Clinical pharmacy elective

[st2205]

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So I had two weeks at the end of fourth year that just opened up. I saw that we have the option of doing a clinical pharmacy elective. Since this is under a PharmD instead of a physician you need special approval. I was wanting to set something up with the pharmacist at the state hospital here (large facility with a lot of tx resistant folks on screwy med combos and such). I thought this would be a good opportunity to get a bit different take or perhaps get a better appreciation of things that may not be as emphasized from the physician side. I ran it by our clinical dean and I've got to submit, among other things, objectives of what I intend to accomplish on the rotation. As someone unfamiliar with pharmacy training, it's hard for me to be much more specific than "hey, I'd like to get more training from the perspective of the pharmacy," though I'm pretty open to learning whatever the pertinent issues are (to the pharmacy and not just psychopharm in general). Any can't-miss things to pick up from a pharmacy rotation? I'd like to make the most of it as I think it'd be a somewhat unique opportunity so any input would be great.

 

[J ROD]

Learn the drug interactions..........and appropriate doses, etc.

Also, it is good esp in Psy since meds are some of the most complicated.

Moreover, it could be good to get exposed to some of the "older" Psy drugs since most times the newer are used. The older ones work quite well in my opinion but the side effects are nasty in most cases.

Depending on how much you already know it might not be that helpful but I feel having additional drug knowledge in Psy is never a bad thing.

 

[notdeadyet]

Ask to be placed with someone who's done a psychopharm fellowship (if your institution is big enough to have one). Vanilla pharmacists have a very varying level of psychopharm knowledge.

 

[st2205]

The facility I was looking at is a 300 some odd bed place with everything from child to Geri and four forensic units. Sans the forensics unit, this is usually a rather long-term facility (months to years rather than days to weeks [there is an acute unit, though]). Anyhow, my only reservation, as stated, is that the pharmacist isn't a BCPP, nor residency trained. However, I'm assuming the exposure to unique cases would be beneficial. BCPPs are hard to find. I did some digging, however, and found that the VA about 50 minutes north actually has a psychiatric pharmacy residency (interesting discovery), so I'm going I hit that up and see if they'd take me.

 

[J ROD]

I would also add that it would be best if the PharmD had residency training in Psy. However, I personally know a pharmacist that is just a rph that has 20+yrs experience that is considered the guru.

So, you really need to know who is going to be teaching you.