Health screening

Today is the slackest day so far in my preceptorship training. Despite the health screening, not many people turned up (as expected) and we spent most of our time lounging around the booth, chatting with each other. It's quite good actually, because the post-pre-reg pharmacist has so much tips to share with us. And the best thing is, her views are still untainted. So I get to hear all the good and bad about certain things. I just love to listen to the more experienced pharmacist tell their stories. They serve to strengthen the interest I have in the profession.

There wasn't much "interesting" cases. Just a few outliers with slightly higher than normal BMI (body mass index), BP (blood pressure) and BG (blood glucose) readings. At least I learnt how to take down medical history (not a tough job, really) and observe how the post-pre-reg do the blood glucose testing. There really wasn't much fanciful or high difficulty level stuff. It's just a screening to raise awareness of the various services provided by the pharmacist.

I also joined in the screening (it was free) and found that I'm underweight and I have actually lost 2kg. Right now I am 43.9kg. *sob* And I'm still around 156 to 157cm. Shortie me.

I think that's all I have to write about today.

Yikes

I have decided to forget about yesterday. Thinking about it again just makes me really angry. Pfft.

Anyway. My days are getting quite mundane. My preceptor has been missing from work again cos he was down with flu. And he will not be around for most of next week as he will be busy with pre-reg pharmacists. Sigh. I feel so neglected. And the amount of knowledge (pertaining to pharmacy) is very little compared to my peers. Sigh. I wanna learn a lot a lot! I don't mind getting drilled or tortured...but I'd feel very cheated if I didn't manage to learn as much as I want to. Of course, there's many opportunities where I could create a lesson for myself to learn...but I need some guidance.

So what did I do today...I am starting to gain more confidence in helping the customers out at the store. No longer do I hide behind the pharmacy counter and cower in fear when people ask me questions. In fact, I do enjoy going "out there" to help them make decisions. It's nice to talk to uncles and aunties asking for your opinion. Today I counselled a lady on the supplement to take for eyes. And another on fish oil and povidone iodine. And there's another lady on evening primrose oil. Some people are very understanding when I'm at the pharmacy counter. Since pharmacy-only medicines still need a certain level of counselling, I usually hesitate or pretend to look around for the medicine before finally summoning the pharmacist to counsel the patient (this happens most of the time when she is occupied with another patient). And because I am not a licensed pharmacist, I am actually not allowed to dispense those medicines. But it's really OK. Cos most of the time I don't even know the right questions to ask anyway. :P

Managed to get to know most of the pharmacy assistants better today. Learnt how to use the cash register and helped the cashier a little. I get very happy when I get to learn new things. Heh. Oh. Now I know what a mosquito forcep is. :) And it has very little to do with the little pest.

Looks like I have to take the initiative to learn and get some work done. I just feel a little resentful that my preceptor is paying quite minimal attention to me. I'm not sure whether it is because he felt that I am independent enough, or whether he thinks I cannot make it already. Sigh. How lah...I want to make this 6 weeks count! And today marks the end of the second week already! Sort of. There's still health screening tomorrow. We are not really expecting an exceptional turnout, but it will definitely help in my learning.

So, I guess it's back to my books for the moment. :)

ANGRY

The day started off pretty well. Then I received a call to go to Gleneagles to collect some medications. All I have to say about that place is, it's very busy. And the pharmacist there? She has some serious hearing problems.

One thing I really hate is people pretending not to see/hear me. Even though I can be standing right in front of them or speaking very loudly. I just want to throttle these people.

I'm very pissed right now and I don't want to blog too much about my day. I'll talk about it tomorrow.

Training sessions

Today's slightly peculiar as I don't have to make my way down to the store. All I had to do was to go to a training centre and listen to a few talks organised by some vendors.

Personally, I think the talks are quite interesting. But I got bored very quickly as it felt like a verylong advertisement. The fun part was when they whipped out many products and allowed us to try. There were some whitening "scrub", some bust-firming mask, whitening serum and so on. There's even a peculiar type of tea we got to try. It is supposed to block out the glucose receptors on the tongue as well as in the intestines. That way, we don't taste the glucose/sugar (hence honey will be a tasteless goo) and they don't get absorbed into the body. The whole purpose of this tea is to help lower blood sugar levels. Primarily to complement a diabetic, but it could also help an individual with high blood sugar level. Of course, the desirable side effect would be a loss of weight (of course lah, how to have appetite when everything becomes tasteless after the drink!). All of us tried the tea and true enough, taking the sugar afterwards felt like eating sand. It was TASTELESS. Ugh. Not something I want to torture myself with though. Anyway, I personally think this product is a little dubious. Maybe it's alright to take it for better health, but it cannot substitue medications.

After the talk, my classmate and I went to Toa Payoh to attend some training for a health screening this Saturday. Learnt how to use the blood pressure meter (a very simple device) and some administrative stuff. I'm looking forward to this Saturday. I'm only hoping that the response would be good. :)

Made my way back to the pharmacy even though there's only 40 minutes more till 9pm. I guess I should at least show my face to my preceptor. Heh. he was in a bad mood yesterday (I think) or maybe because I was in a bad mood too. I dunno lah.

Anyway, I need to go complete some assignment now. Goodnight.

Second week already!

By golly. It's already the second week and the amount of knowledge acquired is still pretty rudimentary. Sigh. I don't expect myself to know as much as my preceptors, but at least I should know about medications for very minor ailments.

And, today is the first time I worked in the later shift. I.e., from 12.30pm to 9pm. Time passes by really slowly in the afternoon. But as the evening moves on, 9pm seem to arrive pretty quickly. Not complaining about it though. I just need to adjust my meal times properly. Missed my lunch today and only had meagre sandwiches for dinner. And I just had to tahan the hunger cos of this stupid pride of mine. Never look weak! Heh.

Well, I was "scolded" today for picking things off the the "Pharmacy Only Medicine" shelf and handing them to customers. I admit I shouldn't be doing stuff like this cos it would give people the wrong impression. Plus, without proper counselling, I may cause potential harm to the patients. Then I was "scolded" again for staying far away while my preceptor counselled patients. When I told him that I felt useless, he said that it's OK for me to just stand around and observe and to learn. That's the reason why I'm there in the first place - to learn.

Observed a blood glucose test today. Not my first time though, but it's interesting to see my preceptor do it in a real setting. Come this Saturday, I'll probably be doing the same thing as well. *grin*

What else...managed to help an old uncle to select some health supplements for his aching knee. And also recommended a painkiller to go with it.

And trivia of the day: Vitamin B can repel mosquitoes!? Haha. Some customer told me that today. Probably not very true lah huh. :P Need to go read up about it.

Also helped a German pick out stuff for his own first aid kit at home. :) And recommended a product to help with someone's athlete's foot with confidence.

Oh, and the weekend assignment I did? Preceptor was just pleased. Not sure what he thinks about it really. He didn't tell me that he's impressed anymore (of course lah, or else my head will be bigger). But one thing I could tell is, he's not torturing me. I don't feel that his drilling is as bad as my seniors made out to be. Maybe it is true that he has toned down a lot. Lucky for me? I don't know.

Well, tomorrow I'll be off for some vendor training, learning about several products and hopefully be more confident in helping the customers. Thereafter, I'll have to make my way to Toa Payoh to learn how to use blood glucometer as well as blood pressure meters. Yay.

I think it's time to look at my new assignments now. Good night.

Weekend is here~

I think I am getting a little sluggish in updating this blog. Partly because I'm usually so brain dead that I lost all the wittiness that I, uhm, usually have. Heh. Well, I'll try my best. Anyway this blog is really meant more for myself in future when I could look back and reminisce about my preceptorship days.

Well, my preceptor has to attend a campaign talk this morning and because of that, I get to go to work half an hour late. Even then, I missed the oh-so-slow 200 bus and ended up being almost 10 minutes later. But it was OK. Started off my morning with the usual walk around the store, doing a little housekeeping and replenishing the stocks on the shelf. Just something I do every morning to warm myself up for the day. My preeptor then asked me how's my presentation coming along and asked whether it is OK if I were to present it at 12.30pm. I said yeah, OK. Anything is OK with me really.

Then the usual busyness of the day began. Customers streaming in to get their prescriptions filled. Some will come to enquire about the products we carry and some would want us to compare between two similar products. And there's quite a bit of showing the customers around so that they could get what they want. Talked a little with my preceptor and asked him whether the schedule I have in mind for my own learning is OK with him. Looks like I'll have to think it through the weekend and come out with a manageable schedule and workload for me to work on. Hope I won't kill myself with too much work.

Made 2 trips down to other outlets today to collect medicines. Met my classmates and got a chance to see how different their working condition is like. I think I have landed myself in quite a relaxed workplace. Firstly, there's not many customers in the day and I have a great preceptor. Because of those two reasons, I have more contact time and I get to learn more stuff from him.

One thing I learn about myself lately is that I have some trouble communicating effectively. I need to learn to be concise and answer questions as they are asked. Also, there's really a need to quicken my thinking pace as well as my mental organisation skills. I hope I'll be able to improve in this aspect by the end of this programme.

In the afternoon, my preceptor had to leave for antoher meeting again. So a locum pharmacist came in. He took over the role of my preceptor and just went on talking and talking and talking and talking. Just feel that he talks too much and seems to be a little biased in his views.

Left later than usual today cos I was keeping myself busy with a few things like answering calls and locating certain drugs. Also, finally I got the opportunity to help the pharmacist dispense! Haha.

Oh yes, my presentation went pretty smoothly. My preceptor did not comment much on it except to ask ten million questions on it. I am actually quite happy being able to answer some of them. And some others, they are really thought-provoking. That's his style of making us understand why we do certain things and prevent us from blindly following the rules without questioning. A little bit like Pereira I must say...

A little bit about my preceptor. He graduated from Canada and because of that, he speaks with an American accent and sometimes I have trouble understanding him. And today, he had to articulate this question in a slow and choppy manner, "Why-do-S3-poisons-need prescriptions?" Haha. It was so funny. But really, I have trouble understanding what other people say sometimes, especially those Indon maids and some ang mohs from Germany or France. Btw, did I mention that I simply luuuuuuurve the Brit accent? Hurhurhur. Oh yes, my preceptor. He's well-known to be very strict and tough towards his students and pre-reggers (that's what we call a pre-registration pharmacist). In fact, some of my seniors cried cos they really couldn't take his questionings and teaching/guiding style. I just hope I will remain strong. In fact, I like him very much! :) I simply admire his professional conduct. And this is a good start - to have a positive influence.

More things to learn!

I have a presentation tomorrow and I don't feel like blogging much about today. Hmm. Shall be very brief then.

Things I learnt/did today:
1. Algorithm for a sales transaction (modified for pharmacist's use)
2. Phone skills
3. Store revamping
4. Witnessing a nasty customer complaining about pharmacists "having other more important things to do than dispensing". (Like, DUH.)
5. Played with a little boy of about 2 or 3 years of age. Very smart kid there!

I think that's about all. Not a lot of things, but definitely more than what I learnt over the past two days. And the best thing of all...my preceptor was actually impressed with me! Haha! The famous pharmacist being impressed with me. Haha. I just hope this doesn't make my head grow too big and start going downhill from here. This should spur me on to be more hardworking.

And oh, I should spend this weekend planning about the things I want to learn next week. Yes, unlike other preceptors, mine leaves the learning entirely up to me. Very much like the Canadian-type of education he received. And I am very grateful for this new way of learning. I think I'm a little too eager. Heh. I just hope I manage to cover as many things as I should be knowing. :)

I'm enjoying myself thoroughly in the programme. I just want it to get better from here.

Frustrated

Edit: Don't know why I couldn't access Blogger yesterday. But well, I was good and I typed this post on Word before posting it up here today. Pardon for the delay.

Now I understand why my senior told me that this preceptorship is going to be anything but easy. Sigh.

Decided to stay on a bit later than usual today hoping that I could pick up a few more things as well as to make up for the few hours that I’ve missed. When I was on the way back, I really couldn’t think of anything else except the assignment I have to complete by tomorrow evening and my general state of tiredness. I wonder how my mom managed to do all the work and still go home to clean the house and take care of us. And to think that there’s still my dad to look after…

And as I finished my dinner and a quick shower, I quickly settled down to do work. I’m just so tired. My mind is working so slowly and I don’t know how to make it move. Why do I get tired so easily? I hope it’s just the inertia thing and eventually I’ll be able to take it as the weeks pass.

I’m very frustrated today because I did not get to learn much. The stuff I did today is similar to the things I have done two years back in Blush!. Doing stock check is something I detest veryvery much. Not only it takes up a lot of time, I have to give so much attention to such a mindless job. Urgh. And the lady pharmacist wasn’t being very nice today. I guess because it’s stock check day and making sure the inventory is in order is far more important than educating us. I tried to learn on my own, but they were so busy that I have no choice but to be “part of the team” and join in the counting. Sigh. I’m really very frustrated. I did a few mistakes (though not major ones), which kind of exposed my thoughtlessness. Things that people would consider them as trivial but it’s a big no-no when it comes to professionalism in pharmacy. I’m also frustrated because I felt that I could do more and I’m not progressing much. I want to learn more and ask more questions and so on, but I feel hampered. Partly because my stern preceptor was on leave for 2 days and I’m stuck with my classmate’s preceptor who seems to be quite partial towards me. I am not learning as much as I should be and I feel slighted! And worse is, when patients actually approach me for questions about medications or health supplements, I had to direct them to the pharmacist because I am not supposed to give them any advice yet. I know I’m being very impatient, but I wanna learn! I mean, they could at least trust me with very simple stuff like recommending things to treat pain, fever, diarrhoea, cold and flu. I feel so useless around the pharmacy. I don’t know about the products as much as the pharmacy assistants do, and yet I’m not in a position to act as a pharmacist-in-training.

As I said, I didn’t learn much today and I’m quite disappointed that my preceptor did not turn up and terrorise me. Hope things will be much better tomorrow.

Think I’ll turn in early tonight. My eyes are hurting like mad and my legs ache and I’m in an annoyed mood. Bah. And oh, I’ve done 3/4 of the assignment. Just a little bit more to go.

Hrhmm

Right. Another day. Quite an eventful day, and learning progress is still quite comfortable. :) I went to work at 8am and as I got onto the bus, I wriggled my toes and suddenly felt that it's pretty cool down there. Looked down and realised that the sole has split from the top part of the shoe. Great. Now that the time is 8.40am, there is no way I could rush back and change into another pair of shoes. So I just walked slowly and hope that the "open-mouthed" shoe will not be too conspicuous.

So it was pretty uneventful opening of the store. There wasn't much customers and I just trailed after the pharmacy assistants, trying to make myself helpful. Yet, at the same time, I was feeling very self-conscious (because of the damned shoe). And just as I started to stroll around the store, the other shoe decided to "open" its "mouth" too. AH. DAMN. Now both my shoes are open! Sheesh. Time check: 9.15am. Briliant. And I have 4 hours to go before I can leave.

Oh dear. Before I get too carried away talking about silly things, I better get back to what this blog is all about.

Well, so I shuffled around the store, hoping very hard that nobody notices my shoes and tried to be helpful. My preceptor wasn't around today so I was stuck with the lady pharmacist. I did not learn much from her except to get orders and act on them. Maybe it's because she's busy so she can't really guide me in the learning.

There's some notable stuff I learnt today. The first thing she asked me to do today was to make a few phonecalls to other pharmacies and ask for certain medicines. Then, I had to help the pharmacy assistants to lay out stocks. Thereafter, more phonecalls to ask for more medicines. And a phonecall to a manufacturer to ask for details of some shampoo to treat receding hairlines and thinning hair. Some labeling jobs and of course, more observations on the patient counseling part.

There was this elderly man who came into the shop, wanting to fill his prescription. He asked for more tablets so that he doesn't have to travel so many times to the pharmacy. But the pharmacist did not allow that as according to the law, it is unlawful to dispense more than what is prescribed. So there, something noteworthy about the law and pharmacy. And the man just walked off, quite disappointed (I feel) about the situation. I guess there are times we have to let people down so that we don't risk their lives in any way.

And there was this man, possibly in his fifties, came to the pharmacy to have his wife's prescription filled. The handwriting on the prescription was illegible (normal eh) resulting in the pharmacist having to call the doctor just to make sure. Even though the pharmacist was sure of the usual combination of the prescribed drugs, she still called up the doctor to check. The very high standard of responsibility and professionalism makes me very proud to be in this profession. At least we have not heard of any lawsuits against pharmacists yet (better not hear of any).

Later in the afternoon, all the students gathered in a large Guardian store and we had a talk on merchandising. It was really fun and interesting! So many things we learnt about merchandising. The "golden cross rule", big vs small, visibility, space, vertical and horizontal display, storylines and so on. Interesting. I think I have learnt quite a bit today!

First Day of Work

Only one word to describe it...TIRING.

The day began with the lightning streaking the sky and pitterpatter of raindrops hitting my windowpane. It was a perfect morning to sleep in. But of course, I was too nervous and I woke up almost 1 hour before my alarm went off. After the daily ritual of preening and grooming, I left for the headquarters.

They spent about 2 hours giving us lectures about the company and then a little tour around their office. It kind of dawned upon me that this is an early recruitment process! Already we are mingling with the top people in the management and getting ourselves acquainted with the who's who in the field. No wonder my lecturer kept saying that everyone will end up knowing everyone else. Nothing really interesting here, except that some of my classmates seemed to have transformed and looked so much more prefessional.

After lunch, a classmate and myself went down to the pharmacy and got ourselves acquainted with my pharmacist. We didn't really do much except to spend the next 3 hours getting to know the store layout as well as the products lined on the shelf. My first "test" came not-so-subtly, with my preceptor handing me a bottle of deodorant and paracetamol syrup. And I went up and down the aisle looking for the correct shelf despite having a rough idea of where the product should be located. I think I just passed this test quite mediocrely. This preceptor of mine have this innate ability to make you feel like a fool most of the time. But it's good training I reckon.

The place I work in has like almost 80% expatriates. And with my preceptor speaking with an American accent, I felt like I'm transported to US once again. Muahaha.

Well, the things I learnt today include:
1. Knowing how the products are shelved according to their categories.
2. How a pharmacist counsels a patient while dispensing.
3. How to ask pertinent and relevent (and not silly!) questions.
4. The hours of first shift and second shift.
5. Watching and observing patients with their prescriptions go to my pharmacist. Some of them are very knowledgable! So never underestimate patients! :)

And one last thing, I should remember to bring water bottle to work and try not to wear heels. My legs are aching like mad cos of the excessive standing. I need a portable chair too.

First Post!

Well well. Hello there!

This is the first post for this very special blog. I will be posting regularly (I hope) when I begin my preceptorship on Monday, May 16. This blog will probably be a record of my thoughts, views and experience during the 6 weeks of preceptorship. Hopefully this will be a useful tool for my own reference in future.

But before I proceed, I need to put in a disclaimer. Any names of patients/customers mentioned in this blog is purely fictional as their confidentiality is my professional responsibility. Also, the drugs and advice recommended to the patients/customers are only suitable for them. Thus, if you are seeking medical advice, please visit a suitable healthcare professional. Let me stress again, this is just a blog of a pharmacy student, recording her journey through this rite of passage into the profession.

Hope you would enjoy reading this as I would enjoy posting. :)