Ok so I know it's been a while , but I have finally got some time to blog as my second semester has begun , I thought that this would be a great opportunity to write. (one of my new year resolutions is to blog more often when I can)
I get so many different ideas during each week about what I could blog about , whether it be Pharmacy related or not , but there always seems to be something else which requires my attention urgently , and so I store these ideas in a place deep in my mind and forget about them until I come across other people's blogs and think; " wow I really should start writing something soon !"
So here it is .. this time its a mix of both Pharmacy and non Pharmacy , enjoy ...
A few days before Christmas I had the privilege of spending a couple of days in a busy Pharmacy hospital department .
I managed to secure this placement after applying last summer . I can say that it was definitely an eye opening experience; learnt so much about not only the role of a Pharmacist but also the role of a Pharmacy team in hospital .
The first part of my first day began with me shadowing a Pre-reg Pharmacist in the dispensary , I couldn't help but feel like I was in the way , like an annoying shadow following him. However he was very considerate and helpful , he showed me the process of preparing a prescription ; from picking up the script , to forming the label , dispensing and then eventually checking . The dispensary ran like clockwork , with each person knowing their role but all having a common goal .
The smooth running of the dispensary I found was all down to organisation, this not only made it easier to mange everything for the staff in the dispensary but also for the staff and patients on the wards.
Later that morning I went on my first ward round , with a Pharmacist on the neonatal unit , I saw tiny babies who were on multiple medicines who would be in hospital for a while , some had previously been in hospital for ten weeks. I found it strange that many of the babies were given caffeine , I was told that this would stimulate the lungs to work and so allow them to breath.
I was allowed to look at various medicines charts whilst I was on ward rounds with various Pharmacists. The ward round on the cardiac ward was interesting because there was only one Pharmacist for the whole cardiovascular unit which meant that he wasn't short of queries from staff on the ward , this hilighted to me again the importance of a Pharmacist in a clinical setting.
He explained to me in an easy and understandable way how stents work , gaining a quick insight into cardiovascular Pharmacy was great because I'm now studying a cardiovascular module, and the small amount of information I was given by the Cardiothoracic Pharmacist helped me quite a bit during a couple of lectures last week.
When on both the Infections and the neurology wards I came across many elderly patients , many of which were on medicines for Parkinson's disease and in the neurology ward epilepsy too. After doing a module on the Nervous System I have come across these illnesses/ disorders however it was made clear to me by the Pharmacist that treatment for Epilepsy and Parkinson's varies so much from patient to patient.
I am now looking forward to learning more about this side of Pharmacy which I knew so little about when starting the course , seeing how all the hard work of training to be a Pharmacist is put into practice motivates me so much .Exciting times!
