Pharmacy student question

[ChasingMyDreams]

Quick question for you guys...I am a pharm student and I have had conversations with my med school friends, a couple from different schools, about how valuable a pharmacist on rounds (clinical pharmacist) is to them. They had differing opinions and one had never rounded with a pharmacist and thought we were just in the basement putting pills in bottles Do any of you have experience with pharm students on rotations? How valuable do you think a pharmacist on rounds on any service is? And how has your interaction with pharm students/ pharmacists been?

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[BigRedBeta]

I find pharmacists on rounds incredibly helpful in the ICU settings. Often times these patients have needs that are unique and being able to sit down with the nurse and the pharmacist to map out doses and IV compatibilities makes my job much less frustrating. Certainly in the NICU it's even more important as their drug dosing and fluid balance doesn't follow what's typical everywhere else.

Our antimicrobial stewardship program is led by the pharmacists, and their work with doing the math with the vanc troughs/dosing makes life easier.

Even when I'm on services that don't have PharmD round with us, there are plenty of things that result in me calling the pharmacy for help - TPN, finding out what forms of a med we have on formulary, answering questions that LexiComp or Epocrates or Tarascon or whatever other reference is unclear on, etc, all very helpful.

 

[MilkmanAl]

All the pharmacists and pharm students I've worked with have been very cool and extremely helpful.

 

[nlax30]

Where I did my medicine sub-I (an allopathic academic center) each medicine team had a pharmacist with us during rounds. It was actually the first time I had seen that but it was extremely handy and worked well. Was nice to get quick medication answers right there and get pharmacy "approval" if we had any issues coming up that day.... such as starting a cephalosporin on a PCN allergic pt. So during rounds we could come with a specific plan and she would already be on the ball with getting things set up so we didn't have to mess with tracking someone down or calling pharmacy to explain what we wanted.

 

[Captain Fantastic]

The pharmacist on the medicine teams saved our butts so many times I can't even count. They gave great advice on how to reduce polypharmacy or different meds to try for this, that, or the other. Plus they were genuinely cool people to hang-out/work with.

The pharmacy students on my service didn't really fit into the team very well, but they only rotated a couple of days a week with us. I figure they felt awkward about their role coming and going and not really following patients from admit to discharge. When the pimping started they were included and didn't seem to take it very well. I guess that's not the culture in pharmacy school?