Midterm Time

I can barely fit this post into my schedule! I went home to PA this weekend for the PSU vs. Iowa game (we lost - not happy) and just got back into town 2 hours ago. I have 2 midterms this week and 3 the following week so needless to say - it will be very busy!

This past week we had our first kinetics exam. We have not gotten them back yet, but I feel like I did fairly well - definitely had to study for it though. On Tuesday we have our first Nonprescription products (OTC) exam and then Friday we have our Biostats exam. The biostats exam used to be on Wednesday, but if the class can get a unanimous vote, the exam can be changed to a later date. This made it a lot easier on us as far as study time for both exams goes.

Since we already had a quiz in OTC, I know the first 4 lectures pretty well. Today I plan on getting through at least the next 3 and then doing the last one tomorrow. I don't like to save it all for the last minute, but I know tomorrow is going to be a late night.

This past Saturday was the annual Pharmacy Softball Game - where all of the students and faculty play a game together at Jim Barnett Park. I am sad I missed it this year but I am sure it was a lot of fun.

Well sorry to keep it short but I really better get to this OTC material...let's hope all goes well!

Extracurriculars

This week has been quite interesting. As you have heard from the last post, there was a commotion about parking that broke out during the middle of class. Ticket officers who have not visited our school in 5 years decided to ticket all students in the parking lot this week. As you can imagine, this did not go over well with us. The tickets were for $30 each, plus you would have to pay an additional $115 dollars to get a parking pass for our (unmarked) lot. The outcome of the issue has yet to be determined - no one knows if we need to get these passes or if an alternative pass will be suitable. Some students have gone so far as to start a petition stating that such ticketing is outrageous because no sign marks the lot and it is not written on the SU parking map that our lot requires a pass. We will see what happens with this one!

This week SU also hosted a free bowling night for all students. My friends and I definitely took advantage of this, especially because it was on the night after our first exam. It is held at a local bowling alley and students pretty much get the whole place to themselves from 9-11. All games and shoes are included in the package so you wouldn't have to spend a penny unless you wanted food or drink. Another place where you might spend money is to pick and play your favorite songs - which is something my friends and I often can't help ourselves with. Overall, it was a great night of release after a tough week of studying leading up to our first big exam...

...Speaking of the exam, it went really well for me, and it seems like it went well for a lot of other people too because the average was an 88%! I definitely felt like I grasped the material well and wasn't too worried going into it, but then afterwards I was surprised and pleased with my score. It only motivates me to keep up the good work and continue trying to do my best.

This weekend there were a lot of little assignments that needed to get done. We had kinetics homework, biostats homework, outpatient lab prelab and 20 top 200 drugs to memorize, and a kinetics exam to study for. I also had to fill out my application for a leadership fraternity called Phi Lambda Sigma that is due on Monday by 5pm. This involved updating my CV and completing their application which involved a table to fill in and 2 short answer questions. I hope I get in!

Well - kinetics test is on Thursday - time to start studying...

Blood Pressure and Parking Issues… What a Week!

Here at BJD we have a new course called “Standardized Patient Assessment Laboratory I”. It’s not a brand new course, but really a merging of two courses that were previously taught. In this lab we practice writing SOAP notes and learn new assessment skills. This week the skill we were working on was blood pressure. Now my past experiences at taking someone’s blood pressure has always been to hook up the patient to an automatic machine that pretty much did everything for me as long as the cuff was properly placed on the patient’s arm. In this class though the professors expected us to be less reliant on technology (for once) and to take the blood pressure with a stethoscope and a syphgmomanometer (don’t ask me to pronounce that).

I was kind of excited about this because it would be my first chance to legitimately use my brand new stethoscope that had been sitting in my closet for a while. So when it came time to actually take the blood pressure I executed the overall technique quite well, but for one hitch…I couldn’t actually hear the blood rushing back into the blood vessels when I was releasing the pressure from the cuff. Unfortunately that is not a minor detail, since without actually hearing the necessary sounds, even if I do everything else completely correctly, it won’t matter. So my poor partner had her blood pressure taken more than once, while each time I earnestly listened for the “thud” sound that I was supposed to hear. That is definitely a skill that I will be getting more practice in. So if you see me walking around with a stethoscope and a syphgmomanometer, you have been warned.

For another one of my courses, “Leadership by Design”, I am required to answer three questions on a daily basis. One of them is “What surprised me today?” Some days I honestly don’t have anything to say. Well on Tuesday I had something to write: cars in the parking lot were being ticketed in what I think is the first time I ever remember any cars being ticketed here at BJD. The level of upset and surprise was evident on people’s immediate Facebook status updates. Cars without a Shenandoah University (SU) parking permit were being ticketed and unfortunately that was a great deal of cars. One of the reasons that not everyone bought a parking permit is that our pharmacy school is located on a different side of town than the main campus, so they didn’t see a need to buy a parking permit since we don’t really use the main campus parking lots. Unfortunately this is an example of a disconnect that exists between main campus and the Health Professions Building (HPB), where not only the pharmacy school is located but also other health related majors too. Our location is close to Winchester Medical Center (WMC) which not only for us students is an ideal location, but also for the faculty whose practice sites are the WMC. On the other hand it has the drawback of being detached from the main campus.

Last but not least I wanted to mention the departure of one of the best professors I have had thus far at BJD, Dr. Phipps. In my P2 year he taught Pharmacology and a course called ICARE: Cardiology (a therapeutics and pharmacology course about diseases related to the cardiovascular system). At first it took a while to get used to his teaching style since he didn’t rely on PowerPoint presentations the way many other professors here at BJD do. But once I got used to that I really felt like I was learning a great deal from him. What I think made him a good professor was not only his skill at conveying his knowledge of pharmacology and cardiovascular issues but his fairness as well. He did his best to stay true to whatever promises he made. This week we had our last lecture with him in another course. Next week he will be leaving BJD to join the faculty at another university, their gain is our loss.

Who said this was going to be easy?

As I am sure every one who has every graduated from high school, college, graduate school, pharmacy school, or a residency (maybe more that one of all of these), I am not alone in receiving my fair share of advice about how my life and my job would be this next year. For those students out there thinking about residency, believe me...it will be one (or more) of the toughest and maybe most exciting years of your life. And, yes you will be exhausted by the end! So as I was finally finishing the second year of residency, several mentors told me, "don't worry, your first year of faculty after this will seem easy!" I was warned that things would pick up quickly after the first year or two and then be full swing after that, but that I should enjoy the "slow pace" in the beginning. All I can ask is "Where did those faculty members do their first years?", because I have hit the ground running here at BJD! Which, for someone who has not been used to blogging in the past, has put the task of writing about all of what I'm doing low on my exceeding long and ever growing To Do list.

These first few weeks have been a time of adjustment for both myself and the students. It is always interesting to see how students react to a new member of the faculty. We always get the "bad wrap" as the hard teacher because we have expectations and standards that may be different than what the students are used to or expect. Hopefully, the students will see that all our hard work is for their best interest.

So as the first month here at BJD is finishing up, I am settling in to my clinic and lab sessions, finding my way around the building, and learning that life as a first year faculty member is much more fast paced than I was advised. It is exciting and scary all at once to keep up with everything that needs to be done and I know even more will be added to my plate as the months continue. The comforting fact is I know that I love my students, patients and colleagues so I can take this all in stride.

My advice to all of you reading this...take all the advice you get with a grain of salt! ;) But, more importantly, find a career you love and you will be happy going to work everyday! I can definitely say that I am not bored. :)

Website Updates

This week was a nice short week, but for some reason it still felt long to me. I had several meetings to attend had to update the two websites that I am webmaster for so they would be ready to be launched.

The first website I worked on was for the class of 2012. My husband works for Apple and knows how to create websites and such, so he helps me with a lot of the code part of it. This site was created at the start of last year and since then all that needs to be done are the updates. Updating this site basically consisted of updating the calendar, the officers, and announcements. This year our president and treasurer are different than for the p1 year. Also, we added a social chair because we plan to have more events as our class has grown closer together.

The other website is for APhA. This site is replacing the old APhA site and has a nice clean look to it. New pictures were taken of all of the officers and uploaded this week and I finally finished up the site on Wednesday night and the webmaster of the pharmacy school uploaded the new site on Thursday and it went live! I haven't heard much feedback yet, but from what the people I have shown it to have said, it seems like people like the way it looks. I also created a facebook page for APhA and invited all of the current members to become fans. This way, I can send messages about upcoming events and announcements to members in a way that will not clog their email and by way of a venue they are used to.

This Friday was the P1's White Coat Ceremony. This is where all of the P1's gather in one of the larger class rooms and are presented with their first/official white coat. The coats are more form fitting and better quality than most retail coats and also have The Bernard J Dunn School of Pharmacy embroidered on them. Parents and siblings usually come out for the ceremony as it is a symbolic night - the start of the road to becoming a pharmacist. It seems like such a long time ago that I got my white coat! After the ceremony, celebration is definitely necessary.

This week we also had our first OTC quiz. It was only 10 points and on paper (usually exams are on perception, an online testing system). I did very well and it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I like to be better safe than sorry when it comes to studying, especially for the first quiz or exam. This coming week I have my first exam in Pharmacology. So far, this class has focused on enzymes, binding/response curves, and several other topics. I really make an effort to pay attention in class so that when it comes time to study, I am more familiar with the material. I have not yet started studying for this exam (it's on Thursday), but it is on my list for things to do tomorrow. Hopefully it will go as well as my first quiz!

Outside of class

Another week has gone by, although this one seemed faster than most since we had Labor Day off. This week was filled with all our typical classes and at the moment nothing really stands out to mention from class. So I think I will talk about activities that occurred outside of class this time.

On Thursdays we have something called “Seminar Hour” where no pharmacy students have class at that time so that they can attend an organization’s presentation or activity. There are various organizations that are active here at BJD, from the professional e.g. APhA-ASP (American Pharmacists Association-Academy of Student Pharmacists) to the fraternities e.g. Kappa Epsilon and others. Every week a different organization hosts the seminar hour. This Thursday APhA-ASP was hosting. They had Cindy Warner, President Elect of VPhA (Virginia Pharmacists Association) and Tim Musselman, Executive Director of VPhA come and talk to us about what VPhA does and what we as students can do to become active with this state level organization that represents pharmacists of all fields. In addition to that they also came to present Jamie Larson, Michelle Chandler, Julie Horak and I with a plaque for winning the state-wide Self Care Competition.

The Self Care Competition was where we represented BJD and competed against Virginia Commonwealth University School of Pharmacy, Hampton University School of Pharmacy and Appalachian College of Pharmacy. The competition was held back in August at VPhA’s Annual Convention in Virginia Beach, VA. So the four of us were very excited and dressed up ready to be presented with our plaque… but there was no plaque. For some reason the plaque wasn’t ready yet. So we just took our pictures with the representatives of VPhA and sat back in our seats empty-handed. At least we took pictures at the competition to prove we had won. Since we won this past year, it can now be said that every Virginia pharmacy school has won the Self Care Competition at least once.

Later that same day was the Greek Olympics. At BJD we have three pharmacy fraternities: Kappa Epsilon, Phi Delta Chi and Kappa Psi. I personally am a member of Kappa Epsilon, so if I do seem biased towards them there’s a reason for it. Every fall we hold Greek Olympics, where all three fraternities and anyone from the P1 class (first year pharmacy students) who wants to participate, compete in outdoor games. The first year pharmacy students are their own separate team because they are not recruited to join any fraternities until the spring semester of their first year. So on Thursday practically everyone who was a member of one of the three fraternities was wearing their fraternity’s t-shirt, Greek letters were everywhere. The games we played consisted of a three-legged relay race, hula hooping, egg holding relay race, water balloon toss, spinning with your head on the bat then running relay race (if you know the official name please enlighten me), and the classic tug of war. Last year Phi Delta Chi had won, so there was an air of competitiveness between us (Kappa Epsilon) and Phi Delta Chi. To ensure that games were fair, each fraternity’s president was keeping track of points for all the groups.

Kappa Epsilon is filled with more girls than the other fraternities but we sent out our guys to represent us in the hula hoop competition (ironic isn’t it?). Although they did respectably we ended up losing that competition (no surprise there). However we did redeem ourselves in the water balloon toss, since we came in first place in that event. Of all the games the one that gets the most competitive is tug of war. Kappa Epsilon and Phi Delta Chi were the first two groups to compete. Although I have to say Kappa Epsilon really tried, Phi Delta Chi still beat us. Overall it was a day of friendly competition that ended with Phi Delta Chi winning the whole thing again, but we placed a respectable second. There’s always next year!

Let The Exams Begin

Labor day weekend was an amazing break before the exams begin for the P2 year. I went home to visit my family and attend a PSU football game with my husband, Gannon. The game was great - definitely a weird feeling to be an alumni though, I'm still not used to it. Sunday was a day of family and food. Definitely ate A LOT! Then on Labor Day, Gannon and I drove home and attended a "crab fest" that a couple of P2's were hosting. Tons of freshly steamed crabs right from Maryland - YUM! But after party time was over...it was back to the grind. It is definitely time to start cracking down on the studying.

This Thursday we have an exam "teaser" - a quiz in Nonprescription drugs. It is on self care, fever/headache/pain, vaginal infections, and menstruation/PMS/contraception. The material is pretty dense and there are only 10 quiz questions. This of course means that all of the material must be learned just to make sure the 10 multiple choice and true/false questions can be answered correctly. Love it when that happens....

I find that the best way for me to study for these types of tests - the ones that require a lot of memorization of facts and numbers - is to re-write the lectures into a notebook. The simple act of writing them all out makes me focus on the words and sort of become familiar with the material. If there's a reading to go along with the lecture - I add that into the written notes too by writing out important points from the reading or things that emphasize what was said in lecture. Then, I commit everything to memory after I go over the notes I have written with a highlighter. Before the test I read the highlighted notes about twice more and I am good to go. If there's something that is particularly hard to remember, I write it again until it sticks. This is my method and I have seen others use it in my class too...but everyone has a different way that they study.

So my plan is to get everything re-written today and tonight and possbily go over half with the highligher. Then tomorrow I'll finish up in time for the quiz Thursday. I have tried studying further in advance but I have found that I actually can retain the information easier if I study closer to the test day...even though "cramming" is not usually the recommended way to study.

Just got an email today that the BJD SOP softball game is scheduled to take place September 26th. I won't be able to go because I will be going to another home PSU game - but I have heard it is really fun! All of the pharmacy classes (P1 - P4s) get together and play a softball game with the faculty and staff. It is fun to see the faculty outside of class and have some fun. I think it definitely has an influence on how tight students and faculty are at SU.

Another fun event I will have to miss because of work is the Greek Olympics this Thursday. This is where the three Greek fraternities in our school organize food and games for all students and they can come out and watch us battle it out. This year, my fraternity, Kappa Epsilon, was responsible for getting the food - our president took care of that and got food donated from Walgreens. The other two fraternities, Kappa Psi and Phi Delta Chi, are organizing the games. I wish I could go!

Well, I think it's about time I start studying.

Earning Labor Day Off

I can’t remember the last time I looked forward to Labor Day as much as I did this year. I think this year was the first time in a long time that school was busy enough that I feel I have earned having a Monday off. The amount of material we covered in these first 2 weeks was enough to earn us a bonus pop quiz or two. Though thankfully, our quiz in Infectious Disease ICARE (an intense therapeutics and pharmacology course) wasn’t really a “pop” quiz, since Dr. Johnson warned us that it would be coming.

Given that we did get fair warning I think everyone in the class studied hard for that first bonus quiz. Since the quiz was on Dr. Newton’s (a professor that has been with the pharmacy school since day 1 and one of our first professors) material, he gave us our quizzes in his trademark green alternating with white sheets. He does this so that even if you are tempted to cheat, it wouldn’t do you any good, since your neighbors will have quizzes different from yours (not that he really believed we would cheat, but more so to remove the temptation to do so). He was a professor we had in our P1 year, so seeing those green and white sheets again for a moment made me realize how far I’d come since my first year. So anyway we answered the dozen or so questions, hopeful that our studying would have helped us earn a few bonus points. Unfortunately however, we later learned that the most bonus points we could earn was 1 point regardless if we answered all the questions correctly or just the minimum of five questions. Yeah that caused a minor stir, since many felt that the amount of studying they put into it should have been rewarded with more bonus points.

Something that probably caused an even bigger stir was the school’s final decision regarding how to handle final exam rescheduling for students who would miss some final exams in order to attend ASHP’s (American Society of Health-system Pharmacists) Mid-year convention in Las Vegas. Initially as the secretary for SVSHP (Student chapter of the Virginia Society of Health-system Pharmacists, a branch of ASHP at our school) I had sent out an inquiry as to how many students were interested in attending the convention. I got back dozens of replies, however many students were reluctant to make a firm commitment because of not knowing how the missed finals would be handled. I know many students hoped for the finals being given earlier, so that they could go to the convention without the dark cloud of studying for finals hanging over them while they were in Las Vegas. But when the school formally decided that only two days of finals would be excused and those missed finals (which for the P3 class was a total of 3 finals) would all have to be made up on the Saturday right before winter break, many students were upset. So when I sent out the next e-mail asking “who was still interested in going?”, not surprisingly many students no longer were. I personally do hope to do a residency and believe that by going in my P3 year I will be better prepared for next year when I will be formally applying. So the school’s decision to lump three exams all on one day really didn’t help my dread of finals week. I think I found a way to make it work, but until I buy that ticket to Vegas and actually register for the conference, nothing is set in stone. Right now I am thinking that I’ll probably stay one day less than I originally planned to in Vegas, so that I only need to make up one exam as opposed to three, since the thought of having three exams in one day, is just asking for unnecessary stress and study-induced insomnia.

Another contributing factor to why I looked forward to this long weekend was the fact that I felt like I had spent a lot of time in meetings this past week. I think being involved in school in non-academic ways makes one a well-rounded person and enriches the whole college experience. So I don’t mean to sound overwhelmed by saying there were many meetings. Since it is the beginning of the year the first meetings mostly consisted of: welcome back + here is what we plan to do. Right now at this point in time it feels like this will be a busy year and hopefully I can add “interesting” to that too.