Beginning Practice Experiences

[rxlynn]

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Could some of you P2, P3, P4 students comment on what type of beginning practice experiences you had, and how your pharmacy school integrates that into your curriculum?

 

[ZpackSux]

My first day in a pharmacy was at the Childrens Hospital Los Angeles. I was a P1 and just gotten my Intern license.

A pharmacist asked me to shake a bottle of rifampin suspension(compounded in the pharmacy) and pour an ounce into an amber bottle. So I started to shake it fairly vigorously..

The top was loose... The thick, red and gooey rifampin suspension exploded all over the pharmacy getting it all over the pharmacist's brand new white shoes and her new Guess Jeans. What a shock that was...

Few years later, I was playing golf with a pharmacist friend of mine.. and told him about the incident... He said.. "Oh..that was you??" He was married to the pharmacist who got rifampined.. "She still thinks you're an idiot..."

Anyways... Sandy and Andy... whereever you guys are.. I love you!!😍

 

[psychoandy]

My pharmacy school has coop, so the way it works is:

If you're a frosh pharmacy student, you take your general ed crap, and the semester before your P1 year, we take a stupid "communications" class and a general 1 hour a week class on dumb ****, like what are the top 200 drugs and basic sterile products stuff, i.e. how to hold a syringe and other minor things. Then, during the summer before P1, you do a 4 month coop, retail or hospital. Most people do retail, since that allows them to be at home for the summer.

After that, 1 semester of being a P1 with PCol and other fabulous classes i'd rather forget about. Then, another semester of coop, where most people go over to institutional practice sites, and then you take the 2nd semester of P1 in the summer. Yet another coop in the fall, and after that, class forever until rotations.

They don't really integrate it with what you learn at all. All of my P1 classes were all pharmacology based as opposed to practice based; the school expects you to learn all the practice stuff while on coop, which is why we all have preceptors. After coop is when everyone starts taking theraputics, so I guess they want us to see what it's like being a tech, to learn how various places work, and then start teaching us what it takes to dispense and make sure everything is fine and dandy.

So, in summation, basically my school throws us into paid jobs for 4 months at a time (we do have to apply and whatnot but it's more of a formality than anything else), we learn all there is to know, and wait until theraputics to start linking pharmacy school with work. Not bad, compared to the tales i've heard at MCP where they have "simulated" pharmacy, with a P3 as a pharmacist and a P1 as a tech. Then again, now that I think about it, if i had simulated labs I wouldn't have to deal with angry hostile patients. But I think i'd rather get paid.

 

[DuocSi2010]

My first day in a pharmacy was at the Childrens Hospital Los Angeles. I was a P1 and just gotten my Intern license.

A pharmacist asked me to shake a bottle of rifampin suspension(compounded in the pharmacy) and pour an ounce into an amber bottle. So I started to shake it fairly vigorously..

The top was loose... The thick, red and gooey rifampin suspension exploded all over the pharmacy getting it all over the pharmacist's brand new white shoes and her new Guess Jeans. What a shock that was...

Few years later, I was playing golf with a pharmacist friend of mine.. and told him about the incident... He said.. "Oh..that was you??" He was married to the pharmacist who got rifampined.. "She still thinks you're an idiot..."

Anyways... Sandy and Andy... whereever you guys are.. I love you!!😍

Hahahhaaha what a small world Great first day story. I'll start my site visits in October. *cross fingers*

 

[DuocSi2010]

My pharmacy school has coop, so the way it works is:

If you're a frosh pharmacy student, you take your general ed crap, and the semester before your P1 year, we take a stupid "communications" class and a general 1 hour a week class on dumb ****, like what are the top 200 drugs and basic sterile products stuff, i.e. how to hold a syringe and other minor things. Then, during the summer before P1, you do a 4 month coop, retail or hospital. Most people do retail, since that allows them to be at home for the summer.

After that, 1 semester of being a P1 with PCol and other fabulous classes i'd rather forget about. Then, another semester of coop, where most people go over to institutional practice sites, and then you take the 2nd semester of P1 in the summer. Yet another coop in the fall, and after that, class forever until rotations.

They don't really integrate it with what you learn at all. All of my P1 classes were all pharmacology based as opposed to practice based; the school expects you to learn all the practice stuff while on coop, which is why we all have preceptors. After coop is when everyone starts taking theraputics, so I guess they want us to see what it's like being a tech, to learn how various places work, and then start teaching us what it takes to dispense and make sure everything is fine and dandy.

So, in summation, basically my school throws us into paid jobs for 4 months at a time (we do have to apply and whatnot but it's more of a formality than anything else), we learn all there is to know, and wait until theraputics to start linking pharmacy school with work. Not bad, compared to the tales i've heard at MCP where they have "simulated" pharmacy, with a P3 as a pharmacist and a P1 as a tech. Then again, now that I think about it, if i had simulated labs I wouldn't have to deal with angry hostile patients. But I think i'd rather get paid.

Lucky you. We don't get paid for our site-visits here 🙁

 

[rxlynn]

Yeah - we've been told that ACPE does not allow us to be paid. So, I'm in the situation where I've teched for 6 years, but I will have to do 56 hours of free labor to prove that I know how to do things like operate a pharmacy computer, order OTC items, etc.

 

[Requiem]

Yeah - we've been told that ACPE does not allow us to be paid. So, I'm in the situation where I've teched for 6 years, but I will have to do 56 hours of free labor to prove that I know how to do things like operate a pharmacy computer, order OTC items, etc.

Honestly, get used to those kinds of hoops. There will be a ton of situations where you will immediately object with a "why the hell do I have to do that", and a lot are unreasonable and pointless.

I'm trying to force myself to stop looking at things from that point of view cause it makes school become even more annoying, just dig in.

 

[sdn1977]

Aaahh - my first day in a pharmacy...so very long ago & before I even went to pharmacy school. The owner of this very small retail pharmacy located across the street from a hugh hospital taught me to pour cough syrup ( Robitussin AC - the real deal - still on patent at the time!) from a gallon jug into a smaller bottle. I got really good at that & it felt - what can I say....powerful😳 .

He showed me how to sling it over my arm with my thumb in it & look at the bottle - not the fluid - that was the key to not dripping. I don't think I've seen a gallon jug in 15 years!

But...my first job as a real intern - at a VA hospital. Oh my gosh......it was my job to "man the mixer". They made their own coal tar liniment in huge - HUGE......AND I MEAN HUGE mixers. One of the medics (they weren't techs in those days) actually measured out the coal tar (thank god!) & the white petrolatum...but it was my job to mix it & put it into 1 lb jars. It took me almost all day! Of course I knew how important it was to "finish the top of the jar" so that took me forever too.

I had this crappy, smelly mixture all over everywhere - including me. Coal tar doesn't come out of clothes & it doesn't matter how many times you wash your hair - it still smells of coal tar.

I to this day wonder why so many vets had such bad seborrhea or psoriasis they needed so much coal tar. One of those medial mysteries I guess. But...I think they were really giving me a job to occupy most of my day without needing much intervention from them😉 .

Do they do this anymore to new interns?????? I don't...but I can't think of any really awful stuff we do anymore except pull outdates & dust shelves.

 

[genesis09]

That reminds me of compounding lab. We had to make some Coal Tar lotion, and the smell just stayed with you forever. Remember to make the top of the jar pharmaceutically elegant.