Some Info

[Jbw]

Hey guys,

I am not a pharmacist at all. Actually im going to be starting medical school this coming august. Anyways, just wondering, what got you guys into pharmacy? What made you want to do it? Also, what are your responsibilities? I just really am completely in the dark about your profession. It just seems like there isn't a lot for you to do given that you dont make (or so i think) any medications and that most computers are able to track any incompatablities in medications a patient is taking.

wow... that sounds kind of bad and condescending. I really didnt mean to come off that way, im just genuniely interested in learning more about your profession.

Hopefully someone can enlighten me, or direct me to a good site that will. Thanks!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[imperial frog]

Hey guys,

I am not a pharmacist at all. Actually im going to be starting medical school this coming august. Anyways, just wondering, what got you guys into pharmacy? What made you want to do it? Also, what are your responsibilities? I just really am completely in the dark about your profession. It just seems like there isn't a lot for you to do given that you dont make (or so i think) any medications and that most computers are able to track any incompatablities in medications a patient is taking.

Is this including the computers that the doctors have in their offices? Because if so, why do they still insist on giving so many ****ed up scripts to their patients?

Eh...that might be the Chianti talking.

 

[bananaface]

Hopefully someone can enlighten me, or direct me to a good site that will. Thanks!

Hit "refresh".

 

[dgroulx]

Hey guys,

I am not a pharmacist at all. Actually im going to be starting medical school this coming august. Anyways, just wondering, what got you guys into pharmacy? What made you want to do it? Also, what are your responsibilities? I just really am completely in the dark about your profession. It just seems like there isn't a lot for you to do given that you dont make (or so i think) any medications and that most computers are able to track any incompatablities in medications a patient is taking.

wow... that sounds kind of bad and condescending. I really didnt mean to come off that way, im just genuniely interested in learning more about your profession.

Hopefully someone can enlighten me, or direct me to a good site that will. Thanks!

Every morning, I look at each patient's renal function and adjust the dose of renally cleared drugs or recommend another drug. I've found that most MDs don't know which drugs are cleared by the kidneys, except for renal docs.

I also look at lab cultures and "streamline" antibiotics to something that actually covers the bug.

We find patients that are allergic to penicillin with an order for amoxicillin, morphine allergy with hydromorphone, etc. We need to catch those quickly. The MD writes it in the chart, a nurse sends it to pharmacy. Technically, they aren't allowed to pull the med until the order has been processed by pharmacy and shows up on the computer. But, they can override the medication machine. So, we have to phone the nurse and make sure that the patient doesn't get a dose of the drug.

A patient is on theophylline. An MD writes for cipro for broad spectrum coverage, but doesn't order theophylline labs because he doesn't know that cipro will increase serum theophylline levels.

We use a lot of gentamicin and vancomycin. I have to calculate patient specific kinetics, determine new half-lives and redose the meds.

We spend a lot of time on the floor writing the above items in charts. Most MDs write "pharmacy to dose" on their narrow therapeutic drug orders, so they don't have to deal with all that we do.

There's more, but that gives you a general idea of things that happen every day.

 

[FamilyMD]

A patient is on theophylline. An MD writes for cipro for broad spectrum coverage, but doesn't order theophylline labs because he doesn't know that cipro will increase serum theophylline levels.

We use a lot of gentamicin and vancomycin. I have to calculate patient specific kinetics, determine new half-lives and redose the meds.

We spend a lot of time on the floor writing the above items in charts. Most MDs write "pharmacy to dose" on their narrow therapeutic drug orders, so they don't have to deal with all that we do.

There's more, but that gives you a general idea of things that happen every day.

Wow, people still use theophylinne???(shivers) I remember as a resident (bout 8 yrs ago) we had to order gent/vanc peaks and troughs and figure out the doses on our own. Nowadays, as you stated, the residents AND attendings just leave it to pharm to figure out...I guess it does save us time, but a part of me feel like certain skills should still be taught.

 

[crying moo]

I had a young adult patient whose primary care MD retired. She had a long history of asthma controlled by theophylline. The new MD would not continue theophylline because he didn't want to deal with/was scared of the drug, so she got changed to Advair + albuterol. Asthma was not controlled and he eventually put her back on theophylline per pt request. So I wonder if the new MD really knows how to manage theophylline. I hope he reads up about it.

I've had primary care MD's refuse to take their patient back after being in the hospital and started on warfarin- Didn't want to bother with monitoring/liability. So you turf them to the pharmacist Coumadin clinic.