It's 2015! I graduate this year!
I am so amazed at how fast 2014 zipped by. It feels like just yesterday I was starting rotations, and now I am in the middle of my 6th rotation. Only 2.5 left to go!
This block I am on rotation with a GA-PCOM professor at a local psychiatric hospital. It has been a fascinating few weeks already. Every morning, we start off by attending daily table rounds where we discuss our patient's current care plans. It is a great place to have an impact as a pharmacist, because in addition to psych medications, our patients have a huge array of other conditions that must be considered and monitored. More recently, I even had a transplant patient that I was able to follow. It was really exciting since I completed a transplant rotation earlier this year. It allowed me to make some really great interventions that might have been missed if pharmacy wasn't involved. After rounds, we typically work on collecting accurate medication lists for newly admitted patients.
My favorite part of the day always involves the patient classes that pharmacy students are expected to teach. Each afternoon, I go with my two co-interns to one of the psych units to work for an hour with the patients. We play games and have discussions about psychiatric and medicine topics. I was pleasantly surprised by how interested the patient's were in these education sessions. I have received a lot of great patient input, and have been able to adjust the way I approach a lot of patient topics through these experiences. I've also been able to meet and get to know a lot of other healthcare students and it's been so much fun teaching them more about the medications they work with every day.
Though I am still planning to move forward in my career in pediatric pharmacy, I am so glad I've had the opportunity to work this rotation. I really love that this year of rotations has enabled me to experience so many different areas of pharmacy. That is truly one of my favorite things about pharmacy school. It's biggest chance you may get to test the waters and see what it is you truly fall in love with.
Jason, Quintin and I on rotation!
Katie
