One week of school as a P2: Tradeoffs

One WORD: BUSY. In a good way. If you haven't heard, P2's rule the school simply because the P3's had their reign and are now occupied with Therapeutics (rumored to be the hardest class you've taken in you entire pharmacy career and perhaps the most useful). So the inaugurated P2's (that would include me) pick up the slack. Some people take small roles here and there while the ambitious ones take on two to three positions. It seems that in our class, we have a lot of the latter.

I've finally found the time to sit down and write for once. I can't remember the last time I wrote. At the beginning of summer, I made two goals for myself 1) to become a proficient writer and 2) to learn Chinese so I can start exploring Traditional Chinese Medicine(TCM). So here I am, at the end of summer with some knowledge TCM philosophy ( I had to return the TCM book I borrowed from the library) and not much of an improvement in my writing. Though I did come out with a new found interest in clinical pharmacy. I guess there are always tradeoffs in life. The funny thing is that I started pharmacy school with a strong interest in community pharmacy. I hated hospitals because of all the tragic memories I had there growing up and told myself that I had no desire to pursue a residency (which is an additional year of clinical rotations after 4 years of pharmacy school). The intern position at Alta Bates Hospital opened my eyes to the possibilities a PharmD that the public doesn't see- the clinical side, which includes monitoring drug levels in critically ill patients, ensuring that diabetic patients are within their glucose range, checking for drug interactions, catching potential side effects of prolonged antibiotic use, writing TPN orders for patients who cannot take in food orally. I found myself thinking back to my Pharmockinetics class during first year and actually using some of the knowledge I gathered during my first year of pharmacy school.

The Critical Care pharmacist at Alta Bates really carved my presence there at the hospital. Normally pharmacy interns would be trained at Pharmacy techs and never work closely with the pharmacists, but the critical care pharmacist ensured that i gained as much experience and insight. I guess you can say I was fortunate to find an opportunity to learn so much. But the commute was atrocious- 45 minutes to the eastbay and 1 1/2 back to the city.

With such a busy schedule, I haven't found much time to sit down and study. But it's okay, I have about 2 more weeks until our first exam. =)