Tips on how to be a great preceptor

[nafcillin]

discuss

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[rx2010]

We should break it down into clinical and retail preceptors to make it easier to discuss.

Retail:
- Don't make your students fill all day.
- Let your students shadow you while you're verifying or doing paper work.
- Let them watch you counsel patients on meds and then make them counsel
when they feel comfortable, but listen to them while they counsel.
- Allow them to do other things besides fill such as work the window, type, phone the doctors, etc.
- Send them out on the floor to familiarize themselves with the different OTC products and pay attention to the active ingredients in the various products since many products have the same name, but different active ingredients.
- Teach your students important counseling tips about various OTC and prescription medications
- Quiz them to see if they remembered the information you taught them

 

[rx2010]

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[rx2010]

..

 

[Sparda29]

Another one for retail.

- Don't use your students for manual work (moving boxes from delivery to the basement, cleaning sidewalk,)
- Allow your students to access medication profiles and give them projects based on these profiles.

 

[Old Timer]

I am speaking now about being a preceptor for rotation students.
I have done this for a long time.

• Expose your students to every facet of your operation from the lowest to the highest.
• Allow them to observe what you do, especially patient interactions.
• Prepare them to be set loose at the appropriate time.
• Be aware of their requirements for school. If they have a certain number of interventions, be aware of them.
• Be flexible about time.

If you are speaking about a student in your store/institution. Train them so that when they walk out the door, they know everything about your operation. Demand excellence. This is their career. If they don't aim high now, when will they?

 

[johnconner]

Teach them how to use the computer system and how to do various things, not just how to print ahead and be a filling machine x 8 hours.

Don't pass the student to the tech who doesn't want to teach the student anything besides how to print ahead and be a filling machine x 8 hours.


For hospital setting, the best rotation I ever had was with a preceptor (ICU clinical pharmacist) that would actually talk to me, teach me, and quiz me the whole time I was there, along with showing me what his job responsibilities were. He was one of the smartest pharmacist I have ever met. I watched a code BLUE and he was the one calling the shots before the doctor arrived.

 

[WVUPharm2007]

The purpose of a rotation isn't to pad your ego.