esteb said:
Does anyone have any experience working as an oncological pharmacist? I am a pre-pharmacy student interested in this specific field of clinical pharmacy. What are the pros/cons of this pharmacy speciality? What is the level of patient interaction/drug consultation? How is this field changing with the growing trends of biotechnology drug advancements and patient therapy? Any input on this subject is welcome. 🙂
Hi esteb
I am pre-pharm myself, but i work fulltime at a cancer hospital. Oh and i believe someone already started a thread about this same question i think in the pre-pharm section, if you do a search you might find somemore answers.
I work at the hospital's outpatient facility where they admisiter chemotherapy. The most i can tell you from my observation of the pharmacy, is that the phamacists have very little if no patient intereaction at all. The most time i see the pharmacists come up to the floors, is when a patient is starting a new clinical trial drug (its non FDA approved), or if they come to yell at the MD's for screwing up orders (well more like educate). or for the regular pharmacy where they fill prescriptions the pharmacists will call up to the chemo units to ask patients insurance questions most of the time.
I know that the pharm techs mixes the chemo and the pharmacists checks them before the go up to the floors to be administered to the patient, and i know the chemo usually goes through a series of 10 checks that involves the administrative assistant, the nurse and the pharmacists.
Um as far as drug consultation goes, usually the MD will educate the patient, and when the patient comes to the chemo unit the nurse again educates them and answer as many questions as they can, when they are unsure of something the nurse either looks it up or calls the pharmacists and double checks with them.
I've also had a tour of the inpatient facilities, and i think its the same there as well, epcept the manager i went on the tour with, was checking the patients charts and stuff (i forget why though). If you want to know anything else that they do specifically send me a PM or something, i'll try to find out for you. I hope this helps, i'm sure i missed alot of stuff but this is info i gathered from my own observation, and asking my own questions.
~M
