Part of the curriculum here at BJD involves courses that are not so heavy on the scientific or even healthcare aspect of pharmacy, but rather the business side of things. I personally have always had an aversion to business. I understand its importance but would rather leave that to someone else to worry about. I would prefer to focus my energy on the healthcare side of pharmacy. Now that I have stated my biases, at times I feel like many of the topics we cover are focused on business principles rather than pharmacy principles.
For example currently we have a class titled “Professional Practice Management”. I think its name could easily be changed to “Business Management”. Much of the lectures we have had in this class make me wonder at times if I have mistakenly enrolled in a business class. Case in point some titles of our lectures in that class are: “Business Plan—Location Analysis”, “Marketing”, and “Inventory Control” among others. In fact a major assignment for this class is a group project where we must come up with a detailed business plan for opening up an independent pharmacy. In this project we tie together the various elements we have been presented about the business side of pharmacy. Some parts of this project are more interesting to me e.g. designing a lay-out for our pharmacy, while others make me grateful that this is a group effort and not just me working on it. For anyone who is interested in owning and operating an independent pharmacy or even working in the business area of pharmacy for a large pharmacy corporation then these kinds of assignments and courses should be very welcoming. I on the other hand have to remind myself that while I highly doubt that I will be operating my own independent pharmacy in the future, who knows one day I may find this information very valuable.
Among other things like the P2 class, our P3 class has an exam every week from now until Thanksgiving Break. I personally greatly appreciate the spaced out exams (it creates much less stress). In fact we will be having our first ICARE Hematology/Oncology exam this week. Like our other ICARE courses, we had been expecting a bonus quiz to earn a few extra points for cushioning our midterm grades. However, by today many people had given up hope that we would get one. Yet we were surprised with one first thing in class. I wish I could say that the material on the pop bonus quiz was stuff I knew inside and out, however that was not the case. On a brighter note, the bit of studying I had done paid off a little. So between now and Friday I will have blood and cancer on my mind in anticipation of our exam.
Thankfully Phi Delta Chi will be hosting “Carnival for a Cause” right after the exam, where they will be raising money for St. Jude Children’s Hospital. One of the things I am truly looking forward to is making my own caramel apple. But I think the highlight will be seeing a professor get a pie in his or her face. At one point or another I think all students after an exam fantasize about professors getting hit in the face with a pie.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Saturday, October 24, 2009
1 Exam Per Week
As seen in the previous post - last week was the Kappa Epsilon breast cancer awareness survivor's dinner. It was put on by the current KE president-elect, as it is each year. It was very well done and the survivors really enjoyed themselves. There was a raffle with a lot of great prizes, and a buffet with great food. The flowers on each table were beautiful and it was just a very classy dinner! The speaker was a survivor and she came in to the theme of Rocky with pink boxing gloves, a pink robe, and pink streaks in her hair. It was a very good motivational speech and I had a great time - it was a nice break from school for sure.
From this point on, the P2's have 1 exam per week until Thanksgiving break. Then there's 1 week that is the calm before finals week. This past week, we had a nonprecription products quiz that is based on the first half of the material that will be on the next exam. This coming week, we have a pharmacokinetics recitation due on Tuesday (which is like a long homework assignment) and then a pharmacokinetics exam on Thursday. I have to work tonight at CVS from 3-10, so I will do the recitation and the bulk of my studying tomorrow and Monday after class. I think the following week we have our nonprescription products exam, and then the week after is pharmacology. Having 1 exam a week is definitely not as bad as midterm time when there are 3 per week, but it still forces you to always have something in the back of your mind.
Another class we have, Biostats, requires us to form a group of 5-6 people and write our own research study. My group decided to get a head start on this project and we have been working on it since last week. We hope to be the first group to present so we can get that huge project over-with and off of our plate before finals start coming around.
The main campus also offers IM sports which pharmacy students can participate in. Right now, IM soccer is going on and each class in our school has their own team. The P2 team, Rx Assassins, beat the P1 team last week in a very exciting game. I was on the soccer team last year as a P1 (they always need girls to play) but soccer isn't really my thing so I opted out this year. It is still fun to go and cheer though :)
Alright, time to get ready for work.
From this point on, the P2's have 1 exam per week until Thanksgiving break. Then there's 1 week that is the calm before finals week. This past week, we had a nonprecription products quiz that is based on the first half of the material that will be on the next exam. This coming week, we have a pharmacokinetics recitation due on Tuesday (which is like a long homework assignment) and then a pharmacokinetics exam on Thursday. I have to work tonight at CVS from 3-10, so I will do the recitation and the bulk of my studying tomorrow and Monday after class. I think the following week we have our nonprescription products exam, and then the week after is pharmacology. Having 1 exam a week is definitely not as bad as midterm time when there are 3 per week, but it still forces you to always have something in the back of your mind.
Another class we have, Biostats, requires us to form a group of 5-6 people and write our own research study. My group decided to get a head start on this project and we have been working on it since last week. We hope to be the first group to present so we can get that huge project over-with and off of our plate before finals start coming around.
The main campus also offers IM sports which pharmacy students can participate in. Right now, IM soccer is going on and each class in our school has their own team. The P2 team, Rx Assassins, beat the P1 team last week in a very exciting game. I was on the soccer team last year as a P1 (they always need girls to play) but soccer isn't really my thing so I opted out this year. It is still fun to go and cheer though :)
Alright, time to get ready for work.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Preparing for serious situations and fighting breast cancer
Well I know it’s been a while since my last blog post so before it gets any later I guess it’s time for an update of what P3 year has been like so far. Last time I wrote about being in the middle of midterms. Right now is a nice time in the school year, where we don’t have any immediate exams so my days are not all about studying for an upcoming midterm. With that said though, it would be naïve to think that even though there is not an imminent exam I can completely ignore schoolwork. I still have to study new material as it is being taught and not leave it to day long cram sessions before the exam, otherwise I would be setting myself up to do poorly.
Thankfully after all the intense mid-term studying we had Fall Break, where we have a Monday and Tuesday off. Some people spend this time just catching up on sleep and life, others like me travel to other places leaving all thoughts of pharmacy school behind for a little while. I went up to visit friends in Minnesota, which although it was colder than expected (they had snow even with their trees’ leaves still being green) I had a good time nonetheless. On the way back from Minnesota I witnessed an interesting and intense situation.
My flight out of Minnesota was bright and early at 7 am. Getting there proved to be a little difficult since there was an accident on the main road to the airport, but after all my rushing and running I made it onto the plane in the nick of time. As the plane was taxiing down the runway to take off the lady in front of me started to tap an elderly woman sitting next to her to wake her up. However the elderly woman was not responding, the younger woman even called out her name several times but the woman would not come to. Then the younger woman was calling for help with a panic in her voice that I have rarely heard before. The flight attendants rushed over and the younger woman explained that she felt the elderly woman all the sudden shake and then go unconscious and how the elderly woman was unable to wake-up. So the flight attendants immediately asked if there was a doctor or nurse on board and thankfully there was. The nurse came over from her seat and saw that the lady had a pulse and was breathing. By now the pilot had been contacted and asked to return to the gate so that paramedics could come on board. At one point the elderly lady did regain consciousness and when she was asked if she knew where she was she did respond “airplane”. But when the paramedics were transferring her to a wheelchair, she lost consciousness a second time. This experience taught me that one should be confident in the first aid training and CPR techniques that one is taught. In situations like mine it may be possible that there is no nurse or physician around to help and someone else may need to step in. Pharmacists should be prepared not just for routine patient encounters but also urgent encounters such as this one.
Later on this past week I helped fellow pharmacy students with their training for the real world. In an effort to better prepare pharmacists for encountering patients first year pharmacy students take part in a patient counseling assessment as part of a communications course. They are told to look-up information about a certain drug, such as: route of administration, frequency of dosage, indication, side effects, storage, etc. One of the organizations that I am a part of, Rho Chi, had practice patient counseling sessions with the first year students. From my previous experience I know that with practice people become more confident and thus do better on the actual patient counseling assessment, which is why we decided to offer such a service to the first year students. I firmly believe that in order to improve pharmacy as a profession we need to help one another be better individual pharmacists and this was one way to do so.
Last but not least this short week ended with Kappa Epsilon’s Annual Breast Cancer Awareness Month Dinner. This is a dinner where we raise funds to donate to a breast cancer charity. We also had a breast cancer survivor come and speak about her experience. Many people work hard to put this event together as was evident by the decorations and coordination present. Breast cancer is a platform issue for Kappa Epsilon, so not only do we have this dinner but we also sell t-shirts. At health fairs we even provide informative pamphlets about breast cancer and the proper way to conduct a self-exam and other facts to be aware of in regards to breast cancer. I think the dinner turned out quite well. I even left with a free vase of lovely flowers.
Thankfully after all the intense mid-term studying we had Fall Break, where we have a Monday and Tuesday off. Some people spend this time just catching up on sleep and life, others like me travel to other places leaving all thoughts of pharmacy school behind for a little while. I went up to visit friends in Minnesota, which although it was colder than expected (they had snow even with their trees’ leaves still being green) I had a good time nonetheless. On the way back from Minnesota I witnessed an interesting and intense situation.
My flight out of Minnesota was bright and early at 7 am. Getting there proved to be a little difficult since there was an accident on the main road to the airport, but after all my rushing and running I made it onto the plane in the nick of time. As the plane was taxiing down the runway to take off the lady in front of me started to tap an elderly woman sitting next to her to wake her up. However the elderly woman was not responding, the younger woman even called out her name several times but the woman would not come to. Then the younger woman was calling for help with a panic in her voice that I have rarely heard before. The flight attendants rushed over and the younger woman explained that she felt the elderly woman all the sudden shake and then go unconscious and how the elderly woman was unable to wake-up. So the flight attendants immediately asked if there was a doctor or nurse on board and thankfully there was. The nurse came over from her seat and saw that the lady had a pulse and was breathing. By now the pilot had been contacted and asked to return to the gate so that paramedics could come on board. At one point the elderly lady did regain consciousness and when she was asked if she knew where she was she did respond “airplane”. But when the paramedics were transferring her to a wheelchair, she lost consciousness a second time. This experience taught me that one should be confident in the first aid training and CPR techniques that one is taught. In situations like mine it may be possible that there is no nurse or physician around to help and someone else may need to step in. Pharmacists should be prepared not just for routine patient encounters but also urgent encounters such as this one.
Later on this past week I helped fellow pharmacy students with their training for the real world. In an effort to better prepare pharmacists for encountering patients first year pharmacy students take part in a patient counseling assessment as part of a communications course. They are told to look-up information about a certain drug, such as: route of administration, frequency of dosage, indication, side effects, storage, etc. One of the organizations that I am a part of, Rho Chi, had practice patient counseling sessions with the first year students. From my previous experience I know that with practice people become more confident and thus do better on the actual patient counseling assessment, which is why we decided to offer such a service to the first year students. I firmly believe that in order to improve pharmacy as a profession we need to help one another be better individual pharmacists and this was one way to do so.
Last but not least this short week ended with Kappa Epsilon’s Annual Breast Cancer Awareness Month Dinner. This is a dinner where we raise funds to donate to a breast cancer charity. We also had a breast cancer survivor come and speak about her experience. Many people work hard to put this event together as was evident by the decorations and coordination present. Breast cancer is a platform issue for Kappa Epsilon, so not only do we have this dinner but we also sell t-shirts. At health fairs we even provide informative pamphlets about breast cancer and the proper way to conduct a self-exam and other facts to be aware of in regards to breast cancer. I think the dinner turned out quite well. I even left with a free vase of lovely flowers.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Time to Exhale
It is Tuesday, October 13th, the second day of fall break. It's finally time to breathe! It felt great to sleep in until 9:30 for the past two weekdays. My 3 exams last week went pretty well and I am just happy to have them behind me!
This past weekend my parents and aunt/uncle came to visit me at my husband and I's new townhouse in Stephens City (about 5 miles south on Winchester). We had a really good weekend - went to Three Fox Vineyards which is a winery near Sky Meadows State Park. They were having an event where they made lunch available and had alpaca's transported to the vineyard. They had a place where you could buy alpaca clothing and it was very interesting and different. After the winery we went to some local shops and then out to dinner at IJ Canns, which is an American Grille with very good food.
Sunday we went to Marker-Miller farms where they were having an Apple Festival. We ate apple cider donuts and picked tons of apples for my parents to take home with them. It was a very relaxing visit and I am glad I finally had time to spend with family and not have to be worrying about tests.
This coming week I don't have any tests or quizzes so I am good to go until next weekend. This Friday, KE is having a dinner for breast cancer survivors called "Fight Like A Girl". The president-elect of KE has to put on this dinner every year in the month of October (Breast Cancer awareness month). I have helped the president-elect a great deal with this dinner and I am looking forward to it a lot. Members of KE helped put together raffle baskets for those attending and this Thursday we will put together flower vases for all of the tables, among many other small tasks - so needless to say, it will still be a busy week.
This coming weekend is my weekend to work and next week the quizzes start up again...break is always short and sweet and then things start right back up!
This past weekend my parents and aunt/uncle came to visit me at my husband and I's new townhouse in Stephens City (about 5 miles south on Winchester). We had a really good weekend - went to Three Fox Vineyards which is a winery near Sky Meadows State Park. They were having an event where they made lunch available and had alpaca's transported to the vineyard. They had a place where you could buy alpaca clothing and it was very interesting and different. After the winery we went to some local shops and then out to dinner at IJ Canns, which is an American Grille with very good food.
Sunday we went to Marker-Miller farms where they were having an Apple Festival. We ate apple cider donuts and picked tons of apples for my parents to take home with them. It was a very relaxing visit and I am glad I finally had time to spend with family and not have to be worrying about tests.
This coming week I don't have any tests or quizzes so I am good to go until next weekend. This Friday, KE is having a dinner for breast cancer survivors called "Fight Like A Girl". The president-elect of KE has to put on this dinner every year in the month of October (Breast Cancer awareness month). I have helped the president-elect a great deal with this dinner and I am looking forward to it a lot. Members of KE helped put together raffle baskets for those attending and this Thursday we will put together flower vases for all of the tables, among many other small tasks - so needless to say, it will still be a busy week.
This coming weekend is my weekend to work and next week the quizzes start up again...break is always short and sweet and then things start right back up!
Monday, October 5, 2009
AHH MIDTERMS!!
So - 2 midterms down from last week...and 3 to go for this week. I am taking a study break to write this post.
Last week we had a pretty difficult Nonprescription Products exam on Tuesday - it went pretty well for me, but the hard part was the sheer volume of information. There seemed to be sooo much stuff we needed to know! It was hard to cram it all in my brain! At least the material is interesting and it can be applied almost immediately if you work in a retail pharmacy. Then last Friday we had our Biostats exam - this is taught by two professors who each sort of focused on a different aspect of biostats. Half of the exam was about research methods and sampling techniques, while the other half was more about anaylzing data using descriptive statistics.
This week, my three exams are in Pharmacotherapy Outcomes, Intro to Healthcare Management (an elective), and Pharmacology. The outcomes exam is tomorrow and I feel pretty comfortable with that material. The elective exam I think will not be too difficult, but it will probably have some good thinking questions that require your own personal thoughts and perspectives on important issues dealing with healthcare management. Finally, pharmacology - I am nervous! The material for our last exam in pharmacology was taught by a different professor than it is now. The new professor has a completely different teaching style and it is difficult to get used to. Not to mention, the material itself has also gotten more difficult. I am doing my best right now to just take a deep breath, step back, and think logically about the material. The key is to take a little bit at a time and try to understand things on your own terms. He is going to have some review sessions for us this week so we can ask him questions if we have any - which I think will be helpful.
After these three exams...it's practically FALL BREAK! We do not have class next Monday and Tuesday and I am sooo looking forward to it. My parents and aunt/uncle are going to come down from PA to visit my husband and I. It should be really fun. There is also an Open House for prospective pharmacy applicants at our school this Saturday which I will be speaking on a Q&A panel for. I went to one of the open houses before I applied and it was very helpful.
OK - that's all I have time for. Next time I write I will be de-stressed! Can't wait!
Last week we had a pretty difficult Nonprescription Products exam on Tuesday - it went pretty well for me, but the hard part was the sheer volume of information. There seemed to be sooo much stuff we needed to know! It was hard to cram it all in my brain! At least the material is interesting and it can be applied almost immediately if you work in a retail pharmacy. Then last Friday we had our Biostats exam - this is taught by two professors who each sort of focused on a different aspect of biostats. Half of the exam was about research methods and sampling techniques, while the other half was more about anaylzing data using descriptive statistics.
This week, my three exams are in Pharmacotherapy Outcomes, Intro to Healthcare Management (an elective), and Pharmacology. The outcomes exam is tomorrow and I feel pretty comfortable with that material. The elective exam I think will not be too difficult, but it will probably have some good thinking questions that require your own personal thoughts and perspectives on important issues dealing with healthcare management. Finally, pharmacology - I am nervous! The material for our last exam in pharmacology was taught by a different professor than it is now. The new professor has a completely different teaching style and it is difficult to get used to. Not to mention, the material itself has also gotten more difficult. I am doing my best right now to just take a deep breath, step back, and think logically about the material. The key is to take a little bit at a time and try to understand things on your own terms. He is going to have some review sessions for us this week so we can ask him questions if we have any - which I think will be helpful.
After these three exams...it's practically FALL BREAK! We do not have class next Monday and Tuesday and I am sooo looking forward to it. My parents and aunt/uncle are going to come down from PA to visit my husband and I. It should be really fun. There is also an Open House for prospective pharmacy applicants at our school this Saturday which I will be speaking on a Q&A panel for. I went to one of the open houses before I applied and it was very helpful.
OK - that's all I have time for. Next time I write I will be de-stressed! Can't wait!
Thursday, October 1, 2009
In the midst of midterms
It has been a while since I last wrote, but it has been a busy last few days. Right now as P3s we are in the midst of our first round of midterms. So far we have had 2: one in our ICARE Endocrinology/Reproduction (ICARE Endo/Repro) class and another in ICARE Infectious Disease. The ICARE Endo/Repro exam was all about diabetes and a little about hyperthyroidism, hypothyroidism and adrenal gland issues. Our ICARE Infectious Diseases exam was all about bugs and drugs. Whoever came up with the naming scheme for the various microbes out there did not think of us poor students who would be required to learn all those names.
Both of these exams were computerized exams. In undergrad I never had computerized exams, so it took some getting used to when I first got to SU. I am the kind of test taker that underlines, circles and crosses things out on my exam, so not being able to do that was a big change. At first I was intimidated by not being able to use my good old techniques for taking tests. However, they do give us scratch paper to write things on during the exam if we want to. I remember after my first computerized exam I felt better about taking tests on a computer. Honestly though, I would prefer the old paper and pencil versions. A benefit or drawback (depending on how you think you did) of computerized exams are that you get your grade as soon as you click a little button labeled “Submit” and then your grade pops up with all the mistakes you made. And then immediately you proceed to chastising yourself for stupid mistakes made or rejoice in the fact that you did so well.
So that’s it for now, sorry it’s shorter than normal but I’ve got more exams to study for.
Both of these exams were computerized exams. In undergrad I never had computerized exams, so it took some getting used to when I first got to SU. I am the kind of test taker that underlines, circles and crosses things out on my exam, so not being able to do that was a big change. At first I was intimidated by not being able to use my good old techniques for taking tests. However, they do give us scratch paper to write things on during the exam if we want to. I remember after my first computerized exam I felt better about taking tests on a computer. Honestly though, I would prefer the old paper and pencil versions. A benefit or drawback (depending on how you think you did) of computerized exams are that you get your grade as soon as you click a little button labeled “Submit” and then your grade pops up with all the mistakes you made. And then immediately you proceed to chastising yourself for stupid mistakes made or rejoice in the fact that you did so well.
So that’s it for now, sorry it’s shorter than normal but I’ve got more exams to study for.
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