking).

I feel really proud of the work I did this rotation. There are people all over the world who will use the monographs I created to help patients! I can go and lookup the drug interaction (e.g., omeprazole and ginkgo biloba) and see one of the monographs I created! I feel so excited thinking that I contributed something so practical and widely used to the field of pharmacy and medicine!

Two things to remember:
-Keep an open mind going into any experience and put your best foot forward!
-Make sure you take time and enjoy this beautiful life, no matter how busy it gets!

Exploring Maine: Acadia National Park (top) and Baxter State Park (bottom)