Shadowing: Day 1

  Today I went to St.John Fisher where Dr.Traina set me up to watch a depression discussion between last year pharmacy students. The teacher overseeing the discussion was Dr.Lowry who I mentioned last time as the grocery chain pharmacist. First the two student presenting passed out really thick packets that highlighted their whole presentation. The atmosphere was completely different from high school. The two students said they had PowerPoint if anyone cared but the class said it was fine. The presentation or discussion either would work in this case was very laid back. The information in the packet brought me back to health class with some more extensive details I didn't completely understand. While discussing the medicines involved Dr.Lowry would ask the class ,mostly the presenters but it was open for everyone, patient related questions about doses and when to say patients should take these medicines. After the presentation I was allowed to ask questions. I was a bit overwhelmed at this point. But I did ask how pharmacy school was, what ,what they plan to do after pharmacy school and what other sciences besides chemistry played a key role. There were many different electives they listed you could take in pharmacy school some were just related to patient care and the equipment involved in certain areas while others were more into the actual science part. The types of things the students were doing after school were residency, Wegmans, Rite Aid  ,and outpatient. Wegmans and Rite Aid I already somewhat discussed when I talked about chain drug store and grocery chain pharmacists. They are the ones who work at drug stores and grocery stores who most people know that is usually where people can get their prescriptions. Residency is when after you want to further your education. It is basically a postgraduate training program which allows the resident to preform as a licensed practitioner but to train under the supervision of a experienced preceptor. Outpatient is a  pharmacy that fills prescriptions for patients affiliated with the pharmacy's patient medical institution, usually a clinic or hospital. I am moving slightly away my interest in pursuing pharmacy. Maybe next time I will find if I really want to go into pharmacy when I go Dr.Traina's office where she actually deals with patients.

 

References:
http://www.accp.com/stunet/compass/residency.aspx

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-an-outpatient-pharmacy.htm

Research on Pharmacy continued

   The list of different pharmacists I mentioned last time didn't interest very much when I looked them up. I thought a compounding pharmacist would be interesting. But while it is a unique and important type of pharmacist it didn't interest me personally. Compounding pharmacists must come up with new formulation for a medicine when patients are allegoric or very sensitive to a drug. For example if a patient has trouble swallowing a pill instead of a pill it can be changed to a lollipop. I found this part interesting but then I read of the daily activities of these types of pharmacists. The compounding pharmacists mentioned in a place called Fair Oaks Pharmacy are on call twenty-four hours a day (which most likely isn't that unusual for a pharmacist) and in that time this one pharmacist who has been working there for years estimated that he fields from three to twelve emergency calls each week. One of the reasons I looked at pharmacy was because I was interested in working with medicines but without being the doctor who has to deal with emergency calls about patients and be on call. So I don't think a compounding pharmacist suits me. But I found that the list I was looking at actually goes on even more to include nuclear, nutrition support, oncology, operating room, pediatric, grocery chain, benefit manager, poison control, primary care, psychiatric, public health service, regulatory, and veterinary pharmacists. The operating room pharmacist made me curious because it had never occurred to me that pharmacists did anything involving surgery. But from what I read it is actually obvious they are involved since who else would prepare the medications before the surgery. Can you imagine what would happen if the anesthesia didn't work and you were conscious during surgery? I then looked at the grocery chain pharmacists. These pharmacists are the ones people are the most familiar with. They are the ones in the pharmacy at Wegmans that many people get their medicine from. Dr.Traina mentioned one of her colleagues at St.John Fisher being this type. Brooke Lowry works for Wegmans and teaches at St.John Fisher. She basically has people come in to her throughout the day to ask about medicines and why problems are occurring. I will go more into Dr.Lowry's academic side next time when I discuss sitting in on her class. So after finishing my research on different types of pharmacy I have concluded to just stick with shadowing Dr.Traina and viewing academic pharmacy. Currently I still have not found any aspect of pharmacy I've seen that has my full attention.

References:

http://pharmacy.osu.edu/academics/introduction-to-pharmacy/materials/PfizerPharmacyCareerGuide.pdf

http://ak.picdn.net/shutterstock/videos/1136866/preview/stock-footage-pharmacist-explaining-prescription-to-customer-dolly-shot.jpg (picture)

Pharmacy Research

  Pharmacy is the art and science of preparing and distributing medicines along with the provision of drugs and health to the public. Many people want to be pharmacists who give the medicine to people and tell people how to use it correctly because of the high income pharmacists receive. In order to become a pharmacist a person must have a license from the state at which they work. After high school people who want to be pharmacists must go through at least six years of schooling including undergraduate and pharmacy school. What many of people don't realize however is how many different types of pharmacists there are. There is academic, chain drug store, community, compounding, critical care, drug information, home care, hospice, hospital staff, industry-based, infectious disease, long-term care, managed care, and military pharmacists.
  These all the types I found in the packet Dr.Traina sent me. Dr.Traina is an academic pharmacist so she teaches students at St.John Fisher while she also works with patients at this diabetes center on 224 Alexander Street, Rochester in suite 200. My next blog will on onto two other types besides academic that interested me. So enjoy this introduction next time will go more in depth.

I do not own this picture.
References:
http://explore.usask.ca/programs/nondirect/ph/
http://www.bls.gov/k12/science02.htm
http://pharmacy.osu.edu/academics/introduction-to-pharmacy/materials/PfizerPharmacyCareerGuide.pdf   %20(pamphlet (pamphlet)
picture found at http://www.2flashgames.com/images_/f-Funny-Pharmacy-5630-th.jpg