Sunday, October 6, 2019

Rotation 4: Psychiatry

Posted by Makenzie at Sunday, October 06, 2019

Fresh off of Labor Day weekend, the outpatient clinic started off slowly and then steadily gained business as we moved from summer vacation to back to school season.  This rotation contained a lot of variety.  Through the psychiatry clinics I met with the team at the beginning and the end of clinic (clinics were half-days, 8am-noon or 1-5pm) to discuss the patients visiting the office today.  Between the two meetings I would call patients who visited us a week or two ago to assess for side effects and efficacy.  Sometimes it included interventions such as giving the go-ahead to titrate as prescribed or to recommend reducing a dose as necessary.  Some patients would be excited for the followup and others seemed to be caught off guard.  Outside of clinic hours, I also responded to consults from providers via email.  Usually about unusual side effects or efficacy of one drug over another in a complicated patient.  Sometimes these responses took only 20 minutes, sometimes it would take up 90 minutes depending on complexity.

Since classes were resuming at the College of Pharmacy after summer break, I also had the opportunity to assist in classes and academia.  This included assisting in-person for a couple of classes as well as preparing materials for class.  I was also able to compose some academic writing (improving my written communication was one of my goals this year).

Overall, my ambulatory care rotation was varied, with opportunity to pursue more niche interests and goals.  There was no such thing as a typical day with bouncing between clinic and class and being able to work from home for some half days.  The variety kept me constantly learning and adjusting.

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