XCVI : Quality

I want to have a job knowing that I'm doing it for others and benefiting from their happiness. I don't want to work just because it supports my life, and I especially don't want to go to work to just work routinely. I want quality in my future. I watched the first season of Code Blue (Japanese drama again), and it touched upon many themes that make working in a hospital difficult. How do you deal with emergency care patients? What happens when you must face the death of a patient? One that stuck out was physicians should know patients not by what they have (for instance, the guy with the seizures, the woman who needs brain surgery), but by their names. It's important for anyone working in a hospital, and hopefully everywhere else, to do that.

“Ask not what disease the person has, but rather what person the disease has.” –William Osler

I might turn out to be a workaholic...

XCV : Clinics

I went to a clinic for the very first time to help out (and see what the pharmacist does there). Apparently, the clinic was started by a physician, but she left in the past year and it was taken over by a pharmacist (recent grad too!) somewhat. She kind of just manages the educational and clinical opportunities for the patients. Today, she gave a talk on diabetes, hypertension, and cholesterol, and afterward, us student pharmacists were able to talk to the people who showed up for the talk. They were mostly diabetics and had some time managing their medication, so it was the first time I really talked to a patient about their specific medications. It was awesome. They were intrigued by the information that was presented (quite unlike some students who find going to lecture super laborious) and had many questions afterward. I was able to talk to three people and even applied a bit of what little information I had learned in class or at a health fair. Now, I hope that I can pull out more information from people to get a stronger idea of what could be causing their discomfort or inconsistent control over their disease states. I'll let the knowledge come to me little by little (uhh, though I know it really gets overwhelmingly thrown at you during 3rd year). First year will be to work on my interpersonal skills.

On a side note, I like clinics. I like the idea of providing a learning and medication-al experience to people who are really interested and focused on their own health. Without cost to them, except for maybe the few minutes or hours they have to put in to come to a clinic. I like seeing people taking care of their health and finding ways to improve and maintain it. Thus, I want to be able to provide those services to the people who are interested. I like the idea of a health care team taking care of a patient, monitoring a patient's medication and health, following up on the patient, basically revolving their work around the patient's health. It's all about the patient in health care.

XCIV : Coincidences

I went to a Pharmacy Conference called Outlook 2011 for CPhA. There was this one talk about "new drugs of 2010," but I didn't go to it because I didn't feel comfortable walking into the room in the middle of the talk (but apparently it's ok to walk in or leave during the talk). So, when my friends came out of the room, I read their notes. I skimmed the names and a bit of their indications, but that was it. Later in the day, there was a quiz bowl for just the pharmacy students there (there were 8 pharmacy schools that attended: USC, UOP, UCSF, UCSD, Loma Linda, Northstate, Western, Touro). One of the questions was about Pradaxa, which is a new drug that is supposed to replace coumadin for the treatment of stroke and other blood clotting diseases. I thought, "whoa! Cool! I recognize that from the list that my friend had written from the talk earlier today!" I like that feeling.

Then, just a moment ago, I read Sus' post about absinthe and how the wine has become Pernod, and then decided to start this new j-dorama called "Bartender." In one of the scenes of the first episode, the main character holds a wine bottle with the words PERNOD Paris, and immediately I go "whoa, I recognize that!" Something I had no idea about before just popped up twice in the span of 20 or so minutes! So amazing!

Anyway, I hope to log about the conference tomorrow. It was my first pharmacy conference, and it was quite an experience. Quite tired now.