Does anyone have experience in this area? Can you describe how your day is like and what things are needed to do this job well?
VA Behavioral Health Pharmacist
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Depends if it's in an inpatient or outpatient setting. If in an inpatient setting, you would do med rec, answer DI questions, perform discharge counseling, round, etc... like an internal med pharmacist, but focused on psych. Not sure what they do in the outpatient setting. If you are a provider with prescriptive authority, a PGY2 is generally needed in most "good" locations.
Thanks for the reply. It’s in a CBOC
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Can you elaborate on how it is bull?
I have had a rotation in mental health and it was great. The flow was that a psychiatrist or psychologist would do the “intake” appointments where a diagnosis is made. After that, they would be referred to a “medication provider” which could be either a psychiatrist or pharmacist (you) to independently manage them from that point.
We had full scope of practice to initiate, modify, change therapies etc and appointment slots were 1 hour to do a full interview. Most of the patients had PTSD (typically managed by psychologist/groups) along with the typical disease states like depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, occasional schizophrenia. Sometimes we handled a post-discharge clinic for patients who just ended their 5150 hold etc to ensure their medication needs were met.
The inpatient setting was as described above, but we often also taught group classes on medications.
Hours were very regular and the pace was slow sometimes, especially with many no-shows.
Other duties included population health things like monitoring lithium etc.
Interesting and much-needed area of practice!
Sure. First of all I certainly did not mean to denigrate or belittle what anyone does. Rather, what I was trying to point out was the federal government's need to create a pharmacy subspecialty that most other employers would simply title "pharmacist duties". Pharmacist in both the inpatient and retail sectors monitor levels, teach classes and provide dosing recommendations. I don't doubt the interesting nature of the subject but considering the slowness and no shows that you mention do you think such a position would be sponsored by an institution not affiliated with the federal (and maybe county) government?
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No problem, we should definitely learn about what our colleagues in various fields do and support each other.
Psychiatric clinical pharmacists do not only work in the Federal government and there are many in the specialty already:
Choosing a Career in Psychiatric Pharmacy
Psychiatric pharmacists work directly with patients and caregivers to apply specialized clinical knowledge and skills, educate and train healthcare professionals and develop new knowledge in order to improve health outcomes for those individuals with psychiatric disorders, including substance ...
What I described was an ambulatory care setting that goes beyond an inpatient/retail level of experience. It is one thing to counsel on SSRIs at pickup or adjust a lithium dose inpatient. We know from school/boards how to figure that out. It is another to perform a mental status exam, choose the drug therapy etc. and be familiar with the literature. Just like other pharmacy specialty areas.
It is known that psychiatric patients miss appointments more often. Other locations might be much busier. It does not mean we were not doing anything in between patients. We still saw patients most of the day. It just wasn't the pace of other ambulatory clinics I have been in (patient every 15-30 mins without gaps). Mental health has been a hot topic and this is one field of pharmacy that has been growing, including number of PGY-2 residencies and people getting the BCPP credential.
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