Personal Narrative: My Third Introductory Pharmacy Practice Experience

As future pharmacists, we are going to face with not only the medications but also the patients, which the former ones are our tools while the latter ones are the people we use correct tools to care about. We are required to combine our pharmacy knowledge among medications with patients’ different health conditions to create the patient-centered care and provide the best outcomes. However, this care trend is in transition now, from professional-orientated to patient-centered.

As a clinician in a hospital, the pharmacist becomes a member of a professional healthcare team. In their clinical practice, pharmacists are directly involved in ensuring optimal medical therapy for patients by devising therapeutic regimens specific to individual patients. They also staff the Drug Information and Poison Centers whose task is to provide information to other healthcare professionals to assist with therapeutic decision making (uq, 2012).

During the two and a half years of my pharmacy journey, I have been thinking what can a pharmacist do within the healthcare interprofessional team to better help the patients in order to achieve the best health outcome. I work in a clinic as well as inpatient pharmacy, additionally, I had my rotations at CVS and Regions Hospital. all these experiences shape my version of the pharmacists at different settings. Therefore, in various pharmacy settings, pharmacists can work differently with the whole healthcare team. The recent PED-Rx events inspired me how important pharmacists can play roles in when working in a team.

I had my first IPPE rotation at Harvard Family Pharmacy in Tulsa area during June 2015. This pharmacy is considered a retail pharmacy, but it is inside a full clinic so they’re mainly getting prescriptions from the physicians within the clinic. Because it is a small pharmacy, most of the patients here are regular patients and the pharmacist always try to counsel and talk to every patient who come in.

I have spent my time as a student pharmacist learning about opportunities within clinical pharmacy and making certain that I was equipped with the knowledge and skills necessary to succeed. In my pursuit, I became an active member of pharmaceutical organizations, held multiple leadership positions, attended clinical conferences, established research projects, participated in community service events, and other initiatives. I excelled academically, which was manifested in not just a high academic standard but also in tutoring fellow classmates and arranging sessions with other pharmacy students to help them improve time management and study skills. I shadowed pharmacists and residents before my advanced pharmacy practice experiences commenced to discover which areas of clinical pharmacy I found intriguing. I have obtained valuable pharmacy practice experiences in five specialties thus far including inpatient internal medicine, long term acute care, geriatrics and telehealth, and primary care. Through these rotations, I built upon the knowledge I acquired from my didactic courses but also developed patient-centered approaches and strengthened my clinical skills. I enjoyed many aspects of my rotations, including contributing pharmacotherapy recommendations, providing patient education, attending rounds and interdisciplinary team meetings – all of which have solidified my desire

This summer I was able to do my IPPE hours at Kroger Pharmacy in Findlay, OH with Dr. Alison Mosler. This was my first experience working in a pharmacy, so I was very excited to learn everything I could about community pharmacy. From shadowing a pharmacist in my first semester, I gained a basic understanding of the process of filling a prescription. Through this experience, I was able to shadow at each work station and work hands-on at production and some at drop-off. Furthermore, I participated in activities like taking a phone-in prescription, testing my blood glucose levels, and transferring a prescription.

Pew, Stephen, Ph.D (2008). Introduction to Health Services. 7th Ed. [Video] Thomson Delmar Learning. Retrieved from:

One of the most important responsibilities of a pharmacist—whether in a hospital or community setting—is to help people. I was able to observe this critical factor portrayed by my clinical instructors at both St. Francis and at Walgreens. All the pharmacists I worked with during those two weeks displayed a genuine desire to improve their patients’ quality of life by ensuring no drug-drug interactions were present and asking questions about medication histories. I felt humbled and gratified being able to contribute in a minor way when providing

Pharmacists usually see people regularly, and may see them more fre¬quently than their physician. This rap¬port allows pharmacists to ask question about self-care and home life. A phar¬macist often has time to ask about side effects in a casual setting when an indi¬vidual picks up their medication. With access to an individual’s full medication list, the pharmacist checks for drug in-teractions when a medication is added. The availability of a pharmacist allows people to check-in with their concerns, and as member of the health care com¬munity, a pharmacist can direct people to other needed community resources. Preventing polypharmacy is better than treating it because stopping a medica¬tion can be difficult. Pharmacists have a key role in this prevention. Patients and caregivers can play an active role by discussing a patient’s medication profile with their physician periodically. This allows that doctor and patient verify all the medications are still

The pharmacist’s role is vital in Sue’s care and she has established that they help her manage her condition (Shawn McFarland et al., 2014). For instance she picks up her prescription from the pharmacy, and discovered that she had a new medication that the doctor prescribed. She asked the pharmacist if he could explain the medication to her. He gave her an easy to read pamphlet of her medication.

I had the pleasure of completing my 80 hours of institutional IPPEs at Hardin Memorial Hospital in Kenton, Ohio over winter break. My preceptor was Dr. George Wuo, who is the Site Manager of Pharmacy Services at the hospital. Hardin Memorial Hospital is a critical access hospital that is affiliated with OhioHealth. During my time at Hardin Memorial Hospital, I experienced the opportunity to apply classroom knowledge in an institutional setting, observe several healthcare professionals’ roles throughout the hospital, and compare my IPPE experience at a smaller institution to my internship at a larger hospital. My experiences at Hardin Memorial Hospital were positive and provided me with further insight and knowledge about my future

As we discussed over the phone, my service with Reliable Pharmacy was unpaid time, which I volunteered to do because I have an interest in becoming a pharmacist sometime in the future. Also, I have it as a Technician Intern on my resume. I have usually been visiting this Pharmacy once a Month to gain some knowledge.

Importantly, we were required to do our service activities at Walgreen pharmacies in groups of 2. Given each student utilizes unique communication method to approach patients, working as team during our service activities at Walgreens pharmacies provided us a great opportunity to learn from each other. Furthermore, OTC labs and community service activities at Walgreens pharmacies provided us an exceptional opportunity to understand the professional functions of the pharmacist in community settings and begin to develop critical thinking skills for providing pharmaceutical care in community practice. Also, It helped us demonstrate the characteristics of a professional in practice-related activities. It was also a great opportunities to lean how to use community resources to provide essential services. Moreover, community service activities at the Walgreens pharmacies allowed us to apply what we have learned during OTC course, for example, medication/disease counseling, optimization of medication use, issues related to nutrient-medication

This semester has been a tough one but I feel like I have learned a lot about pharmacy over these past few months. I have had a lot of courses so far and in each one, I have been able to make connections to the practice of pharmacy. In this essay, I will reflect on some of things I learned in my courses and how they relate to my future career as a pharmacist. I will also identify areas where certain topics intersect in different courses.

Upon graduation, I obtained a job in a retail pharmacy as a certified pharmacy technician in order to better expand my knowledge of this specific field of medicine. For the first time, I was given the opportunity to